Legacies of Blood

There was no way of telling if Elaina or Kitch were ahead of Royce or behind her. The time saved with Faestep was undoubtedly helpful and would have allowed them to get ahead of anyone traveling on foot, but Royce had other ways of traveling faster than the average traveler. Elaina decided it was better to seek out someone with more insight on vishanti than merely guessing at it herself.

Located in the neighborhood of South Gate, referred to simply as the West End, Sophitia’s Tears was the last place she’d visited in town before departing for Willowridge. All of the West End was known for its nicer buildings, either untouched by the town’s destruction over a decade ago or newly established by those with the means to get the materials in place during wartime. Even so, Sophitia’s Tears stood out among them. It was a long single-story building, the front of which was a casual tavern with excellent breakfasts, while the extended back end served as an alchemy workshop. Colorful smoke floated gently up from a dozen separate chimneys lining the building’s roof.

The most important feature of the establishment for Elaina was the proprietor, Lenuta Dobre. Lenuta was a vishanti just like Royce, albeit considerably older. She and her mother had fled the occupation of the Black King in Tenebre Dontae when the woman was only twelve, and she’d lived in Zelmesca ever since.

“What is this place?” Kitch asked as they stepped through the front gate attached to a limestone wall that enclosed the front garden. A series of wind chimes hanging from the eaves of the building tinkled gently in the breeze. The sound was as soothing and inviting as it had been the first time Elaina had visited.

“A vishanti alchemist runs this place. She might have some idea of where Royce might want to go,” Elaina answered, placing her hand on the latch of the front door and pushing it open.

The handful of tables near the hearth were sparsely populated, which was pretty typical. Lenuta’s business was primarily in the early morning hours before transitioning to an alchemy-focused itinerary for the rest of the day. A bell over the door tinkled gently as they stepped inside and again as the door swung shut behind them. A moment later, Lenuta appeared from the back room, hastily wiping her hands with a clean rag.

“Elaina!” She gasped as her eyes met Elaina’s. “What an unexpected surprise.”

“It's Good to see you, Lenuta,” Elaina responded as she approached the counter. I wish this was a social call, but I need your help.”

“Of course,” Lenuta agreed ambivalently, her bright green eyes briefly looking to Kitch to size her up before returning her attention back to Elaina. Though Lenuta was much older than either of them, the vishanti woman had aged rather gracefully with few wrinkles to show for her time in the world. Even her dark hair had only a few solitary grays that were only visible in the right light. “What do you need?”

Elaina took a deep breath and explained the situation they were in as succinctly as she possibly could, lending emphasis to the curious nature of the magic circle in the gargozu lair and Royce’s remarks about the resonance she required of the space in order to realmshift home.

Lenuta’s expression grew troubled as Elaina went on, averting her eyes when Elaina described the sorts of things that had transpired in the lair as vaguely as she could. She strayed away from her mishap until the very end, deciding it was likely relevant despite the shame and embarrassment of the admission.

“It sounds like a place of debauchery and torment,” Lenuta hypothesized, politely skipping over the last part of Elaina’s story rather than asking her for any additional details. “Which would make sense for a fiendish creature.”

“What would Royce need with such a place?” Kitch asked, briefly glancing at the patrons at the nearest table to gauge whether they were listening. If they were, they made no obvious sign of it to Elaina.

“Places where such things occur attract spirits of a similar nature,” Lenuta explained, moving the ledger from the counter’s surface. She then dropped a few coins from her coin purse into one pile and a few other coins into another. “Vishanti form pacts with spirits to be granted aspects of their power, but by collecting more of the same, the power of that magic can be amplified. In this case, your witch appears to be using it for sympathetic magic.”

Lenuta glanced at Elaina briefly to make sure she was following along, even if she already knew much of the information. She then motioned to each of the small piles of coins. “Say that these two piles of coins represent the spirits available in two distinct places far apart from one another. They are rather different right now. But if they can be made to be more alike...”

The vishanti pushed a few of the silver coins out from the pile on the left to more resemble the copper-heavy pile on the right. “...you can establish magical sympathy between the two. This allows for magic over great distances at a greatly reduced cost to the caster’s stamina.”

