A Bright and Shiny Life

They make their way to a mausoleum about twice the size of the usual with spidery fine engraved symbols running up the columns and glowing silver beyond what one would expect from the moonlight. They open the door to make sure it's vacant of the living, then close it again and retreat a few steps where the two mages silently begin work.

They start by driving a nail into the ground with a string attached and another nail on the other end which they use as a compass to mark a circle in the soft ground just large enough for the tallest of them to lie in straight (likely precisely measured by that metric beforehand). Then they untie the string from the nail still in the ground and leave it there as they use athames to inscribe various symbols along the circle perimeter starting on the side opposite to the door. Right before they finish, they abruptly leave the circle unfinished, creating a gap of about 18 inches from which they start parallel lines leading towards the door but stopping halfway.

Having finished engraving they pause to examine their work. Satisfied, they nod to each other hesitantly before taking out flasks from which they carefully pour out what looks like quicksilver into each symbol one at a time. When finished they examine their work again – using a trowel to remove any spilt quicksilver from the array – then finally beckon the rest inside to start the ritual.

Once everyone is inside, both mages chant with arms outstretched to the ground, fingers splayed, palms down. They continue the ritual without apparent error for several minutes, swaying gradually to the building power with their eyes closed. As they build in tempo the symbols in the circle begin glowing faintly to match those on the mausoleum, then both intensify until reaching the glow of a few dozen candles.

Abruptly the chanting stops and Carlyle steps out of the circle through the gap and opens the door. Behind it is a distortion of the room from before. Proportions are wrong and colours faded – which is fairly normal for this sort of thing – but there's also a strange brightness and something else more difficult to put into words.

Carlyle enters then closes the door behind him. The rest follow suit one by one in complete silence and each time they open the door the room is empty of their companions who entered before them. Finally, Emily, left alone, removes the nail from the ground and follows after them, causing the glow of the symbols to snuff out completely as the door clicks shut.

Alone, I creep up and examine the ritual circle. It's an interesting combination of symbols, some of which are unfamiliar to me. Turning from the array I approach the door. I know what I'll find, but I open it anyways to reveal a completely normal mausoleum with my friends nowhere in sight.

An uneasiness fills my stomach. They could all die in there, and there'd be nothing I could do. I have grown somewhat fond of them, and it'd be annoying to lose so many contacts at once… I did see them do the ritual, and the chant was fairly simple and fresh in my mind. I could probably follow them in…

Except it'd be foolish. Even if I were a normal person, I doubt whatever protection Ligryn has would extend outside of their group. Moreover, despite both being considered dark gods, there seems to be some special enmity between Vanocaur and Anar.

It's odd, because the biblio (at least the follower version, I haven't studied the full account of other gods in the patriarch's copy) is rather sparse on details regarding Vanocaur and is one of the few gods which it recommends against sacrificing the contracted of. In fact, the only other deity with a similar recommendation is Tacyn, and neither have a clear explanation as to why.

My only hint comes from the one time I've seen Vanocaur followers. Gebal pointed a group out to me while got supplies in a small run down town. They seemed intense. Their expressions were like drawn daggers, ready to strike. They were constantly twitchy, attentive to the slightest sound. No one got close to them. I've seen people dying from an oath to the god of vengeance who seemed less frayed, but instead of being destroyed by the power it somehow sustained them.

So definitely not a domain I would enter lightly even if they were on good terms with Anar. With things as they are, mere curiosity and desire to help my friends is simply not enough to risk it.

With not much else to do I take out a piece of paper and begin copying the array out of curiosity, but stop midway as I hear the faint creaking of something metal opening then closing. I look around but don't see anything, nor hear any other indication of the living. I feel acutely aware of it being a full moon with minimal cloud coverage and the openness of the space I'm standing in.

Still, I am rather hard to spot in my darkened cloak, even if I weren't under my spell, so I continue transcribing but with an eye turned to where I heard the sound. I'm nearly done when distant movement and faint footsteps turns my attention to the top of a tower mausoleum about two hundred feet away. It seems about five stories, with the top floor being open under a roof held by four stone columns. There I see a silhouette go up to the edge and then drop prone.

Immediately I break line of sight to the tower and weave towards it using the ample tombs as cover. There's only one reason I can think of for someone to lie down on top of a closed off grave tower in the middle of the night, and it's not conducive to the health of anyone in the space I was just standing.

I get to the tower and find the door ajar. Mindful of the creaking, I open it slowly and only enough to squeeze through. On the other side, I draw my sword and sneak up the spiral staircase past the stone boxes lining the walls to the top.

There's a trap door on the top, already open. I peek through to find, as expected, a dark clothed figure lying prone with a heavy crossbow that looks to have the same enchantments as my own pointing at the archmage's mausoleum. The figure – a grizzled man, lean and muscled with a beard interrupted by a mess of scars – hasn't noticed me, so I go up behind him and tap the point of my sword against his neck.

"Remove the bolt from the crossbow and drop both off the edge," I say, keeping in mind how he might try to twist around and shoot me before I can react and how to best drop down to get inside of his aim while cutting his throat in the same motion if he does try it. I try to disguise my voice a little, but focus on keeping it even to not give any emotion away.

