Bruna pulled in her legs and then arched her back, rising up on her feet and shoulders as she let out a long, ragged breath, as if she couldn't even scream. Collapsing once more, she lay there huffing and sweating as I frantically studied her with fairy sight.
"Bruna?" Ceria cried, grabbing her hand.
As I had feared, in that one burst, I had wiped out more than half the miasma that had been crawling over her body. If I had aimed at her whole body, I could have killed her. Being entirely without miasma is potentially lethal to monsters. Her mana flows were running wild throughout her body, and for a moment I thought I would have to cast [Heal] to keep her alive until they settled down. But as I watched, her flows became smooth and her breathing steadied.
"I won't do that again for a while," I said. "I don't think another hit would be safe for you, until the miasma builds up again."
Purification had halted the bracelet's action. I touched it and activated it again, then put it on her wrist as gently as I could.
"That fan helped?" Bruna wondered. She sounded a little less in pain now, even though her nerve endings were probably still ringing from the purification. The miasma ache must have been really bad. The relief in her voice relieved some of my worries too.
"It did help," I nodded, looking down at it again. It was beautifully made, and the materials were all in perfect shape. "I wish I could keep it."
"You could claim it as part of your share."
I looked up at her, baffled. "Can't you tell? This thing is probably worth more than the rest of our loot and all our equipment combined! You two are going to be rich from your shares!"
"If we make it out," Bruna added, with a wry grin. "And I'm guessing when you say 'all our equipment' you're not including that sword of yours."
I pursed my lips. "You noticed, huh?"
"Amazons don't have fairy eyes, but we can see through magic cloaks and disguises, if you give us long enough. That's pure mithril, isn't it?"
To the side, Ceria was still studying the silk, as if she were hypnotized by it. But I noticed her nodding at Bruna's words. She had also known. Some anti-stealth magic skill in her case, no doubt.
I admitted, "Yeah. Do I have to be careful not to turn my back now?"
Bruna laughed. "I don't think it would be a good idea to make an enemy out of you, Lady. We just watched an asura run from you in terror. And I clearly heard that you fought her and injured her before? You destroyed her heart?"
I nodded. "She attacked me on the way home from my school, nine... no it's probably ten days ago, now."
Bruna shook her head. "Yeah. You're safe from us. I'm beginning to take what that demoness said seriously. The fairy vampire thing is a lie. Except, you're not a dhampir, you're an actual, living strega, aren't you?"
Shocked, I ask, "Do you know what that means? They keep calling me that, but I have no idea!"
Ceria finally joined the conversation, finally taking her eyes off the silk. "Are you serious? Back in Bray, we have all kinds of old stories about stregas. We learned about them in temple school."
"But the priestesses claim they're long gone," Bruna noted. "Like, the ancients wiped them all out, and that's why Heaven is pissed off at Humanity forever. They were Heaven's representatives, but the ancient nobles didn't like how stregas could punish them for things they did, so they rebelled and killed them all."
That description had a couple points that sounded similar to the legend that Arken had made me read.
Ceria mused, "You Atians have completely different beliefs than we do in, here in the north. You call your gods by different names too. I guess maybe you don't have stories about stregas there?"
"I've never heard of them."
They looked like they didn't believe me, but I was telling the truth. The only 'stregas' I knew were from a light novel, back on Earth. One that had nothing to do with Huade.
"The slaughter of the stregas is the reason we have monsters and demons everywhere, and the reason for fairies too," Ceria explained. "Heaven sent the monsters and demons to punish the mortals for killing their servants, and it sent the fairies to take care of nature, because the stregas had been in charge of it."
"Yeah, that's right, Sis. I'm your punishment," Bruna said with a grin, finally sitting up.
Ceria stuck her tongue out at her, then told me, "But the fairies decided the punishment was too harsh and we mortals needed help, so they taught the smarter monsters to be nice to us. That's why amazons and vampires and such started living with us."
This was all a completely different set of beliefs than Tiana had learned from the royal tutors, but I had already known Bray was a very different culture from Atius or Doria. The party had spent several weeks working from there. And I already realized that I was hearing the Braysian origin-of-evil story. It was their explanation for why bad things happened, just like Pandora's Box, or Eve and the Apple.
Of course, there was one tiny detail that clearly meant the demons and these two were wrong about me, right?
"I have to feed on mortal blood though, so I'm certainly not Heaven's servant."
