Tales of Faerun in Faerun.
The idea was a dumb one.
Most of my ideas started out like that and then eventually I talked myself around to trying it, and my magic would make it work. Somehow.
Incoming.
Morgana's warning was heeded with a quick flick of my wrist bringing my first sword, the gift from Erza, around through the honest to goodness ghost charging at me from down the hall with something between a wail and a shriek. His armor would have been shiny, parade ready with a fur lined cloak and a long spear falling from his hands as he disappeared into thin air.
How many more are there altogether?
27.
Yeah, talk about a smooth going first solo mission. Or as solo as I could get given Morgana's residence in the back of my mind. Kinana couldn't accompany me since this job involved going way up into the mountains where not even warming charms could have maintained her body temperature safely. Wendy was busy running her clinic, while Kagura was, last I heard, terrifying gangs of mountain highwaymen into leaving the postal service alone. Rogue was in another guild that avoided mundane simple job requests such as ingredient gathering like the plague and Eric was still in prison and had promised to not try to break out until we saw how his petition for parole was received.
"Slaughter the infidel witch!" The furious howl of an ancient, magic-hating king reverberated through the walls. It was a very effective reminder that my life was presently in jeopardy. No safety net, no back up, and very little clue as to what had actually caused this whole debacle.
I had better get all the hazard pay and benefits if I pull this off. I don't care that I just charged in and could potentially be causing an international incident.
-vVv-
King Marcel Shingo, who had ruled about two hundred years ago in the northern marches of Iceberg, had been a notorious hater of magic power and those who used it. So much so that he employed a platoon of more than five hundred knights who specialized in hunting down anyone who professed even having been affected by magic. This king's many, many times great grandson had come out with having magic upon his crowning. The speech he had prepared about progressing and accepting the use of magic in the kingdom, discarding ancient barbaric ways of torture and cruelty, had been quite touching. it likely would have made a very different mark in the history books if it hadn't triggered a massive uprising of his furious ancestor's spirit. King marcel had then called on his knights to attack and destroy the 'impostor' pretending to legalize magic in Iceberg.
The royal family was hiding in a panic room designed by Marcel's own son. Every servant and member of their household had someplace to go hide and be safe from magical attacks. They had been under siege for more than three weeks before they managed to get a message out to Fiore, who had a higher concentration of magic users than any of their allies.
And guess who had been in Iceberg, not too far away, looking to fulfil a very specialized job request for goat horns from the herds that surrounded the palace. Passing the border had taken three days and a lot of creative persuading. I wasn't supposed to use any magic at all while in the country. And that was with a notarized seal of trade giving me reason, permission and protection to be entering the country.
The herds that I would be collecting from were in the ice fields outside the capitol city. The cheers and bells from the happy event from within had been audible. As had been the first screams of alarm.
"That isn't because of some local tradition you have, is it?" I asked the goatherd I was here to see, who turned pale as a sheet.
"No..." Then a certain rhythm started to pulse through the air. Drum beats that bounced off the mountains at the city's back and echoed up the valley.
"The castle is being attacked by magic!"
"What?"
The Iceberg people do not use magic in many of their day to day affairs. They rely on drum codes for swift communication of news or orders. Faren the goatherd grabbed my hand and started pulling me for his shelter, whistling to his dogs to herd the goats together.
"Who would attack on Prince Victor's coronation day?"
"Outright attack? Maybe a few of more conservative lords who don't like the recent changes he's made letting wizards even enter the country for trade purposes." The goats were being brought into their barn and the dogs followed behind them.
"OK, so why are you going into hiding?"
"Standard response to not give invaders hostages to bring the royal family out of their safe room."
-vVv-
So I sheltered with Faren and his family for a few days. We weren't supposed to go out except for what was absolutely necessary. I helped take care of the goats since they were hosting me, but I was outside when I noticed something was wrong.
The citizens had all withdrawn inside their homes. But there was still something prowling the streets. And there was an odd aura to the city walls...
Morgana. What's going on in there?
Men are dying.
She showed me images of the royal knights and other soldiers dead in the streets. Faces twisted with fear and surprise. There were no wizards at all in the palace. If the problem was magical in nature then...It would likely take a wizard to solve. And I was the closest one.
I knew that I owed Faren a lot. And I didn't want him to get in trouble if I got caught. But I just had a really, really bad feeling about leaving things like this.
Then one night, on the new moon actually, I heard hoofbeats thundering down the roads.
The Decimation rides tonight. I sat bolt upright.
The Decimation were King Marcel's specially trained and fanatically loyal anti-magic inquisitors. The organization was disbanded not even a generation after Marcel's death. They don't like magic here, but his son didn't feel the need to slaughter everyone who might have it.
But that sound...
I wasn't supposed to use magic. If I were caught, I'd be deported at best and lashed at worst. But this...people were dying and a troop of brutal murderers that hadn't been around for centuries were riding again? This sounded like a ghost uprising of some kind.
Some observation and careful investigation from the walls of the city, humming the Spiderman theme to help me climb up the frigid walls without slipping, let me conclude concretely that Dark Magic was responsible for this. Ghosts were roaming the streets. They weren't breaking into houses, but anyone they found outside was killed. My observation and my nights of restlessly listening to the fearful murmurs of Faren's children about magic made me make plans. Just to make myself feel better.
This isn't what magic is for. I wanted to tell them again and again, but without demonstration, it wasn't like I could effectively change their minds. Magic was an expression of life. Using magic to puppet corpses, capture souls, or anything like that was...horrible beyond words. Every Light Guild in Fiore as part of their official charter had the vow to do everything in their power to undo necromancy like this and capture anyone guilty of using it by any means necessary.
