After El had left and Lily returned, life once again returned to its prior routine for a few days. The only real change was that Lily rarely used the second laptop anymore as she was forced to pay greater attention to me and our surroundings. Since we hadn’t wanted to alert everyone, we’d instead worded the wish such that she could and would check my surroundings and the buildings regularly for new interested parties. This allowed her to impart the warning before they started making trouble. At least, that was the theory.
Of course, that left me stuck up at home for the most part till everything and everyone settled. Not that I wouldn’t need to head out and grab some quests again soon enough—if for nothing more than to pay rent and build up some reserves. I hated not having any real cushion, but between the numerous failed and unpaid quests and my unemployment before this entire thing, my emergency fund was looking pretty anemic.
Which made the pounding on my basement door one morning rather surprising. I frowned, peeking through the peephole to see a grumpy-looking Templar initiate with a bag slung over her shoulder standing on the other side of the door. I cautiously opened the door, noting her spear was at least capped and covered. Still, I put up my Lesser Shield first too.
“Yes?” I said.
“Let me in. This bag is heavy,” Alexa said as she pushed against the door. It banged against my foot and stopped, bouncing back slightly. “Well, come on.”
“The last time we spoke, you threatened to kill me,” I said.
“Yes. And then you made your stupid wish, and now I’m to help you survive. So, let me in,” Alexa said, pushing against the door harder.
I winced as the pressure increased against my foot, and I finally moved it away. The blonde stomped into the room, dropped her bag on the ground, and then spun to me, leveling the still-covered spear at my chest.
“Let me make this clear. I’m here to help you get to your level one hundred without dying. After that, you’re someone else’s problem. We’re not friends. We’re not even allies. We’re just people with sort-of-similar goals.”
“Actually, I think—” I stopped as the spear stabbed toward me, stopping a good distance away but making its wielder’s point. “I get your point. But what makes you think I should trust you?” I said, crossing my arms in front of my body defensively.
“How do you intend to stop me from following you? Tie me up?” Alexa said bitingly.
“Well…” I leered at her and ducked quickly as she swung the haft at my head. Okay, I deserved that. “You know, following people who don’t want you is known as stalking.”
“Then you should have given the ring up when we told you to. The Brothers are watching you now, following your every move from a distance. And I’m sure there will be others soon.”
“And you’re what, the inside girl?”
“I’m here because I was ordered to,” Alexa snapped. “Now, where do I put my stuff, and what is our first… quest? That the term?”
“Ugh. Fine. Let’s find you a spot,” I said while still eyeing her spear and wondering how the hell we’d handle having a third person in this apartment. At least Lily and her mystical nature seemed to skip many of the more unpleasant aspects of a mortal body. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be as lucky with Alexa.
Ten minutes later, we had her meager belongings placed next to the pile of clothing that Lily had managed to acquire on the floor. I grimaced as I made a mental note once again to look into finding a shelving unit that might work.
“No, no, no,” Alexa growled as she flipped through the quest papers next to Lily. “Is this what you’ve been sending him on? There’s no way he’ll hit this… this… level one hundred with these quests. Cleaning a boat’s hull? How is that even a quest?”
“It’s a Viking longship that has traveled the waters of the seven realms,” Lily said calmly. “You might find the barnacles a bit more challenging than you’d expect.”
“Garbage!” Alexa said, growled, and tossed the paper away. “How can you justify sending him on these quests? He’s a wizard! They wield the powers of creation at their fingertips, and you have him running errands like a handyman!”
Lily paused, eyes fixed on Alexa, before flicking her gaze to me and then returning to the initiate. “Well, he’s been by himself thus far. No one to help pull him out of trouble if things go bad. So, yes, we’ve been picking safer quests that might be slightly below his level.”
“I knew it!” Alexa crowed. “Give up the good stuff, Jinn.”
“Whoa. I never said I was forming a party with you—” A pair of incredulous looks made me shut my mouth. Fine, yes, letting her in was pretty much my way of agreeing to this entire endeavor. But it would have been nice to be asked anyway.
“So… you’re joining a party with him, right?” Lily said as she shuffled some papers around and pulled a smaller stack out. When Alexa reached for it, Lily refused to let the papers go till she received a firm nod of agreement. “Good. Then—party screen.”
Alexa Dumough (Initiate of the Knights Templar Level 10) has joined your party.
