“I’m not sure I should be letting Alexa choose your quests any longer,” Lily said after I’d caught a quick shower and nap. Thankfully, the painkillers and nap had taken the edge off my headache. Now it just felt like a day-old caffeine headache. The three of us were now back in our sparsely furnished living room, clean and looking better off. Still, healing required food, and thus we were holding this meeting over the remnants of three large pizzas. Hawaiian for me, a meat lover’s for Alexa, and a custom seafood, vegetable, and salami mix for Lily.
I laughed softly and shifted gingerly in my chair, my injured arm gently cradled in the other. “We are still getting the experience rewards, right?”
“And the money,” Alexa confirmed while Lily sighed and waved her hand.
Quest complete! You successfully murdered the murder of Mystic Crows.
+187 XP
PS: Not all subjugation quests have to be finished with violence.
I laughed at Lily’s note but had to admit the jinn had a point. Then again, Alexa had not been particularly interested in talking. Still, while being a murderhobo was all well and good in roleplaying games, running around killing everything you saw and stealing from every unlocked door was a good way to end up in jail in the real world.
“Well, the next few we don’t have much choice on,” I said, glancing at the blood-stained envelope and the pieces of paper that it once held. Lily sniffed at my words, glaring at the paper. After a moment, new notifications flashed in front of me.
New Quest Accepted – Help Alexa Complete Her Squire Trials (Chained Quest)
This is a chained quest. You must complete the sub-quests to complete the major quest.
Sub-quests:
“Is this normal?” I asked quietly, staring at the three tasks. Considering what she had said, I expected something a little bloodier. And rote. Other than the Wynn Mushrooms, most of these looked rather specific to our city.
“No,” Alexa said simply. “Normally it’s more to deal with a haunting or killing a few undead. Maybe travel to Africa and kill a few shifters.”
“Wait, you kill shifters?” I asked, disapproval in my voice. “I thought—”
“They were civilized? Most are, but there are roaming mercenary groups of shifters in Africa who offer their services to various warlords. And who don’t bother asking the populace their thoughts when they recruit new members.” Alexa’s face darkened. “You’d be surprised how many charitable Christian missions include a class of initiates on their class test.”
“I… see.” I prodded at my own feelings, trying to decide how I felt about sending a bunch of teenagers out on a kill mission, and I found I truly had very little objections. It didn’t seem that different from the government doing the same. At least in this case, they were going after known assholes. Or so I hoped.
“Guess we’re special,” I said, rubbing my chin. “Which one do you think we should tackle first?”
“Why don’t we split it?” Alexa said, tapping the air in front of her before realizing I could not see what she saw. Being part of my party, Lily had shared a stripped-down version of my notification screen with Alexa. The party screen and Alexa’s health gauge were two of the things that the wish benefitted the initiate directly on. “I’ll visit the orphanage, and you talk to El about where you can find Wynn Mushrooms.”
“El probably would know if anyone does,” I said, agreeing with Alexa. El was my pixie friend, a used clothing shopkeeper I had known before the change. The pixie’s other, less public job was buying and selling alchemical and enchantment ingredients for the supernatural population. “But it won’t take me very long to finish with El. So why don’t I meet you at the orphanage? That way you can meet with them first anyway.”
Alexa’s lips pursed and for a moment. I wondered if she didn’t want me to visit the orphanage. After all, I was an evil sorcerer, at least to some strict interpretations. It’d bitten us in the ass a few times before.
“Okay,” Alexa said after a moment, seeming to have come to a decision. We continued to chat for a bit, Lily providing a little more background on the mushrooms, which—I was unhappy to learn—were not known to grow in clumps. In fact, the magical mushrooms grew and thrived in areas of intense emotion. As for Leprechaun’s Foot, either the jinn really knew nothing or felt it was better for us to learn about it ourselves. Myself, I was pretty sure it was the second option.
***
As usual, the window display at Nora’s, El’s shop, had changed again, filled with a tasteful and colorful ensemble of clothing on mannequins. The display mostly focused on women’s clothing, though I did see a particular hipster ensemble with a hat, skinny pants, and a fringed jean shirt that made my lips quirk. Then again, I was wearing a shirt that had Han Solo saying: “Make it so.” Perhaps critiquing other people’s fashion choices might not be my best move.