He tenses, slowly glances sidewise in hopes of catching sight of me but stops when I press the blade. "…The bow's rather expensive." He says as if a casual reminder.

"And rather sturdy," I counter, "drop it."

With a shrug, he does as I say.

"Now," I say, keeping the point on the back of his neck to let him know I want him to keep facing the ground, "what are you doing here?"

"…You don't seem like a guard."

"Which is how you know I'll kill you if you resist: arrest isn't an option."

He nods in acknowledgement, but goes still halfway when the motion brings him back in contact with the point which I keep with him even during the brief motion. "Alright," he says, "I guess that also means you don't care about my crimes. A group of kids are supposed to have gone into some sort of magic thing in the archmage's tomb to retrieve another some sort of magic thing... an orb if you must know. My job is to shoot one of them as they come out."

"Which one?" I ask, hiding the ice in my veins.

"Whichever one has the orb, or one at random if I can't tell – two if I can line up the shot."

"So why shoot them?"

"Orders."

"Whose?"

"Our leader."

"Name?" I press the sword point into a neck producing a thin trickle of blood to let him know he needs to be more forthcoming."

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"…He's a kid by the name of Bart. Big fellow, for his age, and very capable. Ruthless. It's how he got the job."

I nod having expected the answer but needed to confirm it. I'm a bit irritated that one of my friends is trying to kill some of my other friends, but I don't know what to do about it.

"What were you going to do about the body divination?" I ask, putting the revelation aside.

"Oh, the corpse squads? Bart said not to worry about it. Said so long as I got away that something about the orb would make it so their first try would lead the squads to it. The kids would get arrested and the orb confiscated while I get away from the city. Then someone on the inside would take the orb for us."

"Clever," I say in admiration. Ser Terry and co faces all the danger, but Bart gets the prize while also eliminating some of the competition. Or would, had I not come along… "Were you or anyone else from your organization here last night too?"

"Not that I know of, and I'm the best shot in the company so Bart wouldn't have sent anyone else."

Then that means Bart knew specifically that Terry would come here tonight. I thought maybe he just found out about the location and decided to post someone on every potential night on the off chance they'd come, but that's clearly not the case. This means Bart has successfully spied on them at least once, and likely will do so again.

Just further proof that Ser Terry needs my help, but I can't give it openly. I need a way to ensure I find out about any further adventures so I can keep them safe… Learning the remote sensing spell would help. I'll make it a priority. For now, I'll recruit more birds to keep an eye on them.

"Alright," I say, "that's enough about the plan, now tell me about the orb."

He nods. "I don't know what they do, only that it wouldn't stop my shot."

"Physical form?" I ask.

"I've only seen one the once, and just a glimpse, but it was a grey metal, likely iron, about the size of a person's head. Odd thing was it had no symbols to tell you it was magic, but something about it you could tell just by looking. Shit, you probably didn't even have to look. Itchy I guess."

A psychosomatic response triggered by proximity – an indication of a very powerful magic.

"How many are there?" I ask.

He shrugs. "At least five, maybe dozens."

"How many does Bart have?"

"Three that I know of."

"And the group below?"

"At least one, not counting this one."

Meaning that he doesn't know of anyone else who has one, nor of any other location where one might be hidden.

"Where else have orbs been found?"

"I only know about the one I helped get. It was in a cave near a small town on the coast."

That sounds familiar. Bart mentioned sending a team to a similar location during his intervention with Princep Vincent.

"What sort of defences did this cave have?" I ask, ignoring the possibility for now.

He shrugs. "Nothing much. Just some magic traps, plus some, what do you call them… Chimeras. You know, bears with wyvern scales and venom. Sea serpents twice as big as a man and breathed fire. That sort of thing. We lost someone to one of the snakes, but the rest were pretty easy."

"…Do you think the chimeras were there because of the orb, placed there by someone else to protect it or just there by happenstance?" I'm guessing one of the first two options as chimeras aren't common and seldom have radically different species living together, but it's best to get his insight.

"Don't know. But I do know that the traps didn't trip for them. Lost two more to a trap when some wolf thing retreated past one and we stupidly followed."

"Huh…Is Bart giving the orbs to Princep Vincent?"

"…You know about the Princep?" he asks, suddenly more nervous.

"I'm asking the questions." I remind him with a light jab.

"… I don't know, hope not though. We've lost too many getting them to give them away."

"Then what's the nature of Bart's employment to the Princep?"

He shrugs. "The way he tells it, it's more like an alliance than regular employment. Though the Princep does pay us. Not enough for our losses though."

"What else has your group been doing besides looking for these orbs?"

"For the Princep? A few intimidation jobs and some escort stuff. Nothing heavy. Same for general work."

I try to think of more to ask, but fail to come up with anything worth the risk of him gaining enough confidence to try something, so I decide to close things. I've been deliberately withdrawing my sword about an inch several times which prompts him to fidget a bit and maybe sneak a glance only for me to bring it back down an instant later. The message should be clear: Not feeling the blade doesn't mean it's not there.