HP: 120/120
“Aaargh!” Alexa staggered and dropped the sheets, holding her head as Lily invaded her body with her spells. I stepped forward for a second and then paused, stepping back. No telling what she’d do if I got too close, and a small, petty part of me couldn’t help but cackle at her pain. I might have still been holding a little grudge over getting stabbed. Eventually, her breathing ironed out, and she looked up and waved her hands in front of her face. Alexa’s face scrunched as she stared into the air, her eyes shifting and lips moving as she read something silently.
“Huh. Do I look like that?” I asked rhetorically. In the corner of my eye, I could still see the mini-portrait of the blonde and her health bar if I focused.
“Yes. Except dumber,” Lily said.
“Thanks.”
“This is your character screen thing, isn’t it?” Alexa said, her face returning to normal as she turned to the two of us. “It’s… infernal.”
“No. Jinn,” Lily said. “I should add that since you’re in the same party, you cannot hurt each other intentionally. At least not for the first attack. After that, you’ll be automatically booted from the party.”
“No surprise attacks,” I said, nodding to Lily in thanks. Smart girl.
“I’m not going to kill him. I’m here to make sure he doesn’t die,” Alexa growled as she collected the papers from the ground, pulling one off a plate filled with half-eaten pizza. I noted that her hands still shook slightly, but otherwise, the woman was back to business. Lily crowed in happiness when the plate was discovered and snatched the pizza slice to consume it, much to the disgust of the blonde.
“This should work,” Alexa said after she perused the information a little more and thrust a piece of paper at me. “Accept it and let’s go.”
“Uhh…” I paused as I read over the details. “This—”
“Accept. It,” Alexa snapped at me.
I ignored the glare she gave me, reading over the quest notice one last time. It was level appropriate, I guessed, if more dangerous than what I was used to. However, Lily was right. We’d been lowballing the quests lately to make sure I didn’t die. If this was level appropriate, then adding Alexa to the team should work—assuming she was telling the truth.
And I’d admit I found it hard to doubt the initiate. Not only because she was so damn straightforward, but because the entire point of the second wish was to create a situation like this. Any good role-player would tell you that you can’t complete the really challenging quests without a good party. Still, I asked a few questions of Lily before I finally found myself accepting the quest. I took a little pleasure when Alexa jumped as the quest notification appeared in front of her eyes without warning.
Hey, I’d take my wins where I could.
***
“This your car?” I said, envy in my voice. It was not as if it was a Ferrari or Lamborghini, but the recent-model blue hatchback staring at me was significantly better than my feet and occasional bike.
“Not mine. It’s the Templars’. You sure you don’t have one yourself?” Alexa said as she got in. A few seconds of fiddling with the insides and the GPS and we were ready to leave for our first party mission.
When the silence in the car finally got too uncomfortable, I spoke up. “Maybe we should talk about, you know, the party before we get there.”
“What’s there to discuss?” Alexa asked. “We get to the woods, you locate the Kallikantzaroi, we kill them, and you level up.”
“Is that what they teach you in knight school?” I said, surprised at the cavalier way she discussed the upcoming confrontation. I had actually hoped for more guidance. When silence just greeted my query, I frowned and looked over at the initiate. “Alexa?”
“I’m not a knight, remember? I’m not even a squire,” Alexa said, her voice cracking slightly. As I stared at her closer, I realized her grip on the wheel was tighter than it needed to be, lines of tension running along her forearms and shoulder.
“Shit,” I said, realizing she had told me that before. I suddenly wondered if we could change the quest. “What did you learn?”
Alexa’s lips tightened before she continued, eyes focused on the road. “I’m decent with the spear and have passing knowledge of other melee weapons. I’m familiar with guns too, but we were meant to receive more intensive training later. I can be trusted not to shoot myself, but I would not be confident in wielding one in combat. I, well, I was specializing in faith healing.”
“Faith. Healing.” Doubt crept into my voice. “That thing where the hacks put their hands on people’s heads and then shove them backward and say they’re cured? And hope the placebo effect works?”
“We are not fakes,” Alexa said, anger tingeing her voice. “I was learning to open myself to the power of God himself. Did you ever stop to wonder why so many still go to such events? If it was all fake?”
“I thought it was because people were idiots,” I muttered.
“No. Just hopeful,” Alexa said. “Many of our members move among such groups, providing what aid they can. It’s not much, but it is what we can do. Other groups, other sects, have a much larger presence than Knights Templar.”