I had a plan of how to get inside the city, avoid the ghostly killers in the streets, and sneak inside the castle. All without being seen. A map of the castle was beyond Morgana's reach to delve without actually using a spell to divine it and I was already playing loose and fast with my promise to not use magic.
Then a letter left King Gene's hands, bound for Fiore, asking for help.
His family had been prepared for a siege, but they were running out of food and their people were still dying at the hands of the spirits that professed to be their protectors. They couldn't even seem to touch the spirits reliably. He had set aside his pride and centuries of traditions to ask for magical aid from Fiore, who they had historically barely been civil with, given how the country had embraced magic as wizards rose to prominence.
When Morgana woke me to tell me that, I made an executive, and very stupid decision. Time was of the essence. And surely reconnaissance wouldn't hurt? I'd just get into the castle and figure out what was happening to help the other wizards when they got here.
But, well, the entire castle was built to defuse and redirect magic, making it harder to use spells that didn't have some kind of touch or physical tie, including Morgana's history 'download' or a map. And while we had been doing that, I'd been spotted by a pair of incorporeal knights and attacked. Things had only gone downhill from there.
I whisked around one corner, tucking myself into an alcove as the four knights ran past me.
I had discarded the pretense of not using magic. My priority was staying alive. Plus the king had asked for help so I had very good odds of not being punished. For this at least.
Ok, think, what have we got.
Iron disrupted spirits, and Erza's sword was the highest quality she could get. And with the kind of pay she brought in, or had brought in, she could afford the best. Salt, as a purifying agent, was effective against all kinds of impure magic, but especially involving the undead. It was part of why so much of it was used by cultures that embalmed their dead. It kept their ghosts from doing...exactly what was happening here. And those were good countermeasures, but there were only so many ways of sending then undead back to rest. Either give them what they wanted, or find whatever they were using to anchor themselves here, and destroy it.
Or killing them. Again. That works in some cases.
-vVv-
I had made it through more than forty of the maddened, not too bright spirits roaming the palace looking for the imposter royal. They weren't thinking normally. They were behaving as if they were patrolling the palace after a lockdown order was issued. They weren't even checking the secure locations they knew were there. They didn't have the best mental capacity, it seemed. Out of sight, out of mind.
Note: They appear to be falling into old patterns of habit from their lives. No magic user ever had the desire to conquer the kingdom, or the gall to come inside the palace. So their standard is to assume that there isn't anyone here.
Noted.
OK. Take stock and think. I leaned against the wall, the chilly air and stone making me shiver. Haunted buildings were supposedly colder than normal from the dead that passed nearby. And it hadn't already been that warm outside given the local climate.
Fact one:
The Ghostbusters theme only did so much as far as boosting me against them. Mostly it made me feel better.
Fact two:
These spirits didn't seem to realize what they were. They had been pulled out of death into undeath, and hadn't had time to realize that their very existence was in violation of the no-magic ideal they held to. Otherwise they would be more...scattered and at war with themselves.
Fact three:
I was getting more and more convinced that this was the work of some kind of curse rather than a straight up case of a lot of restless spirits that could be solved with a Winchester method of problem solving. (Shoot it, stab it, burn it or holy molotov cocktail.) The reason for this was because they were too sane. Too balanced. These spirits had to be at least 200 years old, that was long enough that their memories would have started to deteriorate. If they had existed the entire time, they'd look more decayed and wraith like. Right now, they just looked like slightly washed out versions of people. Whatever they were doing here, it wasn't because they had decided to rise all at once. Someone had pulled them back.
Ok, if it's a curse involving the dead/undead. Most curses of this kind would have to be placed right in the crypt itself to affect all of them. Or somewhere connected to the royal family. And even if it's just straight up a restless spirit problem, the only method I know off the top of my head to put them all back to rest is to douse their remains in salt and burn them.
To sum up:
My goal was to make it to the crypt of a castle that was overrun by magic hating ghosts who had trained their whole lives to kill people like me. I had next to no magical supplies of any kind, I'd needed to leave almost everything I had made outside of the country's borders. And the castle itself wasn't magically conducive. The shaping of the walls, the ways the corridors ran, the decorations...It was all meant to encourage ambient ethernano to stay outside. So even my trusty Potterverse spells would come at a much higher cost than normal. And I could easily get arrested, deported or lashed for using magic within the castle walls, even if I survived this.
This'll be one for the record books. The one titled 'Greatest Acts of well meaning stupidity'.
-vVv-
Morgana alerted me to the patrol routes and that let me avoid the worst on my way down.
But she was also telling me other little factoids.
The death order has never been rescinded for wizards.
Yeah thanks for reminding me that I'm as likely to get killed if the living guards find me as much as the dead ones.
Brightly colored hair was often seen as a sign of magic to the point where dark hair dye was taken as a sign of guilt.
Dang that's harsh. No wonder just seeing me was enough for the spooks to want to murder me.
The Shingo family actually possess a natural affinity for Darkness magic.
Huh, fun fact if I ever heard one...Wait...
Darkness Magic was one of those branches of power that walked the rim of falling into Curse territory more easily than others. It made those users either be very good people to counter the way their power was pulling them, or absolute nightmares when they gave up trying or just jumped over the edge. Simon was my biggest example there.
(I pretended my thoughts didn't flick towards a white haired barmaid who hadn't come into work for over two years now. I also pretended not to feel the aching hole in my chest throb.)
But if the Shingo family had a natural talent for it...then it could be what sparked Marcel's manic treatment of magic users was something he had seen in his family. Or even in himself. And if not that, Darkness Magic was particularly easy to curse from an outside source as well.