Inside Nora’s was the usual cluster of used clothing racks, carefully laid out to allow shoppers to browse in peace while allowing El to watch everyone. It even had a few safety mirrors set up, though only after my transformation did I notice they had been enchanted to strip away enchantments from the reflections. At least, for those who had the eyes to see.
El herself was busy at one corner of the counter, working through a pile of clothing brought in by one of her irregular “suppliers.” Like myself, before my wish, they had deposited an eclectic mix of clothing purchased at garage sales, other used stores, eBay, and storage auctions. Rather than bother El, I browsed the store myself until she was free.
“Henry,” El called. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw her nod at me, and for a second, I had a sense of vertigo. At first, she looked like the matronly older woman I had known for years, a hefty brunette who always had a kind smile and an ability to pay more than other stores. Then, the flame-haired, slim beauty appeared as I stared at the pixie head-on, her glamour falling away under my Mage Sight.
“Hey, El,” I greeted her, walking toward the counter.
“Here to buy or sell?” El asked.
“I could be asking for work,” I replied with a smile. In my earlier days, El had kindly provided me a series of jobs collecting various enchanted material from around the city. It was low-paying work, but it was work I could manage at my lower level. Since I’d gained Alexa’s help and leveled up, I’d been here much less often.
“I wish,” El said with a smile. “You were one of my best suppliers, but sending a mage to collect Grimmark Gum might be overkill.”
“Probably,” I said, repressing my curiosity about what Grimmark Gum was. Getting into a discussion about it would eat up most of the afternoon. It was no surprise that with El’s extensive knowledge of materials she had done as well as she had in the mystical ingredient business. The sale of her used clothing basically acted as her cover and allowed her to launder her earnings.
“Actually, I need some advice. I’ve got to collect some spotted Wynn mushrooms,” I said, rubbing my nose. “Lily filled us in a bit on them, but I figured you might know…”
“Where to find it in the city?” El finished my sentence before she nodded slowly. “I know a few places, but the spotted Wynn are rare. How many do you need?”
“Fifty.”
“Fifty?” El squeaked slightly, shaking her head rapidly. “What are you trying to do? Lay the entire New York undead population to rest?”
“Pardon?” I asked. “Isn’t the mushroom for Mana recovery?”
“Wynn mushrooms are enhancers. Spotted Wynn are ten times more effective. Your Templar friends use it quite often in their censers when they do battle with the undead,” El said. “They use it to disrupt their attachment to this world, and against weaker undead, it can even send them directly back.”
“Oh.” I frowned. Huh. “How much do they use?”
“I’m not sure, but generally about half a mushroom is enough for a single censer. You’d be collecting enough for a hundred censers, and those burn for a good hour or so,” El replied.
“So, locations?” I asked after a moment. After all, it didn’t matter what I wanted. What I needed was fifty specimens.
“I’m not sure,” El said. “I can point you to a few locations, but Jordie’s my mushroom man. He’d know better.”
“Think you could put me in touch with him?” I asked after consideration. I understood El not knowing exact locations. In fact… “Do you have any in stock?”
“I could, but Jordie’s not exactly the most talkative. But I’ve got two in stock right now,” El said, eyeing me. “Link?”
“Yeah, Link spell. If Jordie doesn’t work…” I shrugged. El knew enough of my abilities to know what I was going to do.
“Fine. But only once, you hear me? No collecting otherwise. And I’m going to charge you a premium,” El said threateningly.
“Done.” I sighed. I understood her point. Having a mage like me going around sweeping up all the alchemical ingredients was rather unfair—on her business and her collectors’ livelihoods. It was one thing for me to be working as a collector for her, another to be hogging all the ingredients. The only reason mages didn’t do it more often was that there was no point. Generally, most mages had better things to do with their time.
Then again, most mages weren’t penniless cheats like me.
“Oh, before I forget. Leprechaun’s Foot. Ever heard of it?” I asked El, recalling the other quest. We hadn’t even made plans to deal with it, not knowing what exactly it was.
“Why do you want to know?” El said, her tone suddenly serious.
“Quest,” I said.
El eyed me, her green-and-blue eyes hard and serious as they fixed on my face, searching for a lie that did not exist. After a moment, she relaxed and nodded. “Stay away from using it. It’s bad news of the worse kind.”
“But what is it?”
“Leprechaun’s Foot is a luck drug. It alters your luck for the better,” El said, her lips tight. “It’s an old formula, renamed a few times. Karma’s Whore, the Devil’s Gift, Norn’s Blessing. It’s had a lot of names but the same formula.”
