Interlude 02 – Like Moths to a Flame…

The Saint of Incandescence - The Final Day of the Observation Duty

‘That’s going to be a problem,’ Bella muttered, pointing at the weird thunder that the Kitsune summoned.

The two of them were perched on one of the taller trees with a clear view of the RMAI compound. Bella wasn't happy about this one, as their orders were to just observe the Witch Queen’s party without getting detected.

‘Why?’ Erkst asked. ‘That’s just a spell. A powerful one, yes, but nothing we can’t handle.’

‘You sure about that Erkie?’ his fellow Saint shook her head, causing her orange dual ponytails to lightly hit the sides of her neck.

Erkst furrowed his brow. Not at her words. No. It was her hairstyle. It seemed… outrageously frivolous. Other Saints opted out for more utilitarian and humble hairstyles, Erkst opting for a clean shave he maintained meticulously. Not Bella though.

The worst part was that this didn't break any of the rules, as the only thing Lord Light mandated appearance-wise were their white-and-gold robes, so what Bella did was a mere violation of a long-standing custom.

‘Why do you think it could be an issue?’ he responded to her question with one of his own, doing the best he could to swallow his indignation.

‘No lightning-adjacent spell behaved quite like this one,’ Bella replied. ‘The closest thing to that one would be [Thunderstrike], but it would just cause a bolt of lightning to strike the target from the sky. And no Air mage alive is capable of weather control.’

Erkst wanted to dismiss her concerns, but he had to admit that Bella had a point and, much as he hated to admit it, as the Saint of the Books she was the best equipped to analyse stuff like this.

‘What do you think then?’ He asked. ‘Do we have another Zekuthran on our hands?’

That would be bad. At least the Blade of the Ashen Storm didn't have an axe to grind with the Church.

‘No,’ Bella laughed bitterly. ‘It is far worse. From what I know, it took Zekuthran centuries to get where he is. The Witch did it in around a year if the stories about her originally being a Terran are true.’

‘Oh,’ he could only say.

‘So no,’ the Saint of the Books gave him a crooked smile. ‘This was a declaration that, whether this Lilyth realises it or not, there is a new god on Dwynveia.’

‘Let’s go there and get a better look then,’ he replied with a smile of his own. ‘We need to get as much information about her as we can if that is indeed the case.’

I’ll make sure it is not.

Izartiel - Day 20 of the Hunt

The Witch Queen was annoyingly difficult to track down thanks to the idiot who botched his assassination attempt on her. Izartiel hoped that the Dread Queen punished him severely for this sloppiness.

Ultimately, all of the Kitsune’s stealth would amount as nothing, because much as she and her courtiers tried, they couldn't go completely off-grid and they left enough of a trail that Iza and the bounty hunter party she was a part of was able to piece together that the Witch Queen was looking for some old Imperial building. That was a baffling choice of a destination. Why would you go to a place that had been picked clean by scavengers or an outright death trap?

By all accounts, she was a seasoned adventurer and they weren't a particularly risk-prone group. Doubly so if they manage to pull off a coup and were basically set for life. Needless to say, the Witch Queen’s motivations were a common discussion subject among the hunters, but ultimately they had conceded that like usual, they would not get the full picture.

Still, there was something that rubbed Izartiel wrong about the job. For one, the word on the street was that the bounty was issued by the Red Mask himself. That was a massive red flag in and of itself, as the reputation of him and his group was not exactly stellar given them being slavers. And that was before the whole mess in Ror-Bhyk after which the group became outright toxic to associate with, the Church of Light made sure of that.

Then there was the choice of the target. It actually made one of their group, a Sylph named Mephel, to drop out. He still maintained some contacts in the Realm of Air and said that pursuing the Witch Queen was a very bad idea, as she was apparently spending a lot of time around the Lady of Air. Nyx was infamous among those in the know, like Iza, for having a very long string of mortal lovers, so she initially assumed the Witch Queen must have been her latest flame, but Mephel vehemently denied that. The exact details haven’t been widely publicised but apparently the Kitsune was made a part of Nyx’s household. Iza had trouble believing that, but the rumours were enough for the Sylph to call it quits because he wasn't suicidal.

The others in the group dismissed Mephel as crazy. After all, why would a god want one of its playthings to stick around?

While, at the time, the argument made sense to Izartiel, in retrospect it was absolutely braindead because it they didn't take the possibility of the Witch Queen being something akin to a pet to the Lady of Air, and people tend to be very pissed off when you hurt theirs.

That belated realisation was brought about by the sudden appearance of a thunderstorm right above where they suspected the Imperial ruins were. Her companions thought it was a massive stroke of luck, Iza wasn't sure she agreed.

Now, she wasn’t superstitious, but like all the Vukodlaks, a species of humanoid wolf people from a realm called the Endless Forest, Iza had an almost preternatural sense for danger, and the freak weather made every hair of her grey fur stand on end.

Maybe Mephel was right.

Her resolve was completely shattered by the forest around them just beginning to die.

Nope! I am out!

‘I don't think this is worth it,’ she cautiously told her companions, not wanting to come off as a coward.

‘Getting cold paws?’ Yazek, their dwarven leader, japed.

‘Bite me shorty,’ she spat back. ‘Something is wrong!’

‘I can see that, lass. But that's not going to stop me. We are too close to our targets. Do you seriously want almost three weeks of work to go to waste? Or do you have some stash of Divines you can reimburse us with for the bounty that will pass us by?’

‘You have to be alive to collect,’ Iza pointed out.

‘Go if you want then,’ Yazek said. ‘Hell, if any other of you grew yellow-bellied because of weather and dead grass join her. Just know that once I am back I will make sure that no one ever will work with you again.’

If you get back.

‘Why scare her, Yaz?’ Leraq, their elven tracker laughed. ‘More money for us if they go. Between you, me and Tawrex it will be what… sixteen thousand for each of us?’

‘Sixteen thousand six hundred and sixty six,’ their “sorcerer”, if you can call a man who knew two spells one, corrected.

‘Good po-’ Yazek began, but suddenly doubled over holding his stomach.

He tried to say something, but only grunts came out of his mouth. Leraq rushed to help him, but fell to the ground screaming from pain not two steps later.

Tawrex look at Izartiel with a clear question in his eyes.

What do we do?

Iza had a clear answer as there was only one thing she could think of.

She turned around and began running away.

Tawrex tried following her, but soon joined her other three companions in writhing in pain on the forest floor.

That only added wind to Izartiel's feet.