Either Marcel's doing something, or someone else has forced him to do something to reanimate all these ghosts.
-vVv-
Down in the catacombs, I found Marcel's tomb. Scattered around him were hundreds of other markers, knights of the Decimation who had died in his service and were given places of honor close to his resting place. And as I had suspected, it was the source of the curse.
The monument was of the Crystal Throne, expertly cut to mimic the iconic piece of glorified furniture in the throne room above, was complemented by the statue of a man bearing the royal scepter in one hand and a sword in the other. Sharp, keen, idealized features stared into the darkness through unseeing eyes.
I sat just around the corner in the shadows. Somewhere I could peek around the corner and see the statue and the tombs that surrounded it, but where I also had a clear line of retreat and some visual cover.
The eyes are the window to the soul. That spell was what I thought might give me the best chance at seeing what was happening in the catacombs. That meant that while people might be able to look at me and see my inner self...it also meant I could get a better look at what was actually going on around that throne. I could almost taste the power that was rooted in it. That was the epicenter of everything that was happening here. I rubbed my temples and my hands together to try and warm them up. The basement was frigid. This was definitely the heart of the haunting. Once I could feel my fingers a little better, I tapped one of the lacrima in my bracers to act as an anchor.
"Seelie Arts: Soulgaze." Without the ritual circle to boost the spell, I wouldn't get as deep of a look, but I would see enough. Steeling myself against whatever might be there, I peered around the corner into the heart of the catacombs.
There was the monument. That was the same.
There was the wall of names and markers for the other deceased. What was different was I could now see many of the ghosts I had destroyed upstairs reforming, slowly, standing at attention, eyes closed. Sleeping on their feet.
But behind them, now that I saw the other ghosts...There was also a man sitting on the throne, almost matching the statue's position exactly. But while his immortal stone effigy sat straight and nobly strong, this figure was slumped, clearly exhausted and haggard. The phrase 'pale as death' sprang to mind but this was beyond that. This was a weariness that could not be described. I saw he was tired. Tired in every way a person could be and...and not be dead. But his eyes burned with energy and insanity. The kind I had only seen in Faust of Edolas, or Byro at their most deranged. Ethereal shackles tied his right hand into alignment with the statue. Someone had tied him to this place. Bound him. The darkness that raged around him was entering his sleeping knights, making their faces twitch with nightmares.
He was also mouthing something.
Translate, please?
Morgana was far better at lipreading than I was.
He is repeatedly saying: 'Not the house'
Well that made no real sense. Not even for vengeful spirit. I needed more information. I had to do a full dive on this castle, it's history and the people that had inhabited it. I had to become intimately acquainted with that madman in the tomb behind me. And doing it by talking would not be an option. Not with bright blue eyes and green tinted hair. He'd have a worse reaction than his knights upstairs.
I settled back around the corner, activating a small silent zone and pulling out a coil of salt soaked rope. I lay this down around me, drawing words on the ground with my finger to give me a bit of protection and warning in case someone came. And also to hide me from passing attention. The stone was reluctant to take the enchantments, but I insisted and it eventually relented. I shivered as I settled into a cross legged seat, the most comfortable, balanced posture I could think of to learn something. I might be here for a while.
In Wendy's case, the entire Nirvit tribe that was present had retained their sanity and good nature because of her. And King Marcel had only started this siege after his distant heir decided to come out as a magic user. Or claim that he was one, at least. The truth of that matter wasn't readily available to me. He had been able to exist down here for years without hurting anyone. So what had triggered him now?
It could always be as simple as it seemed. One of Marcel's descendants publically identifying himself as a mage would certainly upset the ancient spirit. But something in my magic told me there was more to the situation...
I huddled down into myself to preserve warmth as I sank into my mind and magic, climbing through the tangled web of history to try and find what had caused this, and what I could do to solve it. The salt in the rope around me would keep any spirits from attacking me, or at least hold up against the first few attacks and give me warning.
It took a bit before I got back the gory parts of history and to actual information that I could use to try and fix this situation. Only because I had survived reading the Nirvit's history was I even remotely ok reading what Iceberg had justified doing to magic users. And what some wizards had done in answer to the discrimination and hatred.
But eventually, I got past the early kings and arrived where I wanted to be. Marcel. He was the important factor here.
It has to be a curse that is keeping him here. But I don't know whether it's because his own Magic mutated into a curse, or if someone else inflicted it. How did Marcel die?
Suicide.
Simple questions like that typically had straight forward answers, especially when sitting close to the original place of death or the gravesite.
Did he curse himself to become this?
No.
So someone else was involved. In removing any curse, you had to identify the outcome it was trying to achieve as well as see/hear the wording used to place it. To get an idea of how it worked, how long it was meant to last and what parameters would fulfil it. I had a hunch that this curse had been with him since his life. If it were tied to the family, someone other than Marcel would have been afflicted by it. He had not been a popular ruler to the scant magical population, there were plenty of people even among his subjects who had cause to hate him enough to curse him. Even if he had been able to identify the problem as a curse in his time, no wizard would have been willing to risk reprisal to try and help him.
Even if he had asked for a wizard to break the curse on him, in order to uphold the public laws, Marcel would have needed to sneak them through his entire country to the palace for treatment. But considering the mental state of most cursed individuals, he probably only had the presence of mind to consider that as an option for about four months before his mind fell apart too much to cope with the idea of trusting a magic user.
I need to know where it's anchored. I looked around the corner again, not thinking about having Soulgaze still active. Then something happened that you saw in just about every ghost story ever. I really should have expected it.
As though he sensed me watching him, the king's head rolled over, red rimmed eyes roving wildly.
