Thea tilts her head inquisitively. "Lady Melisande. We meet again." There's a look of mild surprise on her face, though it's hard to tell whether it's tinged with annoyance or not.

Meli respectfully curtsies. Her head swims in a wave of nervous nausea as she stands upright again. "I believe I did mention yesterday that I was going to be here to see things through, your Highness."

"You neglected to mention that you were going to be our guide to Apunia Dator."

"There were some eleventh-hour problems that landed me in this position." In truth, Meli had tracked down Glenna earlier that day and volunteered to take over the job for her. Glenna, who'd been quite vexed when she'd found out that Ramesh had dumped the duty on her with little warning, had been only too happy to pass the job onto Meli in favor of sleeping away the entirety of Sun's Day.

So now Meli stands before Princess Thea and her dignified but tiny party of high-ranking Valerian royal officials and royal guards, clad in the humblest clothes that she owns: a brown cotton dress with fraying embroidery on the hems over beige pants and scuffed boots. Meli normally feels comfortable with dressing "below her station", but even years of it don't allow her to ignore the disdainful looks she's getting from Grand Advisor Tulden and the two present members of the Ministerial Ring. Still, the discomfort from that pales in comparison to how she feels taking charge of a situation that seems larger than Weyard itself. Being so directly involved may get her killed today, and by someone she considers a friend, no less, but Meli believes she has no other choice. She doesn't know if she could live with a rested conscience if she had decided to merely sleep the day away like Glenna.

Venus, grant me a will as steady as the ground beneath my feet. Mercury, wash away my fears with your holy waters. Jupiter, sharpen my vision so that I may see what the sky sees. Mars...let my power burn bright and true like your flames.

With that final prayer, Meli steps up to lead Princess Thea and her entourage through the chaos of the Mud Quarters.

O-O-O

It takes approximately three hours to traverse most of the Mud Quarters. The district itself, while sizable, is not exceptionally large, but Thea insists on having the Grand Advisor take copious notes at what she considers noteworthy locations – and there are many, much to everyone's distress. In Meli's case, she wonders whether having the princess standing in one place for so long will make her an easier target for Ramesh, wherever he may be. Minayo, too, stays closer to Thea at these times: her gaze leaps from side to side, watching for any giveaway that doom might be upon them. But there is nothing, not even from Minayo's "dogs", who haven't seen a person of Ramesh's description walking around today – though he most certainly existed yesterday. The only consolation is that Thea appears to have heeded Meli's warnings a little; she walks with a faint shield of Venus Psynergy sparkling around her, courtesy of one of her Djinni.

The sky has turned to a sallow gray by the time Meli approaches the farthest part of the Mud Quarters, which is right up against the southernmost wall of Neo Valeriam. This section of the district is mostly abandoned for a number of reasons, ranging from superstition about ghostly thieves stealing prized possessions to the hope that maybe if one moved closer to Solzea Castle, the riches of the royalty would drip down to the poor like molten gold dribbling down the sides of a smelting pot.

At the edge of the dividing street into the gloomy, run-down blocks, Thea looks over the sorry scene with a critical eye. "How positively horrible!" she exclaims. "There is an entrance to Neo Valeriam here! This is not a favorable image of our city for visitors to be greeted with! I cannot believe this has been left unheeded for so long. Grand Advisor, make note – we shall renovate this area as quickly as possible!"

The princess certainly has her priorities straight, Meli thinks, trying to keep her disapproval from showing on her face. But if this section is made to be livable once more, it may attract people again and help to relieve the overcrowding that's common to the Quarters. The idea lightens Meli's spirits a bit.

While Grand Advisor Tulden scribbles something onto parchment with a thin stick of hard charcoal clasped in a wooden holder, Thea proceeds forward into the empty dirt street. "Your Highness," Meli starts, "are you sure you wish to go so far into these parts? There is not much to see besides more of the same, and some of the buildings are on the verge of collapse. It is unsafe."