“I take it there’s something wrong with the way it’s made?”
“Luck. Fate. Karma. However you call it, we all have some aspect of fortune provided to us, gifted if you will, from our past lives. The Foot, it requires taking from one to another, but there’s no way to take, to remove such a thing without harming the original host. And the price paid by those taking it in the future is even greater,” El said.
“Rule of three?” I asked curiously. It was something the Mage Council scoffed at officially but that individuals from the older traditions believed in, in one form or another. The rule of three itself was from Wicca, the belief that any magic used returned threefold. Good or bad. Which of course encouraged Wiccans to use it for good. For many supernaturals, whether it was karma or fate, the belief in old traditions certainly held true and guided their actions to some extent.
“Yes.”
I paused then, somewhat awkwardly. My next question was self-evident, but it could so easily be misconstrued.
“You want to know how it’s made.” El read me like a book.
“Yeah,” I replied softly. “Can’t track it without, well…”
“No,” El replied flatly. “I won’t help you on that.”
“Figured,” I said with a sigh. Damn it. Still, if it was a drug, I knew a few people. Which amused me in a way. I knew how to get an illegal supernatural drug but had not a clue where I would purchase a bag of marijuana. Tells you the kind of life I led these days.
“Henry, be careful,” El said sternly. “The type of people who make these kinds of drugs, they’re not the kind you cross.”
I nodded, stories of Mexican drug cartels flashing through my mind. I really didn’t want my house burned down, my hands chopped off, and my balls stuffed into my mouth. Not in that order necessarily. “I’ll be careful.”
El sighed at my words, and I bid her goodbye. At least, to some extent, Alexa and I were protected by my wish, but there were so many loopholes in the wish that it was scant protection if someone really desired our deaths. Still, it wasn’t as if we could say no. With troubled thoughts about my future and the potential for mayhem in my life, I flagged down a taxi to bring me to the orphanage.
***
The orphanage itself was a squat grey building, probably built in the sixties when the greatest architectural dream of the masses was cheap, grey, and functional. Frankly, it was depressing even looking at it, but it was functional. The murals the young children had painted on the side of the building and the well-tended flower boxes added a touch of life and color to it, that and the large—for an inner-city building—green grounds surrounding its fenced exterior. Only a small sign over the door, right below the address marker, spoke of the Brixton Orphanage’s purpose.
Still, located as it was on the outskirts of downtown, flanked by tall glass buildings filled with yuppies, club kids, and the nouveau rich, I could start making assumptions about some of Brixton’s troubles. The nun who let me in and had me wait in the foyer for Alexa was charming and kind but firm in keeping me from heading deeper into the building itself. Which was fine by me as it left me time to speculate if this orphanage was another feeder location for initiates. Who was I kidding? They all probably were.
I turned my thoughts over in my mind for a bit, considering how I felt about an organization that went about recruiting children to become trained killers. Generally, this was something heavily frowned upon, an act that was derided the world over for removing the “innocence” of a child. Then again, from the little I’d been told by Alexa, it wasn’t as if they were making the children kill immediately. That was generally left until they were in their teens, about the same age as we’d let others go to war. It was just that the initiates had a much longer training time, and it wasn’t as if they couldn’t back out if they wanted to.
Then again, if all you knew was a certain lifestyle, how easy was it to leave? Cults the world over used the exclusion of the outside world to brainwash and restrict their people, ensuring loyalty. Was what the Templars doing that different? Does intent and good intentions matter when the actions themselves aren’t necessarily good?
“Henry?” Alexa called to me. She walked out of the office and caught me seated on a wooden bench, thinking uncharitable thoughts of her people.
I stood as I greeted her. “Alexa. How are you doing?”
“Good. I’ve cleared it with the abbess for you to come in farther,” Alexa said.
“So what’s the problem here?”
“Two things. Firstly, they have a problem with a local developer. He keeps trying to pressure the orphanage to sell. The orphanage has barely been keeping afloat with the rising property taxes in the last few years, but the government inspectors have been coming by more regularly, fining them for the smallest infractions. Last week, the building inspectors came by for a “routine” inspection and cited a number of code requirements they had to meet—requirements they had been allowed to bypass as they were grandfathered in.”
I frowned, cocking my head to the side.