His teeth bared in a snarl.
"I see you, witch!"
Oh bother.
-vVv-
This was not my first experience of being the target of a manhunt. Or even a witchhunt. But it still wasn't fun or any easier. My positioning made it so I managed to run up the stairs before the first knight roused enough to attack, but after that, I was on the run. I was herded back from trying to get out and had no place where I could go to ground and pull more information. This time, the Decimation were working as a unit to try and kill me. They were organized. Focused. Purposeful. And without the element of surprise, I wasn't doing nearly as well. The sword could still disrupt them, but they seemed to be reforming a lot faster now that their king had given them direction. Morgana tracked that there were only about thirty ghosts altogether. While the whole platoon of magic hunters had numbered well over five hundred, only about thirty of them, the officers, were really close to Marcel.
So it's definitely his curse that's letting his ghost pull them out of the afterlife as well.
With the subtle means no longer being an option, and with my life being actively in danger, I could either try to hold out until help arrived, or try and fix this myself. Curse breaking was my bread and butter. I didn't know when King Gene's message would arrive, who would receive it or how long it would take for help to get here. My best chance of survival was if I handled this myself. Better to be proactive than constantly running. Ghosts were chatty, they would talk more easily than a human under most circumstances. Those memories were all they had after all... And the king, the most informed on this situation, had taken himself off of my short list or prospects by ordering this game of cat(s) and mouse.
The all looked more or less the same with some subtle differences. I had to have some more information before I tried to stand and fight a pitched battle.
They were clearly trained to fight with weapons and destroy magic users. I could tell that much. They never really bunched up tightly and stayed mobile.
Countermeasure against an area spell.
They timed their strikes to harry and confuse me, keep me spinning back and forth. Those who couldn't reach me to attack kept up a terrible racket, clanging blades against their armor and screaming bloody murder.
Disrupting concentration and potential spells.
But from what Morgana had discovered during our dive through history, these people hunting me were the lower officers. Not someone I could get any real information out of.
I need a high ranking officer. Someone who was really close to Marcel before he died.
These knights also needed a lesson.
I was getting tired of being the one who was chased.
I had been carrying a naked sword this whole time, but this was the first time I used it on the offensive. I stepped into a Spin Attack, it was a basic enough move, just adding a bit of light and extra cutting power to the edge of my blade to drive them back. It gave some of them pause, shaking them from their reflex routines.
"I am done with all of you!" This was the first time I had tried to talk to them.
"Silence witch! We have purged magic from hundreds of innocent souls!"
"We shall save you as well!"
The laugh that tore from my throat was bitter and anger started to burn in my gut, low, cold and precise. The things I had seen in their histories, close to their graves had left me with very little pity for them, however misguided they may have been. They may have not had a predisposition to accept magic users, but their every action against them had been poison that they gulped down like their lives depended on it. And that poison had meant a lot of innocent lives were lost for no good reason other than fear and irrational hatred.
"By purged, you mean kill. And the only truly relevant word there is 'innocent'." I held my sword up, the dirk Erza had given me years ago. A pair of her signature diamond shaped silver earrings tapped against the skin under my ear as I raised my head. I had needed to clean out her personal apartment and move all her things to another storage facility. We didn't have the funds to keep up her old location. Kagura and I had gotten our ears pierced and wore her spares to keep our mutual mentor and friend close. And I felt her close by. This was precisely the kind of thing she would have done. Take on ridiculous odds.
Because she could do it. And she knew it. I didn't know. But I would be damned if I wasn't going to at least try.
"You slaughtered men, women, innocent children. Demanded that parents turn over their children for execution if they had the nerve to be born with the wrong colored hair. Magic users who you called monsters simply because they felt things you could not understand. And let me make this perfectly clear:"
The sword spun in my hand, feeling lighter and more natural than it ever had before. I literally burned with fervor and anger, but cold, settled deep inside me where it felt like it would never thaw. Morgana pulled the memories of sword fighting practice to the forefront of my mind, shifting gears into a different mindset. Putting aside the finer details of enchantment to focus on this skillset instead.
"You hunted magic users who barely knew what they were doing. Not wizards."
That enraged them. They came at me.
And it was like they were all so much slower. Like their ghostly armor had highlighted weaknesses that I instinctively knew how to exploit. Three blows and the closest enemies fell apart into clouds of semi solid ectoplasm that rapidly evaporated on the cold stone floor
"And I'm not just a wizard: I'm Fairy Tail."
I was still trapped, alone, and up against a troop of immortal ghostly knights out for my blood.
But I wasn't hiding anymore.
Fairy Tail is in the house.
-vVv-
Before, I had hid, snuck around avoiding fighting. Now, I was hunting the knights as surely as they were hunting me. I would run up walls, jump to a better position, even lay to ambush some of them. I had to flush out their commander. Someone who knew what I needed to learn.
They wised up quickly, coming at me in steadily larger and larger groups. I had to stick to larger and larger areas to avoid getting trapped. Eventually, I got pinned down in some kind of audience chamber. Lots of open space. All of the knights had room in here to manifest but some were still looking for me elsewhere or trying to find me. I spotted one with a fancier uniform towards the back of the pack.
There you are. Finally.
This was about 14 of the 30 some knights that were awake. I shifted my grip, pulling my magic towards my skin as an unconscious natural armor against their attacks. They were as wary of approaching me as I was of committing to a direction of attack.
I...might need some backup for this.
Self deception detected.
Ok, fine, I will definitely need backup.
I had come a long way from the 10 year old that had torn down Faust's palace.