The way she said the last, I got the feeling I wasn’t getting the rest of that story. Or why a woman who looked like a professional wrestler would prefer to be a healer than the fighter she was built to be. Then again, who was I to complain about people playing against type?
“I guess monster combat wasn’t in the curriculum?” I asked finally.
“No, the squires would have studied that,” Alexa said, and I nodded slowly. Right. Right…
“Well, if that’s the case, I might have a few ideas…”
***
Boarded windows with graffiti, sidewalks that smelled of piss and other unmentionables, and paint that wasn’t new two decades ago greeted us as we got out of the car. Alexa locked the doors behind us, though we were more likely to have the wheels stolen if anyone was still around the neighborhood. Mostly though, the industrial complex was abandoned, too far away for most transients to live and too worn down for businesses to run after the manufacturing businesses that had been the lifeblood of the complex left. The few businesses that were here were best left unquestioned of what they actually did out here.
Even for such a place, the presence of a Kallikantzaroi clan was too much to bear. After a few pointed questions to Lily, I had confirmed that the quest had to be an extermination quest—no bargains, no deals, just death. A few more queries explained why—you didn’t make deals with the Kalliks because they never upheld their ends. It had less to do with an untrusting nature and more to do with their notoriously short memory spans. You couldn’t uphold a deal you couldn’t remember.
Alexa took the lead once the car was parked, her spear under a light glamour to make it look like a, well, long stick. I would rather have made it disappear, but simple was better in this case. Removing the spearhead was simple and effective. A woman carrying a long stick around might raise questions but wouldn’t automatically draw the police.
We walked through the industrial complex for about thirty minutes, circling worn buildings and looking for signs of the supernatural. Well, I looked for signs of the supernatural. Alexa just looked. I saw no wards, no shields or other magical markings to indicate which building the Kalliks were in, but Alexa eventually led us back near where we’d begun.
“There.” Alexa pointed at a metal window grating with her spear. Upon closer inspection, I realized the grating was only held together by some well-placed bent nails. As I stared, I also realized the grass around the region was just a little thinner, sparser than the surroundings, and the window itself cleaner.
A few moments of jiggling and we had the grate off the nails, allowing us free access to the basement of the building. Alexa squirmed in first, dropping softly to the ground and moving aside to allow me to follow. The sparse light that filtered in from the dirty windows was still sufficient to show us we’d entered an old, empty office space. The mushy, moldy mattress we had landed on was the only sign of civilization. If you could call it that. A single closed door led out of the room.
Alexa moved forward carefully, placing an ear against the door and holding still. I stood back, forming a Force Spear in one hand while I layered the Lesser Shield spell in front of me. That spell, along with its equivalent ward placed on the jacket I wore, were my only forms of defense. Unlike me, Alexa had a full set of modified armor under her coat, a mixture of Kevlar and chainmail links sewn together cunningly, such that the armor barely slowed her down—or was noticeable beyond a general bulkiness.
After a short time, Alexa moved away from the door and shook her head. I assumed she meant she had heard nothing, which meant little. Once again, I wished I had a better grasp of my magical abilities. It should have, in theory, been a simple matter to cast a spell to draw noise to me. It was just a simple application of force after all. Still, in the middle of a quest was not the place to be experimenting, but I did make a mental note to test the idea for next time.
As we had no other options, we got ready to open the door. A few moments of frustrating pantomime, and another few hissed words, finally had our entry worked out. I stepped forward to open the door while Alexa ducked in immediately, spear held in front of her on guard. A moment later, I slipped in and closed the door behind us. Silence and darkness greeted us, and even as our eyes adjusted to the gloom, we still could not see far ahead.
“Light,” Alexa hissed softly, and I had to agree. It might give away our position, but we needed to see. A quick pair of Light spells later and we had a couple of bobbing lights tethered to our bodies. A quick thought had me peel some loose paint from the door and slide it into a back pocket. Who needed breadcrumbs when you had a Link spell?
The light spell showed us an empty basement vault of the old manufacturing building. We had come out on a small landing, the room dropping another ten feet beneath us, filled with abandoned and rusting machines. Metal arms, hunched over snaking roller conveyor belts, dotted the floor, breaking up our sight lines.