"Wrong," Ceria shook her head. "The stories say that stregas took mortal servants that fed them and worked for them. They say that Heaven made stregas dependent on mortals so they would be patient with us instead of just giving up and wiping us all out. They don't say how stregas fed on their servants, just that it didn't hurt them, and they say that vampires and succubi and such feed on mortals to remind us of what we did to Heaven's representatives. So maybe they did drink blood."
I had been growing more and more uncomfortable with this as it continued. Ceria seemed to be getting enthusiastic, like she believed I was actually one of these creatures from her myths. Her fervor was clearly affected by the blood bond, so I decided I ought to shut it down.
"Ceria, my father was a vampire and my mother is a fairy. I'm not one of these legendary beings. Okay?"
Bruna grinned. "Well, those demons think you are.. The asura might have thought at first that her boy was full of it about you, but after you hit her with purification, she believed. She ran like a rabbit."
She cocked her head and added, "The pictures always show beautiful women with black wings. Sometimes they include male ones they call 'stregones', but most of the stories and pictures are beautiful stregas. They look like you, and you made the third most powerful class of demon run. Hard not to think of you as something as strong as Heaven, you know?"
Wanting a subject change, I insisted we get breakfast together. It was frustrating that the grounds were now littered with dead monsters, and not one was a type that was good for eating. We were getting low on supplies too. But I squeezed water out for everyone, and filled their canteens as well, and I made them finish the last of my dried fruit. They were starting their third day on a diet of jerky and hardtack. That was just no good.
"So, as for what we do next," I began as we were eating. "We don't have a lot of choices now. We're strong enough to get you back to town, so we should leave."
"Once we're gone, those demons might come back and take your friends somewhere else," Ceria pointed out.
"I'm not sure about that. They're bait," I answered. "The demons left them here to lure the rest of the party back. That Trisiagga knows I was part of the party; that's why she showed up once her underling confirmed it."
"Because it's the hero's party. They want to take the entire party prisoner," Bruna interpreted.
I nodded. "But this can't be an organized thing. I think this is one asura freelancing with her underlings. Otherwise, they would have more forces here. It's been too piecemeal."
"Lady, what's this hero's party supposed to be doing?" Bruna wondered. "I mean, the demon lord is in the Regaritan Empire. He's not here in Hamagaar."
"We were trying to find clues as to how they were sneaking so many demons into Orestania. They've been able to locate and steal several important artifacts already, and destroy some important defensive formations. They've also caused a number of monster stampedes that have been causing the locals trouble. It's all little things, but they are running the Royal Knights and the Royal Army ragged, chasing them everywhere. We were working to find out how they were doing it and put a stop to it."
"Why not go straight at the problem in the Regaritan Empire?"
I shook my head. "Ryuu's not strong enough yet. He was continuously getting stronger, but how soon he could head into the Empire and take on the big demons depended upon how long it would take for him to become as strong as them. When he does, we'll still need to use the whole Royal Army to support him. The Royal Augurs all claim he has the potential for it, but... well, he didn't beat whatever petrified him here, right?"
"What do you think?"
I was beginning to wonder where Bruna was going with all this. "I don't have the same faith that he can do it, but I serve the king who is supporting him, so I have to support him."
She frowned, but nodded.
"Why are you asking this?" I asked.
"You're really, really powerful, right?"
It seemed like a non-sequitur question. "Huh? Well in terms of raw power, yes, but I'm very short on skill when it comes to magic."
She pointed to where Graham still stood, about ten paces away from where we were eating. "Now that you've shown the enemy what they're up against, they won't mess around anymore. If you leave these guys here, there's either gonna be a huge welcoming committee waiting here for you, or they will just take your friends and run away before you return. That hero guy might disappear and be lost forever."
I nodded, but I was still unsure what the point was. "And?"
"This hero party sounds like really important stuff. Too important to take that kind of risk. Instead of just leaving them behind, why aren't you trying to unpetrify one of them yourself?"
yaaay Bruna is doubting the claims about Ryuu's abilities and thinking critically, maybe she won't end up trapped in the hero's harem, never to emerge again. Also she's being very smart by realizing how dumb an idea it would be to make an enemy out of Tiana when she could be an ally/friend of hers, and this is before finding out her real identity.
