IWUAaDNW: Party 5.8

In the meantime, Fiolla had moved to a spot closer to the edge of the woods, and her head was tracking Jaya through the walls of the academy. From where she was, she had a perfect vantage point on one of the exits, and it was through that exit that Jaya walked out, hurriedly carrying a large bag over her shoulder… and none-too-stealthily followed by four people I recognized from the crowd who’d cornered her earlier. Fiolla, bless her, immediately noticed the problem.

“…That must be what the alert was for… shit.” She pointed off into the woods. “Whys, draw her attention into the woods. I’ll flank the bastards. Guide her to the scroll. Got it? And Taylor, get it open. We need it right now.”

“Bleek!” Whys… bleeked, and then all I could see was trees and branches whizzing past me in every direction. The next thing I saw was the garden of the Academy. I spotted Jaya instantly; the purple-haired girl was fast-walking across the garden, her head scanning left and right for a sign of Whys or Fiolla––or Seyra, I supposed, though Maryk wasn’t in the right disguise at the moment. She spotted Whys and immediately turned toward the woods.

Someone behind her gave a shout.

She started running. So did they.

She followed Whys through the underbrush, the dead bushes and branches leaving thick brown stains across her clothes and skin, and I heard her whimper as the people behind her noisily followed.

“I really fucking hope you’re the right Pixie!” Jaya called out at Whys. The little guy didn’t answer.

“Get back here––erk!”

“Ambush!”

Whys wasn’t looking in the right direction, but I could tell from the sounds that that Fiolla had made her move. There weren’t any other signs of fighting, though; just a handful of screams and shouted expletives. The pixie ignored that and guided Jaya over to where Fiolla had dropped the portal scroll. Then it stopped, and so did Jaya. The wide-eyed thaumaturge stared left and right, and, not seeing anything, just seemed to get more panicky.

Naïa was still trying and failing to open the portal.

“Seriously?” Jaya asked out loud. “I’m not in the mood for a fucking joke, here!”

Just out of her sight, I saw Fiolla rise out from her shadow. The verdette cleared her throat, and Jaya whirled on her with a wand in hand.

Fiolla smiled. “Are you ready to leave?”

“…Who…?”

“I am a colleague of Seyra’s, you could say,” she replied, walking up to the portal scroll. “I’m here to extract you, but it looks like our way out has a bit of a thaumaturgic problem at the moment.”

Her fingers touched the scroll. At the exact same moment, Naïa made a surprised “Oh!” and the two scrolls started glowing. She wasted no time and started chanting the incantation again.

The scrolls needed to be carried to be used, it seemed.

“…and it appears to be fixed now, conveniently enough,” Fiolla reported matter-of-factly.

“I’m feeling so confident in you guys right now,” Jaya snarked. “I––“

Shouts from the woods resonated between the dead trees around Fiolla and Jaya. The verdette reached into her skirts for several throwing needles.

Jaya raised her wand. “Spirits of justice, gaze upon the unworthy before us and teach them the meaning of your creed–Lesser Spark!”

The crystal at the tip of her wand glowed sharply, then there was a blinding flash and a crack of thunder; a lightning bolt shot out of her wand and smashed against one of the trees near the incoming attackers, throwing brown gunk and diseased wood in every direction. One of the attackers yelped in alarm.

Far less flashy, Fiolla swung her arm violently, and one of the needles disappeared from between her fingers. Somewhere in there, a woman screamed in pain.

The scroll leapt out of Fiolla’s hand and started floating.

“Shouldn’t be much longer now,” Fiolla chirped.

“Great! Awesome!” Jaya snapped back. “Spirits of justice, judge these sinful souls––Light Bolt!”

This time, a ball of powerfully shining white-yellow fire flew from her wand. The bolt illuminated three attackers––I winced mentally as I saw the woman clutching her eye with a bloody hand––and splashed against the arm of one of the men. The man pulled back with a pained scream.

“Spirits of calmness, entomb my foe in a tomb of––”

Fiolla’s hand flashed again. The incantation turned into a wet gargle. A direct throat shot.

A metallic silver bolt flew between them and thunked noisily against a nearby tree. Both of them took cover.

“How much fucking longer?!” Jaya screamed.

Fiolla looked at the portal. The sphere was closing on itself.

“Not much––”

The sphere flashed, and the portal was open. Because I knew people on the other side could see into the ritual chamber, I’d already faded my illusion away, and in fact covered the entrance to my second floor with a perfect image of the floor as it had been before the ritual.