Thea sniff scornfully. "If we are to remake this area, we must have an idea of how much we must fix. Materials and time cost money, something that we are painfully short on. We need to have an estimate to present in a proposed budget to the Ministerial Ring." She walks onward. At her side, Minayo gives Meli an apologetic glance over her shoulder.

Meli quickly trudges back into the lead. She's not been in this part of the Mud Quarters before, but she refuses to have Thea in the front of the group – the effect would be akin to having a chicken stretching its neck out to be beheaded by a butcher. So she continues to guide them, speaking from knowledge she doesn't have, with a confidence she doesn't feel, in order to bring a sense of normalcy and usefulness to her day. And surprisingly enough, it works. For a time.

While answering a question from one of the Ministers near an abandoned grocery store, Meli notices that Minayo has suddenly fallen back from the group, standing in the middle of the street. "Minayo?" she asks. "Is something wrong?"

Minayo's expression is blank for a moment. She takes one step back, then another. Her dark brown eyes flash golden...and a triumphant smile splits her face. "Gotcha, you bastard," she says under her breath. "You should've stayed off the ground." She dashes into a nearby alley.

Shouts ring out, followed by another flash of light. Moments later, Minayo drags out a blond man wrapped tightly in thick green vines and shoves him into the street for all to see. The four guards that have flanked the party up until now rush to surround him, swords drawn.

"Ramesh!" Meli exclaims.

Ramesh looks up at Meli, and the mixture of betrayal and hatred darkening his tanned face stus Meli into a soft gasp. This can't be him, she thinks, dismayed. It can't be him. It can't be him. It can't be –

...human.

This last thought strikes Meli out of nowhere. But she has little time to mull it over, for Thea's voice cuts into her thoughtstream.

"So you were right about your concerns, Lady Melisande," Thea says, a cold gaze fixed on Ramesh as she approaches him cautiously. "You'll have to be rewarded accordingly, then, and you also have my apologies for my behavior yesterday."

"Neither rewards nor apologies are needed for me, your Highness," answers Meli, glancing away from Ramesh.

Thea ignores Meli. "Minayo, how did you know he was near?"

"I can read the ground within a certain area so that I can get an idea of what the surface looks like, to put it simply," Minayo explains. She smirks down at Ramesh. "But once I connect with the ground, I can also feel the weight of living things on it, so while your little invisibility trick might've fooled my dogs, it wasn't going to get past me."

Ramesh scowls silently at her.

Invisibility? Meli's read of an alchemical artifact that allows for invisibility in the shadows, but it was supposed to have been lost or sealed away not long after the Rise. She hasn't heard of a specific Psynergetic ability for invisibility, though.

"What is your name, again?" Thea asks Ramesh. "Melisande here told me once, but I've forgotten."

Ramesh remains stubbornly silent.

She sighs, giving a regal shrug. "Very well. We shall find out your name soon enough in front of the courts. Is there anything you might wish to say before I have my guards arrest you for treason?"

At this, a sphere of lightning explodes from around Ramesh and surrounds him, reducing the vines binding him to ashes and causing Minayo and the guards to quickly back off lest they get electrocuted. With eyes glowing a fierce violet, he points a single hand at Thea.

"Breathwrench," he whispers in a voice half-not his own.

Everyone watches in horror as a glyph carves itself into the ground beneath Thea's feet, kicking up dirt with the force. Her cry of surprise is cut off by a miniature cyclone that erupts from the glyph, trapping her within its winds. Her eyes widen. She falls to her knees, gasping for air. Her hands clutch at her throat, at her chest, at her stomach...as though she could pull from her flesh the breath she so desperately needs now.

"Son of a bitch!" Minayo's on Ramesh in an instant, her short sword glittering at his throat. "Take it back now, or your head's served at the next royal dinner!"

"Ramesh, please," begs Meli. "Retract the spell!"

Ramesh only glares at her. "How did you find out about this?" he growls. "I told no one!"