I had Erza's dirk in one hand, but it wasn't going to be enough. I spotted a gap in the line and bolted for it, batting aside ghostly blades and feeling an icy line graze across my ribs from one successful attack. Gasping as the shock of the cold drove the breath from me, I rolled to avoid the other blows. I ended up by a suit of armor. I reached for it's weapon, a sword that was way too big and heavy for me, but I focused, drawing on the scant magic in the air.
"Reducio!" The blade shrank and lightened until I could hold it up even in my off hand. It should still have the same durability as it did when it was larger. But I had maybe an hour before the strain of keeping it small and useable would start to tax me heavily.
I was backed against a wall, the ghosts hadn't yet had the presence of mind to realize they were incorporeal and I wasn't about to let them in on that fact. They had also formed a wary perimeter at the open use of magic. The walls of this room were hung heavily with all kinds of tapestries and wall hangings to help keep heat inside the hall. One of them depicted the country's crest, which now caught my gaze out of the corner of my eye. Just to the side and above me.
The Shingo royal family's symbol was a prowling black wildcat on an ice blue field. A snow leopard.
Snow leopard.
Black leopard.
Black panther.
I looked down at my hands, the two blades I held, I looked out at the ghostly apparitions that were my opponents.
The name I had chosen for myself at my rebirth was Faerun, a world with many stories and adventures of magic and courage. But one who possessed a very famous story of a warrior who iconically used two swords...accompanied by an astral panther.
This wasn't a totem. I hadn't had time to prepare anything like it. It was very much a spontaneous thought. But I had two swords and there was a cat's image nearby.
I have to try. It might not work, but I have to try it or I'm dead!
I tensed my legs, the appropriate enchantment springing into life around my calves from the anklets inside my boots, and jumped, using the armor I had robbed of it's weapon as a springboard and sending it clattering to the ground. I managed to get level with the tapestry.
I dug deep, focusing on the story and the legend...
Her story only started to be told in the Underdark, a place surrounded by evil. Used as a tool by beings that didn't understand her, only used her.
She had found a friend. Someone who saw her for what she was. Called her his friend in spite of her having been sent to kill him.
G2.0...I can relate.
I felt a door. A gate yawning behind me. Still sealed shut, waiting for the key.
The cat's image was squarely at my back. Normally, she would be summoned with a statuette of her and a command phrase.
I cut the air with my swords, envisioning a veil being sliced open. I didn't have the statue...
But I do know the words.
And words are my specialty.
"Guenhwyvar, come to me, my shadow!"
I didn't see the cat on the tapestry behind me disappear.
But I did see a spurt of grey mist from an unseen slit in the air, and form into a majestic, starry coated black panther. Her leap, claws extended, scattered the ghostly knights before her like old leaves on the wind. 600lbs of magical muscle and hunting ability that could swat at them as if they were still solid. Because to her, an Astral creature, they were.
Guenhwyvar, a panther from the Astral Plane of existence. Friend and companion to Drizzt Do'Urden.
I kicked off the wall and flung myself on the other side of the group as I made for the commander. Morgana had told me that he had known Marcel personally and was even a friend of his.
Guenhwyvar, or whatever copy of her my magic had created, cut through the rest of the bewildered and utterly terrified knights with ease. If my shrinking a sword in front of them had unnerved them, she terrified the unlife out of them. Her obviously magical nature seized and held the majority of their attention. And her reflexes, coupled with their surprise, let her move through them like a scythe through a field.
My blades sang in unison as I cut down the men who had pulled back to guard the commander. I moved forward steadily, my arms burning with the effort, my eyes spotting and using every weakness, every possible opening. Two came at me at once, thrusting their spears at me. I crossed my swords, pinning them to the ground, then jumping over the X to plant a boot in one man's semi solid face. I spun my sword back to guard my front as the second man dropped his spear, which disappeared without a sound and drew his sword. I was faster and had his arms severed at the elbows before dispatching him with a slice across the throat.
Erza wanted me to get used to one sword before she even let me consider using two. If it's that much harder, why does it feel so easy?
My target was within reach but about to retreat once again. I caught my salted rope, hastily coiled by my side, on the tip of one of my swords and flung it around the commander as Guenhwyvar scattered the remainder of the Decimation knights.
"Lasso of Truth, Immobilize!" I activated the enchantment I had placed in one lacrima hidden inside the end of the rope, no bigger than my little fingernail and easily hidden in the heavy fibers. The rope took on a faint gold luster and the slack wound securely around the captain of its own accord. He went stock still, unable to so much as twitch.
Holy fudge I can't believe that actually worked. Score! And check later if the enhanced strength, reflexes and fighting ability works too.
The man looked petrified and struggled against the rope, but to no avail. The line was tight around him and though I could feel him struggling to move. I could probably have held him still with only magic, but I sheathed one sword to grip my tool of interrogation. It helped channel the power more directly.
"It's not going to hurt you." I informed him. "And I don't want to hurt you either. I want to put you and your men back to rest but I need to know something first."
"Do your worst, witch! I'll not betray my king!" I blew out a short, annoyed breath. The black panther behind me prowled, watching me, the room and the halls where the other knights had fled to.
"Fine, we're playing hardball. Your king, Marcel Shingo. He's been a ghost ever since he died, and he kept part of the Decimation with him. Is that correct?" He tried to spit at me. It would have worked a lot better if he weren't dead. I tightened my grip on the rope and tugged him a little closer.
"The Lasso commands you answer!" Magic poured into my totem and he straightened abruptly, eyes going vacant for a split second.
"My King never reached the rest of death." He slumped and his eyes widened in horror. "What sorcery-" If I let him freak out now, I wouldn't get more answers out of him. I had to keep him talking, let his indignation loosen his tongue.