“…longer,” Fiolla finished. She bodily grabbed Jaya and shoved her toward the portal. Karjn completed the maneuver by grabbing her arms––“Hey!?”––and yanking her through the portal into the ritual chamber. Ulfric caught her.

I suspected what was going to happen next, so I drew Naïa’s attention to my entrance and surreptitiously wrote to her, “Look this way, not at the portal.” She nodded at me. Her big scared eyes made me wish for a pair of arms to hug her with.

“Target is secure, no witnesses!” Karjn called out. Her boomerang flew, translucent and ethereal as it crossed through trees, then suddenly solid as it crossed through a man’s throat. His head flipped forward and fell, his body falling a moment later.

Jaya stared up with wide eyes at Ulfric with an expression I wasn’t quite able to read from my vantage point. She looked quite nonplussed when the brawny mercenary moved her aside and pushed past her. He grabbed his battle axe and walked through the portal. Just as he did so, another bolt flew out of the underbrush and hit him directly in the shoulder. The bolt fell down a moment later, leaving his skin with a barely noticeable pucker.

He scowled and took a deep breath. His throat glowed with mana. He released a powerful roar which spread in a visible wave of mana, but otherwise seemed not to have an effect. He hefted his axe, and a moment later, the assailant who’d taken Jaya’s fireball to the arm erupted from the brush, wildly waving his sword in Ulfric’s direction, followed by the wounded woman––no longer caring about her eye injury it seemed––and then a mace-wielder with a shield.

He swung his axe to the side, and it went through the first assailant without even slowing. He continued the motion with a flash of mana and an increase in rotation speed that didn’t appear natural at all, all the while holding his battleaxe extended, and fell into the remaining pair like a whirlwind of death; the second’s head flew straight off. The third had the sense to raise his shield, but the battleaxe went through it like it was butter, then through his chest with equal ease. Then Ulfric slammed his foot into the ground and stopped his rotation, bleeding off his axe’s momentum in a final spin around his body that shed the blood off his weapon’s blade.

He then looked back out at the woods.

“F*ck this,” I heard a woman say. From the sounds of the underbrush, she’d started retreating.

Ulfric raised a glowing foot, then brought it down with a wordless roar. A wave of dust rose in front of him as a tremor spread out, uprooting bushes and plants and making two entire trees fall down. I heard the fleeing witness make an alarmed shout as they lost their footing and fell with a crack of dead branches.

“Flash step!”

And just like that, Tyr made his entry into the battle by turning into a silver-blue blur of motion that flew directly into the underbrush. The last assailant made a startled, extremely short scream, and then she was silent.

“Drag the corpses in,” Karjn ordered, picking up her kill’s head by the hair, and corpse by the back of the clothes. “The Rot should handle the blood. No traces.” She shot a glare at Ulfric. “Couldn’t you have been a bit less subtle? I think there’s a couple of sea monsters in the Black Sea that haven’t heard you back there.”

Ulfric grunted and shrugged.

Tyr returned, two bodies in hand. One had a needle in the throat, the other a large bloodstain on her chest. A stab. His sword was in its scabbard.

“Any others you’ve killed?” Karjn asked Fiolla.

She shook her head and replied, “I avoided killing so close to the Academy. They were quite stubborn chasing Lady Mattiya here, however," She waved in Jaya’s general direction. "I do believe that was all of them.”

Karjn clicked her tongue, then nodded. “Good enough. Pick ‘em up and go. We don’t know how long the portal will last… speaking of.” She bent down near the portal and picked the second scroll up from the ground with her head-carrying hand. She grimaced at the brown gunk that was stuck to it. She hefted the corpse on her shoulder, then stepped through the portal. She spotted Naïa a moment later and grimaced. “Uh… close your eyes, kid. This is going to get a little messy.”

Naïa obeyed. Jaya did not, though, and she stared at the decapitated head with eyes wide in disgust and shock as Karjn dropped it on the ground.

Once everyone––bodies included––were in the ritual room, Karjn told Naïa to drop the portal, which she did.

[...]

Karjn nodded. At Mariynn and Ulfric, she said, “You two mind dumping the rest of the bodies? I’ll take care of this one,” she picked up the head and body of her own kill.

[...]

Jaya looked a mix of nervous and apprehensive as she followed Karjn down my steps, keeping a safe distance from the corpse’s feet. Once she was down on my second floor, Karjn chucked her burden aside, then turned to Jaya.

At the same time, my “taste buds” were filled with a sort of sweet honey as the corpse started breaking apart. A quick glance at my impurity count showed me it had risen by five, which was more than any of the ashes had given me. Fresh corpses seemed to be worth more.