This will contain big spoilers. Just warning you all again.
Cyrus hurried along behind Alfyn. "I am relieved that we have a way to help little Flynn. We best hurry and get that moss."
Alfyn was less winded and moving as quickly as he safely could in the caves. "Yeah, I didn't think anyone could stoop so low."
"If we didn't have this lead, I would even consider one of the spells from my tome and although I am confident it would solve the child's breathing problem, it would have taken at least five years off her lifespan..."
"Yeah, that would not have been good. I'd rather just stick to my concoctions. Still though, if the moss weren't available and there was no other options I can see how folks would resort to stuff like blood magic. Do ya think that's why people started studying those magics in the first place?" Alfyn said as they made their way to track down Vanessa. Neither man remotely considered using blood magic to hurt her nor even thought about the possibility until Primrose asked if they were going to curse her. They both immediately rejected that idea. (Slumberthorn was better.)
"Miss Clement, may I ask for your assistance? Would you be so kind as to cast Holy Light on this crystal here?"
Ophelia folded her arms. "Professor, is that a blood crystal? Why do you STILL have that?"
"I wanted to test my theories on exorcisms and purification spells. I had no intention of misusing these artifacts."
"You finally realized that it was a bad idea to be messing with these things?" Ophelia smiled and cast the spell. The crystal melted, then it kept melting. It made a larger puddle than Ophelia could have guessed possible. She stepped back to keep it away from her shoes. "Uh, Professor?" Last time she had cast Holy Light at one of these things, it had simply vaporized.
"Erm, not exactly a bad idea. The large puddle is to be expected given how much was compressed into the solid crystal. My experiment worked. It means we were able to purify the crystal instead of just destroying it! It looks like a lot of the transformed blood is returning to its original state. I wish I knew exactly how much blood was conserved in the transformation. I should probably ask Alfyn more about what possible side effects hyper-sanguination would have..."
"While I appreciate your dedication to understanding and undoing evil magics, I am a little upset that you did not warn me."
"My apologies."
Many days had passed since the last incident with Cyrus. Incidentally the party found out that there was a history subject which Ophelia knew more about than and could out-lecture Cyrus on. There had been three entire days of traveling where Ophelia talked non-stop on church law, the treatment of heretics, classical punishments for blasphemy, and holy crusades. She made certain Cyrus knew exactly what happened when people knew or thought they knew necromancers were in town. She also talked about the dangers of necromancy itself despite the fact that Cyrus knew very well what that could do.
Ophelia knew the history books in Flamesgrace cover to cover. She had heard the darker stories from the Knights Ardante and the priests which were whispered among the adults as warnings. She had read and heard firsthand accounts penned in grief and blood of mob violence, inquisitions, and blasphemers who had run unchecked. Tressa found that between Cyrus's casual discussion of necromancy and Ophelia's stories, she lost much sleep.
Ophelia did, oddly enough, still trust Cyrus. He was not a bad man despite his worrying study habits. He had never once glanced at the lanthorn with anything other than curiosity and never made a single move to touch it. He was kind to the party members as well. Cyrus, while curious about the flame, sometimes knew there were boundaries that should NEVER be crossed. It was hard to say whether the religious taboo, the knowledge of what could happen with the flame if someone were to use it in blood magic, or the friendship with the cleric was more of a deterrent. It was likely the friendship deterred him more than the thought that Aelfric himself would descend to tell him off.
It still would have taken nothing less than divine intervention to make Cyrus stop studying things he wanted to study, so Ophelia took more drastic measures.
They were closer to the shrine in the Flatlands than they were to the one in the Frostlands, so Ophelia's favored shrine was not the one they had visited. (Ophelia may also have secretly worried that Aelfric was more likely to bring a divine curse on Cyrus' head than Alephan.) Ophelia had apologetically dragged Cyrus into the Shrine of the Sage an hour ago. She left him in there. She came out with no small amount of stunned awe and told the party the voice of Alephan himself asked to have office hours with Cyrus. Everyone else cooked dinner while Cyrus took much longer than anyone expected to visit the pedestal. They peeked in the mouth of the cave to check on Cyrus nervously standing there like he'd been brought to the teacher's desk for a thesis critique.
When he emerged from the mouth of the cave he was practically ambushed by his traveling companions. Tressa was the first to talk, "Whatdidhesay?! Did the god Alephan tell you to stop doing blood magic Like Ophelia thought he would?"
"Well... he gave me a C-." Said Cyrus to the gathered group of people.
Ophelia had not been expecting that. "I... What? He graded your work?"
"It's almost like the Professor got sent back to school..." said Tressa wonderingly.
"I would have done better, but I got a D+ on safety in my experimental methods. He said I would have gotten lower if I didn't have the good sense to avoid even so much as touching the lanthorn..."
"Well, I suppose that is logical...?" Ophelia said as her mind just went, What.
Guess I'm writing this. Would you believe my first idea for Octopath Traveler was to have some of the Orsterran gods trying to convince Kit that he should usurp the job of 13th god and the other ones being like "Yeah he is like several magnitudes nicer to have around a pantheon than Galdera but give the traumatized kid a break."
I have a strange imagination. Also thanks for the kind reviews of my nonsense! I plan to have more glorious atrocities and I was kind of planning on reversing stuff. I have certain chapter bosses in my sights...