The silence of the abandoned plant was broken by the scratching sound of nails on concrete and the slow swish of feet being dragged against the ground. In the distance, yellow eyes glinted from reflected lights as more and more of the Kalliks awakened.
Quest Update: Clear the Kallikantzaroi clan from their lair.
You’ve located the Kallikantzaroi clan but have alerted them of your presence. You’ll need to defeat their warriors before they can be convinced to leave.
“Shit,” I whispered and then realized that we weren’t hiding anymore.
“Yes. Maybe we should have thought about this a bit more,” Alexa said as she hefted her spear and readied it. For a moment, I considered suggesting backing into the other room, but here we had the advantage of high ground, assuming the Kalliks didn’t wield any ranged weapons.
Throughout our short conversation, the Kalliks had continued to approach. At the edges of my light spell, they gathered, yellow eyes catching and reflecting the light. On instinct, I reached for my mana again, splitting my concentration a third time. I felt the mental strain and was grateful that this spell was simple. A quick gesture and the Light Sphere flew out and hung a good twenty feet away, exposing the Kalliks fully.
Hunched over in groups of five or so, the Kalliks were squat, black-furred creatures with the arms of a monkey and long donkey ears across giant heads. Sharp, curved claws caught my attention immediately as the creatures hissed at the additional light. Instinctively, I threw my other hand forward, my Force Spear arcing through the air at my command as I attacked the monsters in front of me. Something in my gut, in my hindbrain, said that these creatures weren’t something that could be reasoned with or talked to.
The Force Spear was almost invisible in the meager light, the distortion in light that marked its position barely visible. The Kalliks in the direction I’d gestured twisted and shifted by reflex, but they were not paranoid enough, not until the spear landed and pinned one of their friends to the ground. The screams and roars reverberated through the plant and set my teeth on edge.
“Wha… WARN ME,” Alexa snarled as she hunched and set herself as the Kalliks, spurred forward by my attack, charged us.
“Sorry!” I muttered unconsciously and focused on forming another Force Spear. Seconds, precious seconds I took to create the spear. Kalliks covered the ground before us impossibly fast, and by the time my spell was ready, the first one was halfway up the landing.
A single, beautifully executed lunge later, and the Kallik was dying on Alexa’s spear. The blonde initiate’s face was fixed in a snarl when she stepped back and yanked her spear out of its body, already turning to face the next attacker. A hasty block caught a swiping claw on the spear shaft before Alexa retreated to give herself room and swept the spearhead in front of her in an attempt to keep the creature back.
The clatter of claws against metal near me caught my attention, and I glanced down, seeing the broad, smashed nose and donkey ears of a Kallik near my feet as it hauled itself up above the metal railing. I gasped, brought out of my reverie, to stab with my formed spell. I kept the spell formed in my hand as the motion punched a hole in the monster, black blood flowing from the newly formed wound. A hasty swipe bounced off my Shield before I thrusted again and released the spell, the released Force Spear tearing the monster off the landing.
Beneath my first attacker, another was clambering up, ready to attack. I snarled and raised my hand, channeling Heat as I thrust my hand downward. A roar of flame and a throbbing headache appeared in conjunction, and I played the improvised flamethrower over the landing and my attackers. The Kalliks released their grips, dropping down low in fear.
Without time to form another Force Spear, I relied on my first offensive spell—Force Bolt. It was not as powerful as Force Missile or Spear, but it had the advantage of having an extremely short cast time. Hands held out before me, I even abandoned my Lesser Shield so I could form spells faster. The next few minutes became a blur of gnashing teeth, glinting yellow eyes, and swiping claws as I battled to keep the creatures from climbing the landing directly while Alexa killed those that dared challenge her.
As I spun to the side again, after releasing my latest Force Bolt, a hard swipe tore at my arm. Concentration broken, my spell dissipated as I stumbled backward, pain radiating from the injury. The low-level Force Shield woven into my jacket fabric saved my arm from serious damage, but as the Kallik swiped at me again, I had to throw myself backward to escape its attack. The railing hammered into my back, bringing a sharp exhalation of breath, and I stared as the Kallik raised its claw, ready to tear my throat out.
A too-human scream jarred the Kallik’s concentration, making it hesitate for a fraction of a second. A thrown spearhead punched through its neck and interrupted its attack for all time. I exhaled in relief as I clutched my arm and turned to look down the landing to see Alexa as she stood weaponless and bloody amid the corpses of her attackers.
