For an abandoned house at the back of a sketchy alley, it was pretty well furnished.

 

The entry hall was similar to the others I’d seen, with clean stone blocks in the floor and neat wood siding on the walls. A small lamp hung overhead, its white light temporarily hidden by its cover. Further in, I could see a living room through a narrow threshold, and we walked in to investigate. 

 

Four hardy pillows with covers of leather sat around a low table in front of a dead fireplace, though a metal ember shield separated them. A couple cabinets and a shelf filled with various knick knacks, foodstuffs, and the occasional plate stood in front of the walls, though none of it looked particularly suspicious. There were no windows save one on the front to my right, but it was boarded so securely that I couldn’t see even the morning sun. The roof was quite low, but not claustrophobic, and there was a fresh coat of paint on the wooden walls. It smelled of old wood and leather polish, and the planks that came up to cover the stone creaked under step. Much removed from its decayed exterior, the inside had much of a charming veneer, an entirely surprising result given what we feared would happen in this place.

 

I shut the door behind me, and it softly clicked into place, silencing the gentle wind that had been blowing after us. The chill from its passing, however, lingered like a ghost.

 

“The door seals pretty well for an abandoned building.” I muttered.

 

The others didn’t respond, but instead drew their bird-like masks over their eyes. After watching the translucent blue shield briefly ripple over them, I did the same. My skin prickled as it washed over me, my hairs standing upright with static.

 

I’d never put on a shield before, but Fredrick had briefed me on its use on the way over. Supposedly it could block a dozen or so spells depending on strength, even the crappy ones we’d ‘borrowed’ from the academy. Physical strikes from mundane weapons would pass through it, though they would face some resistance depending on what metal the weapon was made of. Still, twelve hits wasn’t exactly a ton so he’d pressed pretty strongly that I shouldn’t test it if I could help it. For all we knew these old ones might even be close to breaking.

 

There was a hall to the right of the shelf, and Fredrick and Breale led the way with swords drawn. In this way we snaked through the house, eager for any sign of life.

 

To our disappointment, we found nothing. 

 

It was a two story building, with a common bedroom and a storage closet upstairs and the living room, entry, kitchen, and bathroom downstairs. There were four messy one-person beds in the bedroom and the kitchen was obviously recently used, but there was no signs of life beyond that. None of the shelves contained demonic trinkets and nor did the few books we found scream of the occult. It seemed for all intents and purposes a suspiciously well-maintained abandoned house.

 

“Are you sure we got the right address?” Breale plopped down onto one of the pillows. “Because the only things here are jack and shit.”

 

“It has to be. Her diary was clear.” Fredrick glared at his sister as he inspected one of the shelves. “Also: language.”

 

I paced over the floors as they talked, tracing the footsteps. It was hard given how we had just tramped in and the Veroline custom of removing shoes when you entered a building, but I could definitely see a scant few in the dust. It was only that most of them disappeared into the kitchen wall.

 

Which would normally imply to me that there was obviously a secret door there, but the wall itself was only a few inches thick. I could actually spread my arms around the corner and physically touch both sides of it at the same time.

 

What was I missing here?

 

“Maybe they just meet up here before they take to the sewers or something.” Breale said.

 

“That doesn’t sound unlikely, but if that’s the case we might be out of luck.” Fredrick sighed. “None of these books have anything remotely similar to an address.”

 

“Maybe we should just go back and see if we can help Auro then.” Breale said.

 

I felt my hands all over the wall, trying to see if any of it gave way to a button. Nothing happened, though that wasn’t entirely surprising. I didn’t think a complex mechanical door would be all too practical for a small secret cult. Something like that would probably require guild carpenters at the very least.

 

“That might be best. By the Star, I can’t believe we were too late…”

 

What if it wasn’t in the wall at all then? Perhaps it was a magical door instead. Or maybe it was just really well hidden.

 

Nodding to myself, I placed my palm on the wall and spoke a single lmeri word.

 

“Salur.”

 

There was a sudden rush of air, but nothing happened.

 

Salur was supposedly a spell that just made a small section of dense air that would disperse with a loud noise or ‘pop’, hence the name. The manuals had suggested uses such as dislodging barnacles or other cleaning, which would normally make it a pretty worthless spell, but I had quickly found that it worked slightly differently for me. Instead of blowing air out, it would suck air in.

 

Of course, I had very little idea why it’d work like that instead. Did the original spell just heat air to cause it to disperse, which would cause the cold element to do the opposite? Did ice just change into an effect that felt like it did what it did? Could it even be that magic itself was sentient and it knew what would be ‘cool’? I’d probably never know.

 

Well, it definitely wasn’t the last one, at least. I had tried dozens of Veroline spells over the last couple weeks, and the majority didn’t have neat opposite effects like this one. Really, only Embersnap and Pop did so far, with the others just being slightly differently flavoured if they worked at all.

 

Wait, the door wouldn’t be on the wall itself if there was one, would it? There wasn’t enough space, so it had to be somewhere else. What if instead of a magic door, it was…

 

I moved my hand to the seemingly perfect wooden floor.

 

“Saphry? We’re thinking about-” Breale began.