Meli shakes her head. "That's not important! Please, just – "

"Bitch," Ramesh hisses. "You had someone spying on me, didn't you? You brought your little royal intrigue tricks down here, is that it?"

"No! That has nothing to do with – "

Ramesh suddenly jabs an elbow into Minayo's side. He follows up with a kick to the stomach that leaves her bent over, groaning in pain. But she recovers quickly, settling into a sword stance with her sword in hand. The four royal guards also join the fight against Ramesh, wielding blades sparkling with Venus Psynergy.

Meli tears her eyes away from the terrible clash and turns her attention to Thea, who is still caught in the throes of Ramesh's deadly spell. She notices Grand Advisor Tulden and the two members of the Ministerial Ring fleeing the scene. "Get help from the nearest street guards!" she calls, but her stomach sinks as she realizes that they don't seem to be listening to her. What sorts of people are leading this kingdom? She puts her hands together, recites a short prayer to Mars, and draws on her fire element as best as she can. She doesn't know how much of the spell he can neutralize, but she has to try...or else it could mean the death of Weyard.

With a sharp intake of breath, Meli flips her palms out. "Guardian!"

Scarlet bleeds into the pale purple light of the glyph markings, indicating a mixing of elements. Neither the magickal glow nor the howling winds fade away completely...but it's enough.

Coughing and trembling, Thea slams her palms to the ground, her forehead almost touching the dirt as she bends over. She rasps something that gets lost in the roar of the winds, and her hands glow.

A Venus Djinni sprouts into existence in front of Thea. Rings of light emanate from the ground around it, spilling out the flowery design of a glyph twice the size of the original Jupiter glyph beneath Thea. In one flash, both glyphs shatter into shards of Psynergy that fade with the wind. The Djinni winks out of existence, and Thea collapses to the ground.

Meli rushes over to Thea. She helps her get to a sitting position, supporting Thea as she sways back and forth erratically, trying to regain control of herself. Meli quickly checks Thea's pulse on the side of her neck with a light touch of two fingers. It's racing, but that's to be expected from the ordeal. Meli casts Aura to repair the damage done to Thea's life force by Breathwrench, as well as to generally help bring her back to her senses. Thea suddenly whispers something that Meli can't hear, and Meli leans forward to hear her better.

"Thank you," Thea repeats, her shoulders heaving.

Meli bows her head, more in sheer relief than in acknowledgment of the princess' gratitude. Before she can congratulate herself on saving Thea's life, however, Minayo crashes into the ground near her, having been thrown back by some great force. Startled, Meli jumps back and glances first at Minayo's slightly-battered form, then up.

Ramesh stands in the midst of a murder scene, covered in blood and sweat. The four royal guards lie dead around him. The air reeks of seared flesh and sizzles with an occult energy that disagrees sharply with the mortal realm. Electrical sparks explode like tiny fireworks around his hair and hands.

"Spiritsdamned asshole!" Minayo grumbles, getting up again. She brushes dirt and bits of burnt paper off her clothes. "If it weren't for my kami seals, I might be dead too!"

Meli swallows as fear runs cold through her blood. No! Why is he so powerful?

A side of Ramesh's upper lip curls up into a monstruous sneer as he turns to face Meli and Thea. "You're still alive," he says to Thea, his tone of voice accusing her of some heinous crime.

"And I am not at all sorry to be," replies Thea as she stands up shakily, aided by Meli. "You have been foiled. There is no point to continuing. You face death already as a result of attempting to take my life, and you face a grisly execution as a result of killing four royal guards. But if you surrender now, I will convince the courts to be lenient with you."

"I don't want your damn leniency!" Ramesh snaps. "You've been 'lenient' with the Quarters for at least the past twenty years, and it's gotten us nowhere. I'm sick of us being ignored all the damn time!" He takes a large stone pendant in the shape of a lion's head from around his neck and brandishes it. "Psy Drain!"

