7.09
“There's a point when arson becomes a community service.” - Magus Fireball, Nemesis of Magus Ackuaz.
“Note: Do not utter his name in Mage Tongue, it will create a Fireball. This is why we misspell our Magus Names Jared! There was a memo! A memo!” - Magus Ackuaz

Fire roared as the door burned. Noam was out in a moment, four opponents, the first fell to his darting blade, the second burst into laughter as he screamed a knock knock joke. The third was on him with a blade he deflected with his horns. He twisted his own blade out of the first guard’s throat, then parried the second swing as Utoqa fell on the fourth guard. They both dispatched their opponents quickly, his falling to a feint hiding a finger jab to his throat.

Noam grabbed the laughing guard, locking both their hands behind their back before dispelling Hideous Laughter. The guard came back to see a blade held to their neck, “I’m gonna need directions, I hope you know what the drill is for your own sake.”

Speed was of the essence, pushing the hostage in front, they moved further into a dimly lit hallway. Their steps echoed on cobbled stones as they passed by numerous empty jail cells and reached a flight of stairs leading upwards to a wooden trapdoor.

“There’s gotta be an ambush up there,” Noam muttered as he glared at their hostage. “You’ll go first, open the door, and do try to throw off your clothes quickly.”

“Wha-AAAAH!” The guard’s voice rose in panic as Noam spat on their armor. Corralled by his and Utoqa’s swords, they rushed up stairs and tossed open the trapdoor.

“It’s Harldson!” a voice yelled above as the flaming guard rushed out in a mad dash to remove their clothes.

Noam activated Breathless and I’M LIT! As he leapt out, he saw a large open hallway with a second floor overlooking it, ten enemies, six guards, four Travelers. He recognized the mage and rogue he fought before. “Fancy meeting you-”

“Silence!”

Panicked screams, the clank of armor and the thudding of boots on wood, all disappeared in that instant. The familiar mage held her staff pointed directly to him. Three rays of white hot fire exploded towards him. Twisting, he just barely dodged the first, the second singed off his sleeve, and the third blasted him in the belly. The fire was mitigated by the fact he was already on fire, but the mage was already tearing a spell scroll. Chains erupted from the ground in utter silence towards to him.

Utoqa moved, tearing the chains to pieces, then rushing towards the mage. She swapped places with the rogue, appearing on the second floor. The rogue left another piece of clothing as he swapped with a heavily armored man swinging a war hammer.

His burnt sleeve landed on the ground.

Utoqa dodged the war hammer, but four guards quickly surrounded him. The other two moved in on Noam as well as another rogue he didn’t recognize. Noam parried a dagger, elbowed a sword arm into missing, then wrestled that arm into blocking a blade from behind. All three of his opponents caught fire due to proximity, backing off and he found himself back to back with Utoqa as they were surrounded.

They weren’t attacking, simply circling them as- Noam gasped in silence as he jerked towards the mage.

She was outside of the silence bubble, and casting.

Sound failed him, so Noam elbowed Utoqa’s and pointed at the mage with his sword. Their enemies took that as a signal to move in. Utoqa glanced at him, Noam nodded back. The lizardfolk then raised his sword with his good arm and beheaded himself.

Noam grabbed his head before it could drop, and punted the severed thing towards the mage. Utoqa Survived the beheading, regrowing a new body in midair and bowled over the mage.

Noam saw a spray of blood before he engaged in his own battle. CtH activated, its buff was minuscule with this few enemies, but it gave him the edge to dodge and weave between the weapons. A frantic eternity of near hits and small cuts, but as the seconds moved on, his opponents gradually caught fire from his aura. Their movements slowed or grew more panicked, and Noam’s only improved as I’M LIT!’s awareness allowed him to track the flames on their bodies. The rogue slipped up, a moment of inexperience that Noam capitalized with a glob of napalm spit. A second opening, and a guard fell.

A downpour of water slammed into them, extinguishing the flames. The mage wasn’t dead. Noam slowed for a fraction of a fraction of a moment as he adjusted to the sudden explosion of steam and the loss of his I’M LIT! Sense.

The war hammer crashed into his thigh, he felt it break, and he began to collapse. The armored Traveler was already rearing the weapon back for another hit. A dead body was thrown into the raised weapon, the swapping rogue, already breaking into light particles.

Sound returned, the crackling of fire, pained grunts and the clank of metal. The mage was dead.

“You are all a hundred years too early to take me on!” Noam screamed.

Vicious Mockery, empowered by both CtH and I’M LIT!, roared out and lit the remaining fighters aflame once again. The armored Traveler ignored the flames as he rushed to finish him off.

“Stop!” Noam yelled, a pained mana headache already forming, “It’s Hammer Time!”