 

“Salur.”

 

A squarish section of floor popped slightly up before falling down with a small thud.

 

Jackpot.

 

“Salur!” 

 

Having double the power it had before, the door shot open on a hinge to reveal a ladder down into a warmly lit basement. I could see neat stacks of books lining the corridor walls down there, and they were entirely constructed of rock and stone. Worryingly, shouting and the clanging of steel could be heard from further inside.

 

But immediately worse than that was the man standing under the ladder clad in red and white robes. He dragged the bloodied corpse of a Minuan guard under his left arm. A cracked combat mask was around his neck in two pieces, and a knife dripping with the guard’s insides was grasped in his right hand.

 

We stared at each other for only a second before I took one last look at the Mavericks and hopped up and into the hole.

 

“Saphry?!” I heard Breale shout.

 

“Relicin!”

 

“Who are-” The man began.

 

A loud crack snapped through the air to accompany the sheet of ice that materialised over his right arm and shoulder. My extended foot landed only a second later, and the frozen skin shattered under the force of my boot, leaving a very bloody mess behind. 

 

He immediately started screaming, of course.

 

“PITCHING HE-”

 

“Salur.”

 

I landed on my feet, another spell leaving my lips before I’d even righted myself. He immediately lurched towards my hand, propelled by the unexpected negative pressure. I grabbed his forehead as he fell.

 

“Relicin.”

 

“Wai-!”

 

With the direct contact and the lack of any magic shield, it was no wonder his head froze through, or at least enough to impact his brain. He fell to his knees and then to the floor, the bloodied knife dropping harmlessly to the ground beside him.

 

I blinked in surprise at what I’d just done.

 

Had I… killed him? Just like that?

 

I nudged his shoulder with my foot as the Mavericks raced to the hatch above. He didn’t move.

 

“Saphry! Pitch it all, what did you….ah.”

 

I looked up, stunned. 

 

“Magic is a little…eh…” I paused, suddenly not feeling in the mood for jokes. “Ah, I…”

 

Breale landed beside me and drew me into a hug.

 

“Amazing! You did great! Though it would’ve been better if we could’ve questioned him.”

 

“I…”

 

I hadn’t even thought as I’d done it. As if it didn’t mean anything to me.

 

“This guard’s dead, obviously. Though he is from the palace. Perhaps our warning fell on sympathetic ears after all.” Fredrick said.

 

Fredrick crouched over the guard’s corpse, though I didn’t hear him come down.

 

“Is that fighting further down?” Breale asked. “A squad must’ve beaten us here! Let’s go help!”

 

I blinked again, only for the clanging of steel on steel and the subtle wooshes of magic to start down the hall.

 

I shook my head. 

 

This wasn’t the time for moral dilemmas. Andril depended on us, whenever he knew it or not, and potentially the entire city as well. And if that required killing demon summoners, well… that was the path they’d chosen. I… I can’t pull my strikes for people like this.

 

“Let’s get going already.” I said, as much for myself as for the others. “It’s never good to be late.”

…

“These are the sewer maintenance tunnels, if I had to hazard a guess.” Fredrick said as we ran. “They must’ve tunnelled inside to get around the city easier.”

 

The tunnel was squarish in shape, with the occasional stone arch to give it structure. The blocks making it up were of the same variety as the house foundations up on the surface, though each individual one was bigger by a factor of three. Thankfully, there was no brackish sewer water to contend with either, though the sound of flowing water could be faintly heard over the cacoughany.

 

The sounds of fighting echoed all around us. I noted scattered blood and burns on the walls as we ran, though thankfully only one more corpse, and even that belonged to a cultist rather than a guard. From how it looked, the suppressing force must’ve caught the Moon Thorns by surprise and quickly pushed them down the tunnels. If we had any luck, the one we found earlier could be the only casualty.

 

“I’d hold off on the magic if I were you, unless it’s completely necessary.” Breale warned. “An arrested cultist is one thing, but a guard’s word is trusted.”

 

“Noted.”

 

“And…” She paused as she stepped up to another threshold and looked inside. 

 

“Shit.”

 

We peeked around, only to find a horror show awaiting us.

 

Over two dozen wounded lay about the room in various states of life. Over a dozen of these were Minuan guards in the colours of the duke, each one weakly writhing in pain from the horrid burns covering their bodies. Melted armour, broken kite shields, and shattered masks littered the ash-covered floor. Three men in red robes stumbled around the wounded, cutting down each one with a few merciless stabs.

 

Listening anew, I could now see that the shouting and sounds of clashing metal had died.

 

But the carnage wasn’t all that surprised me, though I was certain it would stay with me the longest.

 

The room was no ordinary maintenance room, but had deep troughs cut into the ground in which blood oozed towards a lowered slab of slate the size of a couple phone books. Another robed man stood above it with a book and a bloodied hand, and leaning against the wall to his left was none other than a badly wounded Hosi bleeding from a hole where her left arm had been. She held a sword in her lap as she weakly watched the insanity that had materialised above the slab.

 

A shadowy portal of black and white hung over the slab, one which required very little imagination to know where it led.