For the strega thing-they seem to be some kind of (fallen?) angel proxy/equivalent? Servants of heaven that are powerful with holy magic, though in this case apparently also able to use dark magic/abilities. Seems like a really neat idea, I hope we find out more about them later. Tiana possibly is one/basically is one because of her mix of holy/unholy attributes. I wonder if the original stregas were able to use holy magic/purification without the pain Tiana suffers while using it, and if Tiana might be able to develop that someday
As for Tiana doing the healing of the petrification-that's what I expected really. Now just to see how much of a bunch of assholes Ryuu and co are about it after Tiana saves them when they find out she learned the healing magic after accidentally turning Melione into a blood slave (and now has a second one so they would be able to survive all the demon attacks in the mine). 1000 to 1 the three of them are going to be absolute jackasses about it and accuse her of doing it on purpose, and then probably spread negative rumors about her once they reach civilization again. They definitely seem that petty-Brigette especially because of her her infatuation with Arken and jealousy over Tiana's closeness to Arken. Thinking about it, it's actually possible after she heals the first one, they won't trust her to heal the others because of their paranoia
I'd leave Ryuu last to unpetrify tbh. No matter what he's going to be a pain and I'd rather fight with one person than 2.
@Bigdsweetz there are three to unpetrify, brigette might be last since she's the least vital and Graham can be used as a guinea pig since he's more likely to survive any mishaps
@MarkofWisdom Yeah, but I'm just saying that Ryuu is a d*ck and should be left to last imho. I KNOW that he needs to be thawed if they really need to get out of there, but the fact that he's a Godzilla sized phallic toy really wants me to have T just leave him. I KNOW that's not going to happen, but it's what I'm thinking because of how big of an Ahole him and the group is.
@Bigdsweetz I agree, it really would be better for everyone involved if Ryuu just stayed a frozen statue at the bottom of the mine, or better yet thrown into the bottom of the ocean
@MarkofWisdom The ocean would reject him.
@Bigdsweetz then chuck him into the demon king's palace and be done with it. We all know Tiana's going to be the one having to clean up his messes later anyways after he f**** up yet again and she's going to be the one doing the heavy lifting while Ryuu gets all the credit.
@MarkofWisdom I agree. I really don't see why T's mother hasn't just had T learn how to fight the demon lord head on at this point. I've not seen such an insufferable person in a book since the main character of RE:Zero...
@Bigdsweetz Tiana's mother probably doesn't care about the greater world all that much aside from the things she is personally involved in, and now that she has a kid with Owen on the way about Owen's kingdom. So if the demon lord is smart and steers waaaaaaay clear of pissing Sasara off she may be fine with letting things play out for now.
Who knows though, maybe she does have/will have plans for that eventually after finding out about the strega thing, the increased demon attacks (the ones targeting Tiana obviously), and Tiana's blood bond based magic learning abilities. Sasara definitely wouldn't care about saving Ryuu though, except maybe as a byproduct of not wanting Owen to be sad/annoyed at his investment going off and getting itself killed, and making the world safer for her daughter and unborn child. I wonder when the wedding bells for Sasara and Owen will start
A thought I had about the blood bond magic learning is the possibility of Sasara capturing evil mages or condemned mages and having Tiana learn more magic from them, before killing the condemned mage so they can't influence Tiana or be traced back to her. Tiana seems to permanently learn the spells after having a blood bonded person use them, so even if a blood slave dies she should keep any spells she learned from them
@MarkofWisdom That's an interesting theory.
@Bigdsweetz It seems in character for Sasara-she's quite ruthless and pragmatic and is fully willing to use the darker/more shady sides of magic if they are already existing-see stuff like keeping the darkness elementals that Duke Egon summoned around even after she killed him since they're useful to her and didn't get in her way/go against her. The initial damage/taboo of making a blood bond is already done so they might as well take advantage of it since there are clear benefits to both sides of the equation. She'll have found a new way to make Tiana stronger and better able to take care of herself and her friends which is something she's been looking for and would almost certainly want to explore the options of-the condemned mages and such might not come until later after Tiana's learned everything from Ceria. Heck, one of the first mages for Tiana to learn from might be one that knows the blood bond anti charm bracelet spell so Tiana can do it herself to keep her blood bonded servants from being mentally affected or charmed
Also it's a personal thing of wanting to see Sasara do more cool things and get closer with the new Tiana so she has her daughter back...even if she's not the same as before
@DKnight I said this before but she has options waking up Ryu.
Konichwa Ryu Baka
So it really does take two atomic bombs to pound sense into a Japanese.