“Yes, it’s not normal. They’re pretty sure the building inspectors and others have been paid off.”
“Who?” I asked, curiously.
“The developer is named Connor Weeks,” Alexa said as she led me down the quiet hallways. I was surprised that for such a large building supposedly filled with kids, it was so silent. Then again, I guessed it was class time or something. Soon enough, we arrived at a staircase which Alexa took downward, leading me toward the basement. “In either case, the orphanage began the process of having contractors come in to get back up to code and—”
“And ran into something weird,” I said, finishing for her. When we exited the stairway, we entered a simple stone corridor. Immediately, I could feel the slight vibrations in mana that ran through the orphanage grow even more powerful while the small and discreet runic carvings hidden among the stonework seemed even more populous here. I grimaced, reaching out to touch one of the runes. Alexa said nothing, waiting as I let my eyes defocus slightly and traced the flow of mana through the orphanage. It took minutes before I was certain, but when I was done, I knew for sure.
“The contractors broke the runes.”
“They did,” Alexa said and pointed down one of the corridors. I followed the lady with the directions silently, continuing to sense the mana flow, which seemed disturbed by light touches of something darker, more bestial in it. Not human for sure. But at least it wasn’t demonic.
“Do you have a feeling like they want you to fail?” I asked absently.
“Why would you say that?” Alexa said as we started spotting more and more signs of work half started and abandoned. The various construction workhorses, plywood, and tools left abandoned.
“Really? There’s no way you’d be able to complete the second quest without me in two weeks, not with everything else. And as for this one…” I sighed. “It doesn’t seem like something a typical squire would be expected to do.”
“It isn’t,” Alexa said. “But then, I’m not your typical initiate, am I?”
“No, I guess not.”
We finally made it to the end of the corridor, coming to what looked like a simple storage room to the untrained eye, but I noticed the numerous runic carvings over the door and along the hallway arches, some of them now marred and broken. I had to frown as some runes, even untouched, had lost their glow, seeming to have faded in their usability. “What’s in there?”
“Storeroom,” Alexa said and opened the door. The blonde began to step in and then visibly hesitated, her brows creasing together. “What?”
“You feel it too,” I stated and pushed past her to step within. I ignored the way the hair on the back of my neck stood up, the way my stomach roiled when I walked in. I felt my muscles tensing, my shoulders tightening, and my breath shortening as an existential dread filled me. The room itself was an empty storage room, nothing to mark it from any other room except for the small runic carvings lining the ceiling and floor. Except, a number of these carvings were chipped. I stood within the room in silence, tracing the flow of mana within.
“What do you see?”
“Unlike outside, where the runes, the ritual are all passive and part of one massive spell, there are actually multiple spells here. There’s a glamour hiding the majority of these runes from sight, but it has been damaged,” I said, pointing to runes as I spoke. “And there’s another runic set taking the ambient mana in to power these runes along with the mana that the external runes feed it. But on top of that, there’s a containment rune too. These rituals…”
“Yes?” Alexa prompted me.
“They’re out of my ballpark. They’re significantly more complex than anything I know,” I admitted. “I’d need to do some studying before I could even hope to fix this.”
Alexa grimaced, but, seeing I was done with the room, happily stepped out. The moment we left, she began to relax slightly like I did. Even then, I sensed that the leakage of mana and, for want of a better word, intent from the failed containment runes were beginning to permeate the air.
“Is it dangerous?”
“Not in the short term,” I said, tapping my lips. “I wouldn’t necessarily want to be here in a few months, but the containment spell is chipped, not broken.”
“Good,” Alexa said.
“So how do we want to do this?” I asked, gesturing within. “That’s a big job, but we’ve got two other quests to handle too.”
“Let’s start on the mushrooms first,” Alexa finally said after some consideration. “We can work on it immediately while we brainstorm about the dual problem. I’ll ask the abbess to have the contractors work on other areas for now, and we’ll try to figure out what to do about Weeks. As for the drug, we’ll need a sample of the Foot if what you told me is true.”
“There might be someone I know,” I said slowly, thinking of Andy. The orc lived in the right neighborhood, and I’d run into him a few times while doing deliveries for El. While he preferred to keep things “clean” with protection rackets, gambling, and gun running, he was in the “life” as it were. Of course, Alexa looked at me strangely, but for once, I decided not to answer her. Sometimes, it was good to be mysterious.