"Exactly. Sorcery. No one becomes a ghost without some kind of magic being involved. Who cast the spell? Why did they target Marcel?"
He bared his teeth, determined to keep silent.
"Answer!" I barked, invoking the truth spell again, feeling the magic power leave my body.
"A wild sorceress from the mountains." The words came out slowly at first, the next sentence more easily. "We saved her brood from living in her corruption."
He truly believes their actions saved them. This kind of conviction was the kind I hated facing.
"Meaning you killed her children." That was plenty of motivation enough to lay a curse like this. "How?" This time, I barely needed to activate the Lasso. The officer spoke with pride about this.
"We sent them on quietly in their sleep. They didn't suffer."
Remind me to not lose my temper yet.
I felt Morgana wordlessly help clamp down on my emotional responses. Logic, control, purpose. Anger could wait until I had what I needed from this man.
"And what did she say when she cursed him?" This he did fight. A lot. I glared at him, feeling my eyes glow as the dark shape circled us, alert for any additional threats.
"I can force it out of you, you know I can. And I will if it means I can stop you butchers who call yourselves knights from haunting the people of this country. Now: Tell me the wording of the curse." I enunciated my command slowly and precisely, enforcing it with my Lasso of Truth.
The commander writhed again, trying to defy the spell I was putting him under. I matched wills with him for an infinite moment...
I know there is a truth. And I know I can find it in you. Now talk before I get really mad at you.
He broke with an inaudible snap.
"'You shall never again know rest until magic is welcomed into your land, your house and your kin!'" The commander screamed, the force of the conflict between his will and my magic disrupting his form and making him evaporate abruptly. I recoiled the rope, satisfied and doubly unnerved.
'Never again know rest.' That curse would have given him insomnia in it's most literal interpretation, paranoia at a more distant one...and apparently functional immortality as a side effect since one can call death a form of rest.
And Marcel had been repeating 'not the house'.
"Well damn." I said out loud. Guenhwyvar looked at me, cocking her head. "The guy animating all these ghosts isn't trying to protect his people from magic. He's trying to keep the curse's conditions from being fulfilled so he can stay alive." The intelligent cat waited patiently, eyes watching me keenly. I looked at her for a moment, wondering...
Is this just a really good copy made from my magic or is she actually in there?
I couldn't tell. Stories came to life too easily, especially for me, to be certain for right now. But I did sort of miss having someone to talk to.
"I hope I'm not keeping you from anything important, but I really do have to solve this restless spirit problem and you were the first one I could think of who might be able to help." She gave a short sound that resembled a laugh, but I might also be reading into it. "You mind staying a while longer?"
She sat back on her haunches and waited patiently.
I'll take that as a no since I'm pretty sure she can self dispel if she wants to.
"Marcel will stay alive, or at least unable to die, until magic is welcomed into his land, house and kin." I said, thinking out loud, checking my weapons and sheathing Erza's with care after verifying it hadn't suffered any damage. I didn't have a sheath for my borrowed sword. Let alone one that would fit it in it's smaller state.
"The prince, one of his direct descendants, sparked this whole debacle by announcing to the country on his coronation day that he has magic. They cheered for him and were happy. So magic is accepted in the country, and among his family. But his house..."
Be welcomed in the house.
...Well, some curses are lifted just that easily.
-vVv-
I had about two more minutes of travel before the Decimation Knights came back with a vengeance, this time even more of them. I had Guenhwyvar as backup, and that made a huge difference.
It occurred to me around the third skirmish that the reason I was able to dual wield without any prior training was because of the coincidental totem I had made. I was using two swords and fighting with her as an ally. I was accidentally playing the role of Drizzt Do'Urden himself. It showed not just in my possessing skills I had not trained in, and in experience I hadn't gained. Guenhwyvar and I never seemed to get in each other's way. We meshed as easily as I did with Kinana, Kagura or Wendy.
But no matter how good of an impromptu team we were, the last stretch to the door of the royal bunker was still a hard slog. Barred with iron and painted over many times with salt. But no magical runes or protective sigils. Just a straight up heavy vault door that they had been behind for two weeks. Ten knights were between me and it.
"Destroy the witch!" I heard a scream from behind me and turned to see Marcel's ghost, missing an arm and leaking ectoplasm everywhere, but still hobbling along, clutching the scepter in his remaining hand. "Protect your king from her sorcery!"
Guenhwyvar growled, seeming to materialize from the shadows and stalk between myself and the other knights behind us.
I felt the connection, the gate I had opened for her...and I did what I had seen Lucy do before with the spirits she had summoned.
I fed more magic into the astral panther before me. What I could spare and still make it through this fight. I was starting to feel more and more cold everywhere. My magic reserves were what was keeping me warm and letting me resist the negative effects of being near necromancy. The fur rippled along her back and she seemed to pulse with renewed energy. She gave a surprised trill, almost a mew, but she didn't take her eyes off the enemy.
I don't have limitless energy. We'll have to make this fast so he can't get through and massacre his own family.
They were the last hope of removing the curse. And if they were gone, then it lay solely with him to welcome a magic user into the castle. And he never would.
Everyone in this castle will die within a few more days of this siege. They don't have enough food to stay inside for very much longer.
"We'll have to make this fast."
33 opponents.
All ghosts, all getting more used to that reality the more times they had to reform.
Wait...
I only saw about twenty Decimation Knights and Marcel before me. Ten between me and the door, a dozen flanking their deceased monarch.
Where are the rest?
In the walls, searching for a breach in the royal family's panic room. Marcel knows what to do to let himself live forever.
"Very, very fast." I drew my primary blade and a deep breath.
Help me you guys. I'm about to pull another classic Fairy Tail.