The Traveler only paused to laugh for a moment, a moment too long as Noam’s blade darted out. But he misjudged it from his lower angle, the blade bounced off his neck piece. The enemy collected himself and kneed him in the stomach. Noam spat blood as he flew. The man took a single step before the line of blood and napalm flared to life.

Chains erupted around the enemy Traveler, as Utoqa Scavenged the corpse of the mage, yelling, “Chain-”

“-ed Fireballs,” Noam Ottocorrected.

The chains disappeared, instead numerous fireballs exploded on the Traveler, each chaining into each other. The large man fell, body charred black.

Utoqa leapt down from the second floor, his injured arm remained injured, a weakness of Survive that even though Utoqa could direct it to regenerate his entire body, he could undo damage from a killing blow, but Noam saw Celine’s threadssowing themselves into a workable cast. He deactivated I’M LIT! Utoqa helped him up, one of his legs hung uselessly between them, and they slammed the front door open. Fresh air blowing unto them. “Celine? Can you hear me?”

The response was patchy and full of static, “Noam! I- only some- Dustin- the sun-”

Utoqa raised his head to the sky, “The sun is northeast of us, at an angle of…”

<><><><>

Fenkai’s secret worked overtime as I calculated the location of my allies, the angle of sun they were seeing compared to mine meant, “Westward!” The swamp elemental kicked up its speed.

<><><><>

Celine patched Noam’s leg, it was slower, but he could stand. They were in a woodland manor, surrounded by forests. Dustin knew their direction, but not the specifics.

A few well placed globs of spit and fire bolts lit the manor aflame, its smoke could be seen for miles.

“Hide now,” Utoqa took him, and they disappeared.

<><><><>

“Will she be alright?” Melinda asked Tai. Behind them in the alley, Celine was furiously working on Noam’s and Utoqa’s dolls. Droplets of sweat glinted under the little light they had, the distance her magic was traversing was taking a clear toll on her.

“I don’t know.” Tai looked around the dark alleyway, “Are we sure we’re safe here?”

“We’re well in alley space,” the bubbly woman answered. “Johnny don’t stray from Mr Peterson.”

The boy paused, nodding as he came closer to a ghost Tai couldn’t see.

“I never asked why you’re helping us,” Tai asked the mortician.

“Hmm?” she turned to her with that eternally cheerful smile. “I want to, Johnny looks like he needs help and we share a curse. I have made mine it into a gift, and want to share that method. What about you?”

Tai shrugged in return, “Mostly happenstance, I saved him with these idiots and it would suck if all that work went to waste.”

She stiffened as Melinda suddenly patted her on the shoulder, “It’s ok! Not everyone wants to open up, so long as you know you’re a good person then that’s all that matters!”

Tai pushed the hand off, “You’re weird you know?”

“Thank you!” the woman beamed.

“I don’t mean it as-”

“Okay!” Celine gasped, wiping sweat off her forehead as she stood back up, “They should be fine now, Dustin’s on the way to them.”

She quickly downed a mana potion, then a leaf which Tai recognized as headache medicine -there was fairly significant overlap between mundane and magical headaches- before setting the dolls back into her cloak. Frayed strings of the cloak reached out and accepted them, hiding them out of sight. “I’ve done what I can from here.” She pumped her fists, “Ha! A long range casting without the support of a magic circle, Baba would be proud!”

“Congratulations!” Melinda cheered, “I operated on a mage once, he died doing what you just did, so I know it’s really difficult!”

Silence.

Johnny laughed, and Tai felt inclined to join if only to make it less awkward.

“Let’s continue then!” Melinda either didn’t notice or chose not to. She strolled aheadthe abnormally long alleyway. Tai knew of this place, rumors claimed that all alleyways were connected, and that one could appear from any city so long as one had sufficient knowledge.

“Yellow!” Celine called out as the wisp landed in her hood. She held out an arm as it clambered out, it had grown a lot larger now, Tai noted.

It gestured upwards to the shadowy rim of the roof. The ‘sky’ of alley space was something Tai had been studiously trying to ignore, because it simply didn’t seem to exist. It was just stacks upon stacks of different alleyways all the way up into darkness. The sun apparently was only allowed to exist at the edges. Yellow’s siblings were in one such stack, jumping down to join them. “Squeak! Squeak!”

Celine nodded seriously in response. “We’ll be fine, act as Dustin asked.”

Yellow leapt up to pat Johnny, then they disappeared back into alley space. Celine talked as they walked, Yellow and Greenie were apparently familiar with the place, and Dustin sent them from another city to shadow their journey. The ghost they were following clearly had similar amounts of mastery, since a few minutes of trekking later they emerged from a street just a few streets from the orphanage.