“Tha—” The ankle that was yanked out from beneath me sent me falling forward abruptly, cutting off my voiced gratitude. I landed hard and bit my tongue, blood immediately filling my mouth as a forgotten Kallik pulled itself upward, using my body as leverage. Claws pierced my skin, and I jerked spasmodically, my feet kicking out uselessly.
By the time I recovered my senses fully, the monster had squirmed two-thirds of its way through the railing, its claws dug into my feet. I slapped a hand sideways at its head pitifully, short, coarse hair and the flexible cartilage of an ear coming into contact with my skin. My hand closed around its ear as claws continued to dig into my body. I twisted and yanked upward, jerking the Kallik toward me and away from my prone body.
A moment later, Alexa was there, as she tackled the monster and sent both of them into the metal railing. Alexa snarled as she plunged a knife that I never knew she had into the monster while I pushed myself away. Seeing that Alexa had things mostly under control, I tried to form a Heal spell around the radiating pain of my wounds, but the spell formations and chants escaped my grasp with each pulse of pain.
***
I came to as a warm energy pulsed through me. As I returned to wakefulness, I noticed the pain from my wounds was gone, replaced by this comforting, warm feeling. As I attempted to sit up, I found an insistent pressure on my chest and a noise in my ears that finally resolved into words.
“Stop moving!” Alexa said and pushed on my chest again. “You’ll open all your wounds again.”
“Sorry,” I said as I relaxed onto the cold floor again. Unable to feel my wounds as that energy flowed through me, I instead focused on my own Heal spell, letting the initial portion of the spell play through my mind. That part of the spell focused on locating injuries and assessing the damage, a magical feedback on the extent of damage that I had experienced.
The overall results were not good. I had numerous cuts and stab wounds in the back of my legs and a few in my torso, from the last Kallik that had clawed itself up me, along with the cut in my arm. Add to that numerous scrapes and bruises and significant blood loss and I was grateful Alexa’s healing ability was patching me up. Unlike my own spell, it seemed to bypass minor things like blood loss and instead proceeded to fix problems directly, using the energy as its fuel source. Still, I decided not to just wait for her to be done and focused on my own spell, searching for and directing the spell to focus on the production of additional blood.
It took another few minutes before Alexa finally let me up. By that point, I had begun to shiver slightly from the cold, lack of movement, and blood loss and had to spend the next few minutes doing jumping jacks and chugging an energy drink. I resolutely kept my eyes off the Kallik corpses during this entire process.
“Did we complete the quest?” I asked Alexa while she looked on with an amused expression. I had to admit, between the blood stains, torn clothing, and low light, I probably was an amusing sight. Still, the movement was at least warming me up.
“Not yet,” Alexa said. “I’m pretty sure I heard a few others moving around afterward, moving away from us.”
“Okay, well, I’m ready,” I said, my spells formed in my hands. It seemed a side effect of her spell was a reduction in the headache and mana weariness I experienced from casting. Before we left the landing, I spent a few minutes adding Light Spheres all around the building. Even with the added light, we saw no further signs of trouble in here.
A short and tense hour later, we had searched and prodded our way through the entire warehouse and were finally sure the Kalliks had left. A broken lock and a few fallen treasures on the way out the door told a tale of a hasty retreat. I was glad. The other signs we found indicated there had been children here. I knew I had to get harder, but killing children, even monster children, was a line that I couldn’t cross. Not yet at least. Perhaps it was because they were humanoid, or that they seemed mostly sentient, but the thought of murdering them just didn’t sit well with me. The quest complete notification, as usual, was just more information that we already knew. This time, Alexa only shifted a bit when it appeared.
“What are you doing?” I blinked as Alexa returned to the main nest of the Kalliks and sorted through what was left.
“Searching,” Alexa said. “Ah, har!” She pulled out a wad of cash which she pocketed. A few minutes later, she had some jewelry and some other, more questionable, acquisitions. Some, I could guess, were reagents, items that people like El would like.
“Isn’t this…” I frowned, searching for the word. “Wrong?”
“They left. And they probably took these off people they killed. So, no, I’m not finding it wrong,” Alexa said. “How do you think the Templars finance themselves? Killing monsters isn’t exactly government funded.”
“Oh,” I said, wondering exactly how much money you could make looting dead bodies. Then, I considered my own circumstances. “You going to share?”