Then I threw myself into battle, a snarling ball of darkness and claws at my side.
This fight was not like the rest.
This time, the ghosts took full advantage of their ability to phase through the walls and floor. They did whatever they could to surround me, with Marcel shrieking orders for my blood to paint the floor.
But wherever the knights went, Guenhwyvar seemed to be first. It didn't matter that she didn't have iron plated claws, they bit into the ghosts as easily as my swords did. She took some hits, and I did too, but my protective runes and natural shielding took on the worst of the damage leaving me with bruises. But ultimately, we stood up to it.
2 minutes, 59 seconds until the other knights find a way into the bunker.
Ok, this has to end now.
I used my jumping enhancers to bounce off the walls closer to Marcel. If he had to reform, then the knights wouldn't come back as quickly.
He moved rather spryly for a guy who hadn't slept in years when his body finally gave out.
The head of his scepter crashed onto the shoulder of my offhand, and I let the sword drop with a grunt, using my other more familiar blade to drive him back.
The other major vulnerability of spirits and dead things...
The toss was poorly aimed, but I managed to break the vial of oil at his feet like I had wanted. It splattered all across the hallway, keeping him from approaching as soon as-
"Seelie Arts: Summer Fire!"
He recoiled from the flames as they flared up quickly, spurred by the magic of a high summer, glowing warm, gold and bright against the cold dark stone. A protective barrier that would keep Marcel away from me for a few more seconds. Guenhwyvar's glossy coat was ruffled and dark with her own blood in some areas, but I hurried towards the door, ignoring my shoulder screaming in agony.
The other knights reappeared at Marcel's angry call. It was not nearly as easy to fight with a bad arm as it had been to dual wield, but I was still mostly in one piece by the time Guen and I made them all dispel. The undead king was still trapped behind the line of golden fire. The way was clear.
Less than a minute until they have all reformed.
I pounded on the door with the pommel of my sword.
"I need to come in! Stand back, please, I know how to end this!"
I wish Gajeel were here. Don't know how he'd like salt on his iron though.
I pressed my hand against the cold metal, wincing slightly at the sensation. It was freezing and my hand was sweaty. Do the math.
"Alohomora Maxima." The door opened with a rumble, rather than a click. I channeled more magic into another surge of strength to heave the door open.
30 seconds.
The ghosts were already forming behind me.
I didn't register the frightened people at risk here, I didn't think about the weapons being pointed at me by the understandably wary guards. I just zeroed in on the one who felt like he was the most in charge, an older gentleman with worry lines and a craggy face. He didn't have a crown on but I felt confident he was King Gene.
"Welcome me into your home, and this will all end!"
"No!" Marcel screeched behind me. King Gene looked scared and confused.
"I beg your pardon?" No, damnit! No questions now!
Everyone's salvation came in the form of a younger man, mid twenties or so, leaping forward and shouting.
"I welcome the Lady Winter into our home!"
I felt the curse on the building unravel with a snap. The ghostly knights and their undead master faded with screams of rage and I sagged against the doorframe, a long breath leaving me.
"Close enough."
-vVv-
Turns out the man I had been addressing was the current king, King Gene the Third, a very conservative, traditional fellow. The man who had welcomed me was the Crown Prince, Victor. He had deduced that there was something amiss in their home and had been for a long time. His years of effort in research and deduction concluded, not incorrectly, that his ancestor's treatment of magic users had brought a curse onto their family and home. Cold spots, strange smells, highly improbable accidents and bad vibes all around. The usual signs and omens of a traditional haunting. And then finally, when he had broken into his magic, Darkness Magic, as was the norm for his family, he had heard the mad whispers of a deranged man in the basement bent on living forever.
So he had done what he could to break the spell. His grandfather had been the one to bind Marcel to the catacombs. Hence why Marcel had been chained to that monument, and had needed to tear his arm off, so to speak, in order to come and face me in person. The haunting had been a lot worse in his generation, but had dialed back after the sealing. It had taken years for Marcel to regain some of his influence and by then, times had changed enough for Victor to notice and have the will to try to remove the problem at its source instead of simply resealing him.
"I thought that my actions would be enough to undo the curse, I did not think that because the curse came from a foreigner, I would need the aid of a foreigner to lift it." I shrugged, patting him consolingly on the arm.
"Don't worry about it. It's a nuance that most people wouldn't have thought to look for. I made a similar mistake trying to lift my first curse. I'm just lucky Droy got his hands back on the right way once I figured out what I had missed."
"How old were you when you handled your first curse?"
"Ah...eight?" The man looked ever so slightly put out at that.
Victor wouldn't hear of me being punished when my actions had saved the lives of everyone in the palace and stopped the Decimation from terrorizing the countryside. It turned out that there had been dozens more ghosts riding patrols hunting for magic users and majorly freaking people out all over Iceberg. Some more conservative souls wanted to see me at least reprimanded, but King Gene stood by his son's decision.
"We owe you a tremendous debt for your deeds. You came to our rescue in spite of the danger to yourself, both from our ancestor and our own biases." The king, whose hair was more silver than white blond, bowed to me then, a gesture mirrored by his wife and children.
"Lady Winter, please accept our most heartfelt welcome."
"You will be the first wizard in all of history to receive it. Please say yes." Victor said with an almost cheeky look, dark eyes clashing with the pale hair he had inherited from his father.
The royal welcome is a standing invitation to the hospitality of Iceberg. It is a high honor and sign of royal favor and trust.
I wasn't sure what to do in response, but I did dip politely in answer to the family's reverence. I stumbled a bit, but I couldn't help it! It felt weird to have people bow to me!