“This is as far as I can get you,” Melinda said, hiding just out of sight. Tai could tell she was using the ghost to direct her hiding spot. Her movements were too awkward, following the spirit -heh- of the idea, rather than any lived experience. Noam did it instinctively with his footwork.

Tai leaned out to catch a glance of the empty street, “That’s as far as you need to come. We’re expecting a fight.”

Celine panicked, “We are!?”

The swordswoman rolled her eyes, “I am at least. I didn’t know how you missed that part of the planning.”

Celine let out a breath of relief, “Oh we have a plan, thank god.” She wiped forehead, “I thought we were going in blind for a second.”

She pointed her sheathed sword at the orphanage, “It’s called run until we reach the orphanage.”

Tai pretended she didn’t notice Celine silently panicking. “Don’t worry, Yellow scouted it out, we’re good unless there are lookouts good enough to avoid it.”

Johnny stepped forward, “How can I help?”

“Nah uh,” Tai barred the way with her sheathed sword, “You figured out you can control your ghost curse just a few days ago, you’re not ready for this.”

“But I want to be able to help!” the boy yelled.

Tai winced, then poked her head out to make sure no one heard that. After seeing no movement, she poked her head back in. “Want isn’t a factor Jojo. You’re a child.”

“I have seen death,” the boy blankly stared at her. And by gods, those empty pools of darkness alone showed the truth.

But Tai didn’t budge, “Death doesn’t make an adult. A child works an adult’s job in a tavern, that doesn’t make them an adult. A child suffers an adults pain, that doesn’t make them an adult. A child fights an adults war, that doesn’t make them an adult either.”

“But I can do this! What the monster did to Utoqa’s clone- that shows we’re strong! We can help!”

“You disproved yourself in that sentence, if you can’t even rein it in, why should we keep a liability?”

“Tai you’re being too hard-” Celine’s sputters were silenced by a raised hand from Melinda.

Tai briefly acknowledged her help with a nod, before she dropped her sword on the ground. It clattered lightly on the cobble. “You want to prove you’re an adult, then pick that sword up.”

Johnny looked up at her defiantly, the silently turned to kneel by the blade. He put his too small hands on the hilt, and tried to pull.

It didn’t budge, “I said pick it up.”

He grunted with effort, shoes scraping the ground as he tried to pull the immovable thing. He adjusted his angle, where he held it, “Ghost! Help me!”

Melinda’s eyes followed an invisible thing only she and Johnny could see.

The sword didn’t move.

With a single hand, Tai picked up the blade, Johnny grasped desperately at it as she raised it above his reach. “Until you can do this, go with Melinda. You’ll be safer in a place they don’t know.”

Melinda patted Johnny on the shoulder, “It’s alright. You can help me with my work.”

“It won’t be as important,” Johnny spat.

The mortician shrugged, “Maybe, but only you could help me.”

Johnny blinked, trying to feign disinterest as Melinda continued.

“You saw how many ghosts were around my house, they aren’t old spirits. All of them are recent. Something happening in this city is killing people in strange and unusual ways, I need someone else who can talk with them. And not as a disinterested mage dappling with mediums, but someone who can understand.” The woman held Johnny with solemnity, “Can you help me with that?”

He nodded, and holding his hand, Melinda smiled at them, “We will depart for now, I wish you luck in your battles.”

“And I to yours,” Tai nodded.

They disappeared back into the alley as Celine and Tai both stepped out. Her hand was on her hilt, silently prepared as Celine followed behind her, silver threads at the ready.

They made it safely to the orphanage, and Sister Glascoin worriedly ushered them in.

Both Celine and Tai were now trapped in siege.

<><><><>

“So that’s your situation,” I muttered. The swamp elemental’s back was rough, but myconids were hardier lots since I didn’t find it that uncomfortable.

Their choice made sense. I asked Celine to flee the orphanage and meet up with Tai during the opening I created, I couldn’t guarantee her safety while I wasn’t there. Some part of me called me callous for writing off the children and Sister Glascoin, but it was an analytical part, not the kind part of me. I ultimately didn’t care about those people as much as I did Celine who I’ve spent more time with. Even then, I don’t think I would be all that upset if Celine died, given my reaction to Naukoth’s death, but it would unpleasant.

Now, the both of them bolstered the Hearth Home’s defenses, and while I wasn’t sure if we could trust this ‘Melinda’ character, the idea of leaving Johnny in an unknown safe location made sense conceptually.

There was little I could do to affect that battle, so instead I turned to the skies, where a black smoke column rose in the distance.

The wisps were running covertly throughout the city. Hopefully together they could affect the situation.

They only had to hold until we got back.