Meli's hit by a wave of dizziness as part of her Psynergy is drained from her body. Through her suddenly garbled vision, she notices ribbons of Venus Psynergy streaming from Minayo and Thea, the gold mixing with crimson as it swirls into the mouth of the lion's head pendant. The stone of the pendant glows a hellish orange. "R-Ramesh, what ae you doing...?" Meli stutters out as her head clears.

Ramesh's smile is strangely innocent. "Just calling a friend to clean things up." The cheer leaves his face. "Why the hell did you have to be here? I liked you."

"You don't have to kill me," Meli says softly, tears stinging her eyes ever so slightly. "You don't have to kill anyone. Please...just stop this. There isn't any point."

There's a pause. "It's too late," Ramesh murmurs. "I made a promise to my...'friend'. If I don't keep it, dying here is only the start of my problems."

"What in Weyard did you promise?"

An unstable laugh. "That he'd have something to eat today."

Minayo stares. "Crazy bastard! What the hell are you planning on doing?"

The specific design of the pendant stirs something up in Meli's memory, something she gleaned and stored while devouring stories of legends and myths. "Don't tell me...you mean to summon one of the Great Summon Spirits?" she asks, flabbergasted. "Do you even have any Djinn? There is a reason they are used as the medium for summoning!"

"Don't need 'em," says Ramesh, his usual cockiness returning. "This thing magnifies the elemental energy I got from you guys enough so that I can make the initial call."

Meli suddenly realizes the source of Ramesh's unnatural strength. He was directing his Psynergy through the pendant!

"I won't allow it!" Thea says. "Grand Gaia!"

Ramesh dodges the beam of Venus Psynergy that Thea fires at him. Minayo rushes up and slashes at him, opening a cut on his forearm, but he continues to be undeterred as he unleashes a Storm Ray spell at Minayo while uttering the words of the summon spell at top speed. Minayo dives to the side and throws up a three-seal shield for protection. Before Meli can think to put in her own attack, Ramesh has already completed the incantation.

"I call upon Earth's might enflamed – the one who commands thirty-and-three demonic legions! Gryphon of Hell, heed my summons! Zagan!" Ramesh traces a glowing orange pattern in the air and then backs away quickly.

The pattern erupts into a pillar of fire that burns as high as the two-story buildings on either side of the street. The heated backlash forces everyone to retreat a couple of feet, and just as well: for a creature emerges from the flames, as tall as one and a half men, with the head of a lion, the horn of a unicorn, the upper torso of a polar bear, and the hindquarters of a horse. It stands upright and wields a giant halberd that glimmers faintly with hellfire.

"Orochi's balls!" exclaims Minayo, wiping sweat from her face. "What is that thing?"

Zagan roars. He swings his halberd, demolishing the upper levels of an empty apartment complex. His eyes, two scarlet gleams deep within the hollows of his head, fix hungrily upon Thea.

This finally spurs Meli to act, and she casts the most powerful offensive spell she knows. "Searing Beam!"

The fiery attack hits squarely in the center of Zagan's chest, stopping him in his tracks for a moment...but it doesn't even scorch his skin. He continues to lumber towards Thea, his halberd resting on his shoulder, ready for carnage. His steps get progressively faster, his strides longer.

"Hey, princess," Minayo says, backing up with her sword poised in front of her. "Might wanna hide or something right about now, yeah?"

Thea shakes her head. "I will stay to deal with this...thing. If left alone, it will surely demolish all of Neo Valeriam!" Her aura shines golden and white as she draws on her Psynergy.

Zagan suddenly springs forward, halberd poised to cleave Thea in half.

"No!" Meli and Minayo both shout.

"Eruption!"

A stream of lava explodes in front of Zagan. He howls in pain and stumbles backwards, his chest covered in fresh burns.

Meli turns around, recognizing the voice. "Professor?"