Elaina nodded in understanding, running her finger through the pile on the left. “This was what I thought. But after damaging the work she had done with the circle, she abandoned the site to come here. I thought perhaps she knew of another place that might match the resonance she was looking for.”

“That’s a very reasonable assumption,” Lenuta agreed, her brows furrowing. “So if you have come to this conclusion already, why come to me?”

“While I could check every place in town that might meet the pre-requisites, every minute counts on this,” Elaina explained. “I don’t want to risk her slipping away while I’m checking out false leads. I know all vishanti have an affinity for perceiving spirits to some degree or another---.”

“I am not going anywhere near that witch,” Lenuta interrupted as she held a hand up to cut her off. “I absolutely refuse.”

“Please,” Kitch implored the woman. “The artifact she has stolen is incredibly powerful. Very dangerous in the wrong hands.”

Lenuta’s expression turned anxious. Elaina could see that she wanted to help but didn’t want to risk being pulled into something with another vishanti by mistake. “I can’t. I’m sorry. But I may have something that could be of use to you.”

Elaina and Kitch exchanged glances as the vishanti stepped away from the counter and vanished into the back room for a moment to sift through her inventory of pre-made potions and elixirs. After a few minutes, she returned with two small vials of deep purple liquid, which she placed on the counter. “Potions of spirit sight. Direct and to the point. They should last for a few hours, granting you the means to perceive spirits the way any vishanti would with the gift to do so.”

“Ouah!” Kitch exclaimed happily, snatching up one of the vials to examine further. She held it up to the light before giving it a few sniffs with her rat-like nose. “C'est merveilleux! Exactly what we needed.”

Lenuta regarded the kyrsahn with a hint of amusement in her eyes as she scooped the assortment of coins on the counter back into her coin purse. Elaina picked up the second vial, turning it over in her fingers a few times before her eyes rose to meet the vishanti’s. “How’s it going to taste?”

“Foul,” Lenuta answered curtly. “With a lingering aftertaste, I’m afraid.”

“No matter,” Kitch waved dismissively, reaching down to a pouch hanging from her belt. “What do we owe you?”

“Payment isn’t necessary,” Lenuta objected, waving both hands. “Not for this. I don’t wish to get involved, but I don’t need this witch running around further damaging people’s perception of my people, either. Things are bad enough for us.”

“Then I must,” Kitch insisted, thumbing a few gold coins onto the counter. “To ease the suffering of your people, if nothing else.”

Lenuta glanced at Elaina doubtfully. The redhead nodded, encouraging her. It was more of a matter of Kitch’s honor than anything. She wasn’t the type to leave someone uncompensated for valuable services, and this seemed like a fair compromise.

“This is more than fair,” Lenuta agreed, sliding the gold coins into her coin purse along with the others. “You’re most generous miss....?

“Steelwhisker,” Kitch responded with a twitch of her whiskers to emphasize the name. “Kitch Steelwhisker.”

“Thank you,” Lenuta said gratefully, then turned her attention back to Elaina. “Normally, I would give you a quick primer on what to expect, but if you’re pressed for time, I shouldn’t keep you.”

“Perhaps a little of what to expect might be helpful,” Elaina chuckled, fiddling with the stopper between her fingers. “Going in blind could be just as costly for time.”

Lenuta nodded in agreement, a look of satisfaction on her face after hearing Elaina choose the cautious approach. “Not every spirit will look as you expect, but the potion should cause most spirits to appear translucent to you. Only those actively trying to elude you will be able to do so. Something to remember when it comes to spirits: if you can see them, they can see you. Interact as little as possible, ignore them whenever possible, or you’ll find them following you around to try and coax you into something.”

“Will they be able to hurt us?” Kitch asked cautiously.

“No more than they usually would,” Lenuta answered honestly. “That is to say, it varies from spirit to spirit. Most have no reason even to try, so don’t give them one.”

“Understood,” the kyrsahn responded. She made a brief motion toward the door with her head. “We should be going.”

“Right,” Elaina acknowledged, though she made no immediate move to leave the counter. Something about the situation didn’t feel right. The moment that Kitch suggested they move on, she felt the slight tingle at the base of her skull that typically warned her of danger. But the source of the threat was usually quick to follow soon after. Seconds passed, then almost a minute, but nothing.