"I thank you for the offer. Is there a proper way to accept it?"
The smile on Victor's face was like a sun breaking through heavy clouds and his glance at his father was swift and mostly unconscious. King Gene himself looked taken aback, but pleased.
That was a good thing to say.
Ok, I'm just glad I'm not going to get deported or anything. I might never get to leave the country again if I cause an international incident, no matter how much pull Simon has with the Rune Knights nowadays!
-vVv-
The news was all over the kingdom within a few days. The Siege of the Dead was ended thanks to Lady Winter. I was supposed to be going home, but had to put that off by a few weeks because King Gene wanted to give me a medal! I just sent as many letters as I could to my friends to assure them that everything was ok and I'd be home before the harvest festival.
Being a royal guest was pretty nice. And being the only wizard in the whole country meant I had a lot of questions thrown at me constantly. And, usually, a gaggle of interested children who wanted to see 'Lady Winter' perform magic.
I blamed Victor for the name. It wasn't dying out even though most people knew who I was now.
"I get that you didn't know my name and needed one, but Lady Winter? It sounds way too formal to be mine."
"With your colors it was the first thing I could think of." He said with absolutely no shame.
"That is remarkably shallow of you. I'd think you would be more suited to an ice prince look. You're practically white haired already!"
"Well, you know how it goes. Royal upbringing and all. We're practically expected to be frivolous and shallow."
"Says the man who wants me to explain Ethernano Dispersal patterns and the theories of Ethernano origin." Those were not easy topics and Victor had been monopolizing me for my knowledge as much as he could.
"Victor, we said it was my turn!" Cassandra complained. The other occupant of the room where we had been having lunch and a lecture, Princess Cassandra of Iceberg.
Victor was the elder by more than ten years. Cassie was about my age, and, like her brother, had recently broken into Darkness Magic. The subtle kind that Simon specialized in. She had darker blond hair than her brother and father, and softer, rounder features.
"But we're almost finished, Cassie! You think it's interesting too."
"But I want to hear more about her guild master! That could really help me with how to practice!"
"Both of you kids settle down! Victor, we are nowhere close to being done. What you want to know takes years to study let alone master. Cassie, I'll talk shop with you after I actually manage to eat!"
Both of them looked sullenly put out at that. I had to force myself not to laugh.
Cassie was my age, maybe a little older. Victor was around Eric's age. And I'd just scolded both of them as if they were squabbling toddlers.
They are so weird. Iceberg is notorious for its conservative stance on everything. But they're so...normal.
They did just meet you, who they can be normal with.
...I just made two new friends didn't I?
They both intend to write to you and Victor is already planning for another visit once he gets some renovation projects off the ground.
And since Winter was apparently a revered and feared thing in this icebound country, I couldn't get them to call me anything else. I insisted for a week that my name was Fae.
This just made them call me Lady Winterfae.
I gave up after that.
The only thing I had no explanation for was how torn up their royal tapestry was after I released the spell holding Guenhwyvar here. (Real Guen or a copy? Still uncertain.) It was almost nothing but rags when we finally made it around to the great hall where I had been pinned down.
"Your exploits will make excellent stories for the future generations of wizards in our land." The court bard said with glee. I eyed my fellow storyteller and wondered if I didn't need to find some way to make copyright stick outside of Fiore.
I left Iceberg for home with new clothes, new friends, an enormous supply of food and a stack of requests for the wizard guilds and schools to send teachers for the fledgling community of Iceberg wizards. Teachers from Fairy Tail.
"We will have a great many amends to make with our neighbors for our past. But we hope especially that your people know they will always find friends among us." I felt like I should report this to the Magic Council, maybe even the king, but I was still thinking about it.
I looked at the palm sized symbol Victor had told me to keep with me and show should I ever require passage through their lands.
The glass statue of a cat, one paw raised as though about to take a step forward. The underside of that paw could be used to mark seals on letters, should any of my friends need to travel to or through Iceberg on magical business or to fulfil those teaching contracts they had written up. But the statue was now mine. Their artisans took great pride in making sure each of these pieces was unique. Unlike it being made into a black snow leopard like the others, it was very plainly a black panther. Her eyes had a special stone in them that made them reflect ice blue at a certain angle. The finish on her coat made her sparkle, like-
Like Guen had.
I wonder if I'll ever figure out if she was real or not.
I shrugged out my wings, which elicited a cheer of delight from the kids that had gathered to watch me depart, and took flight, more than ready to go home and forget for a while that I had been the target of a witch hunt, run my own ghost hunt, and solved the problem by being invited inside.
My gosh, I really am turning in an actual fairy.
-vVv-
Guenhwyvahr rested her head on her paws, considering the strange adventure she had just witnessed.
She knew the mortal world. Was familiar with it through the many times she had been summoned through to the other side. But this call, while specific and directed straight for her, even using the proper words, had not come from Drizzt, the present holder of her statue. The voice had been young, female and the notes of desperation along with the unspoken message made Guen answer the call.
I'm alone, scared and desperate. Please help me.
A child's voice and a child's need.
The young fairy girl had recognized Guenhwyvahr, spoken to her like she knew she was understanding her. Even been polite enough to request for her aid after the initial conflict. But she still hadn't worked out how the girl had known her name or her words, let alone how she had created a new gate for her to pass through to a new Material Plane.
Letting her eyes drift into a peaceful snooze, Guen thought to herself how funny it would be if she were able to tell Drizzt about her curious adventure. A little girl with bright eyes and boundless courage. Too young to be fighting such adversaries, like a wraith king, on her own yet strong enough to do so and come away triumphant.
If the call came again, she would answer. She wanted to see more of what this fairy child could do.