Clad in his scholar's robes, Florian smiles and waves. "Heard about her Highness' visit from a colleague of mine just today," he says, answering the question Meli's about to ask. "Looks like I arrived just in time. I didn't quite expect to see Zagan of all beings here, though. And where's Ramesh?"

To her dismay, Meli realizes that Ramesh has taken the chance to escape from the chaos. She sighs. "He's not so important right now," she says, noting with unease that the burns on Zagan's skin have partially healed already and are well on the way to full recovery. "What is important is that we defeat Zagan somehow, before he kills the princess or destroys the city – or both."

Florian looks over Meli, Thea, and Minayo. "It would be fortunate if we had a Mercury Adept in our ranks, but Fate is rarely so nice," he says dryly. "Nevertheless, if you are prepared for a long fight, we can weaken him enough to force him back to Hades."

"Fine by me!" Minayo leaps into action, ten paper seals between each of her fingers, glowing with Venus power. Working fast, she flips and somersaults to avoid Zagan's counterattacks as she sets the seals down in a pattern around him. She lands gracefully off to the side. With three quick hand gestures, she activates the spell. "Rockjaw!"

Stone spikes protrude from the ground to clamp around Zagan's legs. He flails his arms, sending his halberd flying into the street some distance away. He twists his body...and breaks free from the earthly shackles in a matter of seconds. He bellows in frustration, the sound rattling the roofs and causing the ground to shake slightly beneath everyone's feet.

Minayo exhales. "So much for trapping him so we can just beat the hell out of him, yeah?"

The four Adepts wage a frantic war against the Great Summon Spirit, treading with caution while simultaneously throwing all of their Psynergetic reserves at him. But even with Meli constantly casting Impair on Zagan in an attempt to drop his defenses, only Florian's attacks seem to have any significant results – meaning that his attacks actually seem to hurt Zagan instead of merely annoy him before his self-healing mechanism takes over. Minayo alternates between using her powers and unleashing her best sword techniques. The former tends to bounce off Zagan like pebbles against leather; the latter draws little blood. Thea fares slightly better with the ability to summon the desert spirit Ramses with her two Venus Djinn, though the impact of this power still falls short of Florian's relative effectiveness against Zagan. The battle draws into a stalemate that is slowly, steadily shifting over to a bloody end as a result of weariness on the Adepts' part.

"Damn, the best we're doing is slowing him down!" Minayo says after firing off a Gaia spell. "Isn't there any other way to do this?"

Florian suddenly stops in the middle of casting Fireball as a thought seems to paralyze him.

Zagan chooses that moment to close the gap between them and slash at him with extended ebony claws shrouded in a dark red mist, sending Florian flying bloodily through the air.

Thea gasps. Minayo curses.

Meli shrieks. "Florian!" She runs over to where he's landed, her heart breaking ten times over at the sight of him crumpled on the ground. Zagan's claws have ripped deep into him, tearing both fabric and flesh and spilling his blood in torrents all over his clothes. His eyes are closed. She quickly prepares to cast Cool Aura on him –

"No. Save your energy. You will need it."

Meli stares. "What?"

Somewhere nearby, Minayo shouts, "Suck on this and see if you like it, yeah? Ragnarok!"

"You really are quite crude," Thea chides, though a tiny smile peeks through her voice. "Stone Spire!"

Florian manages to glance up at Meli. "Find Ramesh," he says softly, a wince of pain on his face. "He may be able to unsummon Zagan. I suspect that he's fled Neo Valeriam by now, but I don't believe he'll have gotten far. You can catch up with him if you go now."

Meli shakes her head furiously. "You'll need as much help as you can get here! And I have to heal you first!"

"We can all hold out until you find Ramesh. Go."

"B-but you're bleeding and – "

Florian suddenly reaches out and grasps her wrist. "Do you trust me, Melisande?"

The question is delivered with the same urgent firmness with which he's holding her. Meli manages a nod, her eyes wide with fear.

Florian releases her. "Then go." He smiles. "I will be fine."