Face of Eternity : The Little Angel

The bishop said my friends were safe and recovered the day before I did. Although, he did mention that the two witches that I was battling did escape the Inquisitors.

Uh-oh…

He mentioned “two witches.” Obviously Melpomene was number one, but if I was a betting girl, and daddy said he doesn't want me to be, I’d say the other witch was a particular fire mage who didn’t like the church very much.

I can only imagine how Indena must have reacted when they declared her a witch.

“Heck no! I ain’t no freaking witch, you donkey faces!” Just imagine most of those words replaced with swears and add a few explosions.

Anyways, the good news was that she’d escaped somewhere into the city and was hiding. The bad news was that the inquisitors were currently hunting her down. I haven’t seen much of them yet at all, but both Yamin and Indena didn’t seem to think very highly of them.

I explained that Indena was my friend, and that I needed to find her so she could help me. But everyone, especially Sister Ruth, was skeptical.

“Heresy!” Sister Ruth announced, followed by screaming. “How dare she associate with a witch? Ahhh!”

She kept screaming until Sister Connie dragged her out of the chamber. That nun didn’t give me very good vibes at all…

“Forgive her rudeness in this hallowed chamber,” the bishop said. “I must admit, it is a bit hard to believe someone so violent could be considered a friend to the Eighth Star…”

-The healthy do not need a doctor…rather the sick do-

“Healthy people don’t need doctors. Right? Only sick people do,” I replied. Not sure where I got that idea, but hey, it made me sound wise.

The bishop’s eyes opened wide. Then he waved his hand to Mr. Anthony, who also had a similar shock before jotting those words down on paper.

“So, it is guidance you seek to give…” the bishop concluded.

He decided to call off the hunt for her. Instead, he’d let me go and bring her back. I had a pretty easy way of finding her too, so it wouldn’t take too long.

~☆☆☆~

The bishop took me to the cathedral's chapel where I saw Yamin and Marek in the furthest back row of pews, talking to a bleach blond haired woman in a suit with a skirt.

Thank goodness they’re safe!

“Yalda!” Yamin came over and hugged me tightly. “Thank God! I was so worried!”

“It is good to know you have woken up, no?” Marek said.

“I was more worried about you guys,” I told them. “But, who’s this?” I pointed to the lady with bleach blond hair.

“Greetings, mistress Yalda…'' She very cordially bowed to me, like a princess doing a curtsy. “My name is Emily Wolfstone. You’ll have to excuse me for showing up out of the blue. But with how much your father’s told me about you, I just had to meet you right away.”

Gasp! She knew daddy?

“How do you know my dad?” I asked with a hopeful face. Maybe he sent her to find me?

“You could say he’s my employer.” She pulled out a little business card and politely handed it to me.

It stated that she was some sort of independent contractor. But what did that mean?

“Did he ask you to find me? Do you know where he is?”

“Yes and no.” She kneeled down to get eye level with me. “However, he did pay me a lot of money to take special care of you, Mistress Yalda. Consider me a servant, if you’d like.” She winked and gave me a quick finger gun.

A servant, eh?

“What kinda’ stuff can you do?” I asked.

“It would be easier to say the things I can’t do. I can cook, clean, collect things…heck, I’ll even tuck you in at night if you’d like. Anything your little crystal heart desires.” She tapped on my heart.

Clearly she was well informed to realize my heart was actually the crystal in my chest. She had to have known daddy then, no doubt.

Her job description reminded me a lot of those NPC’s in video games that you could pay to find rare items. Granted, she was on daddy’s payroll, so I could ask her to get me just about anything.

Well…what should I ask her for?

“Can you get me a real unicorn?” I asked with stars in my eyes.

“Mmm…” she gave it some thought. “Why don’t we start off with a slightly less mythical requests, eh sweetie?”

I got all sad and pouty.

Darn. Nobody’s ever going to get me a real unicorn.

Yamin raised her hand up high.

“I have a suggestion…” she started, “why not make her some new clothes?”

That’s a good point. Not like I could get indecent or anything, since I had my armour skin, but I’d probably want something to cover up with if I wanted to blend in better.

“Mr. Bishop, what happened to my dress?” I asked him.

He said that the dress was being repaired, but they were waiting on material to fix it up with. Apparently it was made of some pretty rare stuff.

“I can fix it up, easy,” Ms. Emily claimed. “I could even give it some upgrades.”

Double gasp! She could give my dress upgrades?!