“Elaina?” Kitch called from the door, looking back at her with a look the redhead recognized as confusion for a kyrsahn. It was all in the ears and the whiskers, as the brows of the race weren’t quite as expressive. “What’s wrong? We’re losing daylight.”

“Nothing, I suppose,” Elaina murmured, thanking Lenuta again by way of a weak smile before joining Kitch at the door. She offered Lenuta a final wave and stepped back into the front garden with her companion.

“Where will we be looking first?” Kitch asked, popping the stopper from her vial and downing the contents in a single gulp. If it tasted as bad as Lenuta said, she made no indication of such.

Elaina waited until she was past the gate before downing her own vial. It tasted like burnt hair had been dragged through someone’s underwear after a long day of work. She wretched wildly, nearly vomiting the potion right back up before it could do its job. “EUGH! That’s fucking awful!”

“I’ve had worse,” the kyrsahn remarked casually as she watched Elaina with amusement.

“It’s vile,” Elaina added, doing her best to shake off the nausea the potion had caused. Fortunately, the haze of spiritual activity in her surroundings helped distract her from it long enough to get her bearings. “We’re heading over to Demon’s Village.”

“That is not a good name for a village to have,” Kitch responded ambivalently. “Why?”

Elaina cleared her throat, her eyes darting at the shifting form of hazy spirits as she led them east along the road. The spirits here seemed docile but also sad. The vaguely human-shaped individuals had something in their posture that looked forlorn, but the sense of sorrow she got from the less recognizable forms was harder for her to explain.

“Demon’s Village is a neighborhood on the other side of town where people with fiendish blood tend to live,” Elaina explained as she stepped past a dog-sized four-legged creature that looked like a tortoise covered in moss. It chewed something lazily as it watched them pass, seemingly unconcerned with their presence. “When the wall of South Gate was destroyed at the beginning of the war, the fiend that did it left behind considerable profane resonance that causes anyone without fiendish blood to become uneasy---or worse over time. Because they’re immune, it’s a perfect place for them to live undisturbed in a little enclave of their own.”

“I see,” Kitch acknowledged, pondering for a moment as they passed another spirit that just appeared to be a large, extravagant lamp post that slept the daytime hours away. “So you believe this fiendish energy will attract spirits of torment and the like?”

“Yes, but more to the point is that Demon’s Village has a...” Elaina paused to think of a polite word to use before continuing. “...robust red lantern district.”

Kitch’s ears turned back slightly as her whiskers twitched. “You came by this information how?”

“When Resius and I first obtained the schematics for Willowridge, we went to speak with someone on that end of town,” Elaina answered, slightly amused. “He cut through there on the way, but I didn’t take you to be such a prude about things.”

“I am not,” Kitch sniffed indignantly, squaring her shoulders. “But I cannot have you becoming distracted at such a crucial stage of things.”

Elaina rolled her eyes but had to admit that the kyrsahn had a point. She’d heard the explanation Oonagh had given her just as well as she had, so there was little point in denying that something powerful tugged at her beneath the surface to engage in spontaneous sexual acts. In this case, she was confident she could keep her focus long enough to finish the job. “I won’t get distracted.”

Kitch said nothing but appeared satisfied with her answer.

Passing through the center of town, they were slowed only briefly by the activity of the marketplace. With so many bodies moving around, it was sometimes tricky for Elaina to tell which were people and which were spirits of commerce and trade moving among the people. Even little spirits of hunger could be seen floating around like fluffy balls on the wind with large drooling teeth. More pleasant entities could be seen hanging about certain carts of produce, engaging in little squabbles with disgusting rotting things and scaring them off. Some vendors attracted floating charismatic motes of salesmanship, while others had literal storm clouds over their heads, wishing to be anywhere but there.

Elaina had a better idea now of the advantages that some vishanti had with everyday tasks. The presence of certain spirits, if one was educated enough, gave important context clues to people’s moods and motivations---not to mention the current condition of the produce. With more study, she imagined there were a great deal of secrets in everyday life that could be laid bare to a person, but she remembered what Lenuta said about speaking to such entities. Everything with them was transactional, so one had to weigh whether the cost was worth whatever they sought to obtain.