"You've been rather helpful, thank you," I say, touching the symbols on the sword to change its form from a blade to a blunt cylinder.

The man shrugs. "I'm a mercenary, not a fanatic. It's professional to be discreet, but not with a sword to your throat. The boss understands. It's why he doesn't tell me nothing worth spilling."

"I suppose I can respect that attitude," I say, bringing the blunted sword back and slamming it into his head. There's a cracking sound and he goes limp.

I stoop down to check if I overdid it. There's blood on the head and the skull is clearly cracked, but he's still breathing. Fearing the 'corpse squads', as he called them (I haven't heard anyone use the term and the official name of the organisation is much more… official sounding, but I assume his name is common enough), I cast healing on him. It fuses the bone and stops the bleeding, but his brain is likely swollen. Still, his heartbeat and breathing are steady, so he probably won't die. He should probably get more skilled healing though… assuming I let him.

This man was going to kill one of my friends… Well, he might have gotten Carlyle, but I suppose I can count a friend of a friend in my vengeful feelings. But of course, I don't dare kill him without an immediate disposal method.

The fire method won't work as none of these mausoleums are big enough to do it inside of and I'll be seen if I do it outside. But even if there was a suitable structure it would take too long to reduce the bodies. I don't know how long exactly they go between divinations in noble sections, but all the estimates I've heard are between one and ten minutes. Even assuming ten that's not enough.

I suppose I could do something short of killing that might prevent him from trying to kill my friends again. The immediate thought being of course to cut off his hands. But… I've never been one to mutilate and torture, at least not those I leave alive, and even those I kill not without purpose. Anthropomancy is painful, but that's always towards a goal, not just an act of retaliation.

Besides, while rare and expensive, there are healers who can regrow limbs, and forcing Bart to use one will only motivate him further to find out who did it.

So, no mutilations. What then…? It would be so much easier if I already knew the liquifying beam spell. I suppose I was pretty close to learning it – I might be able to finish now. In fact… if I offer him, it might be enough to push me over the edge.

…Well, no, obviously I'm not doing that. I'm close, but not close enough to try something foolish like that for no need. I did hypothesise that the Eye might relent in moments of desperation, but giving myself minutes, or even seconds seems like it'll be pushing the idea too far. Besides, the Eye might resent (so to speak) deliberately putting myself in danger to manipulate it.

Also… I did think maybe I should limit my indulgences to nobles or other special cases. I didn't really mean it before, but I'm liking the idea more now. I don't know, but I feel uneasy about how quickly I went to sacrifice as the solution even when it was absurd, and how long it took me to realize that. Maybe having a rule like that can guide me to more reasonable indulgences.

I still need to kill him though… or maybe not. He is Bart's underling, and I have no idea how he might react to his death – how close they may be. I guess I can decide by chance, of sorts. I'll try to learn the spell until my friends come out. If I learn it before they do, then I'll kill him. If not, I won't. I think that's rather fair, given everything… Well, maybe not fair, but satisfying. Besides, I do want to kill him, so maybe that desire will help push me through.

Unfortunately (or fortunate for him) I don't manage to finish the spell by the time they emerge about an hour later. I feel close, on the edge. Like one more session should do it. It'll probably require limerence, but a crepuscular one should suffice.

The team, even from on top of the tower, looks haggard but intact. All five members are accounted for, though I think I see blood and minor fraying on their clothing. Of particular note is the attitude they show towards Ligryn. In some ways they seem more uneasy with her, in other ways more respectful. Deferent almost.

I can't make out what they say from here, but I do see the orb in question. It's as described, though the effect seems the opposite on me. Rather than the sight causing itching, it seems to soothe it. It feels like a belongingness that I didn't know I wanted. No, not belonging exactly, but a very particular notion of justice.

Ser Terry places the orb in a satchel, nods to the group, who quickly dig up the now solidified silvery symbols of the entry ritual then disperse leaving me alone in the graveyard wondering what to do.

Perhaps I should stay around a while and see who shows up for the marksman (who is presently drugged in addition to his brain injury). But I doubt I'd learn anything too important and I would wager Bart's operational security to be much more robust than Ser Terry's. The most I'd learn is the identity of another one of Bart's agents, which would be useful but not enough to risk a confrontation especially since I'm not planning on actively opposing him.

So, with nothing better to do, I go back to the dorm to sleep.

A thought does cross my mind about a question I should have asked. I had assumed that Bart equipped his underling with that model of enchanted crossbow just because it's an effective weapon and it was a coincidence that I had a similar one. But had the plan succeeded, then the group would have had a bolt that was specifically designed to survive the acceleration from that type of crossbow and no other. A crossbow that they may only be aware of me using. So, the question is (though I would have had to be less direct): Did Bart equip his underling with that weapon in the hopes that Ser Terry would think I was the assailant and cut ties with me?

Probably not – after all, it's just a really good crossbow that anyone would have good reason to acquire. But if the answer turns out to be yes, I will be very wroth with Bart.