“Can you make it look cool and give it power armour and stuff?” I bounced up and down. “Oh oh! Can you make the armour all rainbow looking too?”

Emily had a silly face and a nervous sweat dripped down her forehead.

“Yeah, I can do it. But is that really what you want?”

“Yeah yeah!” I shook my head.

I definitely wanted it! I’d be sacrificing comfort, sure. But turning it into a battle dress would be soooo cooool!

With the bishop's order, someone went and retrieved my dress, handing it off to Ms. Emily. It wasn’t in super bad shape, but it clearly got a bit roughed up during the fight.

“Hmm…Carbon nanofibers…Tetraoxide plastic…” she mumbled to herself as she inspected it. “Hmm…it almost looks like this was already made for upgrades. Should be easy to mess with.”

“You can tell all that by just looking at it?” I asked, impressed.

“No…” she pulled up a small white tag attached to the skirt. “I was just reading the materials list.”

Oh…now I feel silly for not knowing that was there.

But I couldn’t contain myself from shouting with excitement. My dress was about to get even cooler!

“Madam Wolfstone,” Marek spoke up, “How long will it take to finish that?”

“Probably an hour or two.”

Wow. Did she already have all the material on hand? This was great!

“Then why don’t we go searching for her Uncle in the meantime, no?” Marek suggested.

“What, Uncle’s here?” I looked at Marek, expectantly.

Apparently, Uncle was here not long ago. Yeah! Finally! I mean, he did have a week to come and find me.

According to the bishop, he’d left to go search for Indena before she got into trouble. They tried to stop him, but he was adamant about it.

I doubt there would be a fight at all, seeing as the bishop sent someone to reel back in the inquisitors, but it felt like a good idea to get out there and find everyone in case things got crazy.

“Ms. Emily,” I spoke up, “if we're not back in time, will you wait for me?” I asked.

“I’ll come and find you,” she winked. “Don’t worry. I’ve got literally nothing else to do. With all the money your dad pays, I could probably retire if I wanted,” she snickered.

Wow, daddy must be rolling in it if he had that much money. And he still can’t buy me a real unicorn? This is absurd!

~☆☆☆~

The church gave me a temporary dress. It was really silky and wavy. Something they had in their lost and found that they figured would keep me from standing out too much. At least, as much as a girl with white hair could.

The cathedral door was big and heavy. I tried pushing it open, but my strength wasn’t enough. Yamin was even helping, and our combined power couldn’t get this thing to budge.

“Allow me…” Marek placed a single finger on the door and it swung forward.

“Geez.” Yamin uttered in shock. “It usually takes two people to get these big doors open.”

“It does?” he questioned as if he didn’t have a clue of his own strength

The moment the door opened, I got my first good look at the streets of a human city.

Hundreds of people were walking all around, heading to some nondescript location. Cars passed by on the big road, loud and often honking at one another. A few pudgy birds were chirping up in trees that were planted every few meters to break up the concrete jungle.

And don’t even get me started on the collection of funky smells.

My sensors were overwhelmed with how much activity there was. Everyone out there had a virtual name tag above their head, but it was just a sea of question marks since I didn’t know any of their names.

All that made me take a moment to calibrate my sensors so that they wouldn’t be so overwhelmed.

“You okay, sweetheart?” Yamin rubbed my back while I sat down on the church steps.

“Yeah…” I said, powering through a headache. “There’s a lot of people here.”

“You’ve never been to a city, have you?” Marek figured.

“No.” I shook my head.

There was just so much going on. My systems were still trying to process all the activity, even after lowering the sensitivity. I guess this was just something I had to get used to.

Marek brushed his chin, deep in thought, thinking of a way to help alleviate some of the stress.

“I’ve got it!” he snapped his finger. “Why don’t I take us around a bit before we find everyone?”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Yamin asked. “We should find the others, since we don’t know where they are.”

I wasn’t too worried about that. I had my map loaded up and it gave me the locations of Indena and Uncle within the city. I still had Indena’s vital signs linked up to my party system, so she was calm for now. They were both on the other side of the city. Not in the same place, but close enough.

I projected the map out of my crystal heart, then pointed to their locations.

“See? They’re here.”

“Woah…” Yamin uttered, staring at the map. “So futuristic.”

Marek’s finger traced across a path that led up to them. He smiled and gave us a thumbs up.

“Alright!” He helped me stand. “While we walk there, I’ll show you some fun places this city has to offer! That should get you used to the city life.”