“Hm,” Kitch grunted to get Elaina’s attention. Once the redhead met her gaze, she briefly glanced behind them as casually as she could manage. There, larger spirits with more weight to their presence followed behind them. Some of the forlorn entities she had written off at Lenuta’s were following after them. Alongside them were spirits she didn’t recognize. Judging by the heavy breasts of one with stag-like features bearing cherries and another whose lips were its defining feature in an eyeless face, she had to assume they had something to do with lust. Though they trailed behind the pair, there was no mistaking that they were following them at a safe distance.

Many of the smaller and more innocuous spirits of the market actively moved away from those trailing behind them, setting Elaina a little more on edge. “This might be an issue.”

“What do they want with us?” Kitch muttered without taking her eyes off the road before them. They were leaving the marketplace, making it even more obvious that the spirits had latched onto them for some reason.

“I don’t know,” Elaina frowned, steadying her breath so she didn’t overreact. “But if we don’t interact with them, Lenuta said everything should be alright.”

Demon’s Village was different from other parts of South Gate. Where parts of the town used salvaged pieces of the wall sparingly, the neighborhood of fiends made heavy use of them in every building lining the streets. They were packed a little more closely together, with several narrow alleys that wound off of the main road leading up the hill. Much of the ramshackle construction was similar enough from building to building that one would almost think it had been given more planning than it had. The feeling of unease that Elaina had experienced on her previous trip set in almost immediately.

Along with that inexplicable sense came spirits attracted to the subtle magical resonance. Bound entities walked the streets. Broken things clung to any surface they could while unsightly pustules pulsed and swelled from old structures of reclaimed stone. Spirits with more demonic and devilish appearances could also be seen lingering about, sitting on low walls watching people pass by or capering about on rooftops that looked to be within days of collapsing.

Though they resembled the fiends in superficial ways, they were more half-formed than their real counterparts. They were representations of things rather than the things themselves and, as such, held features that didn’t quite belong or left out features where some should have been. Most were also much smaller---no bigger than rats--- and appeared to be more interested in the buildings than the people, as they were what held the resonance that drew them to the area in the first place.

As they neared the red lantern section of the village, the nature of the spirits changed, becoming distinctly more licentious and lewd in appearance. Dripping flowers that looked conspicuously like vaginas in heat bloomed from flower boxes while phallic shapes of wood and stone became more common. Some of the spirits, glutted by whatever power that sustained them, had grown to be more human-sized forms with all of the lustful embellishments one might have expected. Elaina reminded herself continuously to remain focused, not to give the spirits any attention lest they try to rope her into something she couldn’t handle. But the further they went under the glow of floating motes of lustful reds, the more difficult it became for her. Many began to take notice of her as she moved past them.

“I think this would drive me crazy if I had to see it all the time,” Kitch remarked absently. Elaina had to agree. It made things a lot more challenging to sort through for any vishanti who was naturally gifted with such sight. But she supposed they learned to control it as anyone might with such magical abilities, closing themselves off to it unless actively using it.

“You don’t care for the decor of our humble part of town?” A thick and heavy female voice asked from beside the door of a nearby establishment. Elaina remembered her from the last time she’d come through with Resius. The woman had lavender-tinted skin, horns atop her head, and luscious bare breasts pierced through the nipples to catch the eye with their twinkling every time she shifted her weight. Her eyes, completely black and oily, matched the darkness of her hair and various markings down her shoulders and arms. When she smiled, her teeth were perfectly white with pronounced canines. She obviously hadn’t known what Kitch was talking about when she made her comment.

“Excuse me,” Kitch muttered uneasily, unsure how to explain what she meant.” I did not mean---.”

“I remember you,” the woman said, coming off of the wall to run a finger down the side of Elaina’s face. “You’re Ryan’s friend, the one who paid me that lovely compliment. Have you returned to claim your discount, my dear?”

Elaina blushed, her face almost as hot as the fire in her loins when the woman made contact with her. Many of the spirits lingering in the narrow alley turned to look in her direction. It was eerie as if they knew precisely what dirty thoughts had filled her mind and stood in silent judgment of her.

The swordmage steeled herself, refocusing her mind as she placed a hand over the whore’s, guiding it gently from her face. “Perhaps, but first, I have some business to attend to. I’m looking for someone. Perhaps you’ve seen her around?”