Chapter 10

They're the hardest to get, if you know what I mean

"Come on, take a break!" Malachite insisted that night, sticking his head into my room. "You've got all tomorrow to finish up learning magic!"

"Unless we're turned into giant pigs, or trampled by goblins, or whatever's next in this madhouse!" I muttered.

"What was that?" he asked, cocking his head.

"I asked what did you have in mind? A little late for afternoon delight, a little early to turn in for the evening. Have you even eaten?"

"We're going out to eat," he insisted. "I know you don't, but Snarly and I heard about a place this afternoon. Food is nothing special but apparently they have the best musicians in town!"

"I suppose heading into this with a more relaxed attitude could help," I decided after a moment. "Studying magic was what got me into this predicament in the first place. And how often do we get to experience music?"

"Hanz was going on about something called radio and MP3s, and something called streaming? I couldn't follow their explanation honestly. So let's go!"

"You've convinced me. Just let me decide on someone- I mean something- to wear and we can head out."

I stuck with my foxgirl disguise, why change up at this point? We headed to a rather rough part of the town and were seated. I had to admit, the music here was excellent, and we did the usual "I order something small and Malachite eats it" thing we always did. Though I could be tempted by some cake or something…

We were finishing up when Malachite tapped me and pointed. I looked over to where he was looking and caught of glimpse of a red sash we both knew well. I glanced at him, and he gave a quick nod. "Cultist."

I looked around. We couldn't exactly start something in this crowd, what was he even doing here? He had on a cloak but he wasn't being too careful about it, clearly he was wearing the "uniform" of the Gloom cultist, and looking around for someone. Someone he spotted, who came over to him and handed him a small vial of red liquid. He nodded, and the other man went on his way.

"What do you think that was?" Malachite asked.

"No idea. But it can't be good. Keep an eye on him. Once we pay we'll get closer."

Malachite scarfed down the last of his food and called the waitress over to take care of the bill, meanwhile I was fuming and wishing for a spell that simply made us overlooked rather than invisible. Us vanishing from here might cause a stir, but we couldn't lose track of this guy. That vial could be a spell he was simply going to smash against the ground, causing a gas to fill the room that killed everyone here. We had to figure out what his plan was. He seemed to just be standing there for the moment, so there seemed to be no rush to use it, whatever it was. With our bill paid we made our way to the back, and I took a chance making us invisible when I thought no one was looking our way. I managed it, and we worked our way around the room as carefully as we could, to get a better look at the guy. We were holding hands so we didn't get separated, which made things a little more tricky, but I didn't want to risk a second spell to phase us. Plus I would have needed to do that first. Casting a spell to effect Malachite now would break my invisibility. He was still right there when we got near, seemingly enjoying the music like everyone else. My blood boiled. Cultists! Here in town! Oh, and he's a music lover, is he? Not going to be much music in the world when the Gloom covers the land or whatever that elemental was going on about. Right? Ever think of that? No? Maybe make better life choices? I was fuming for what seemed like forever, but was probably closer to half an hour before something finally happened. People had been coming and going that entire time of course, sometimes obscuring him, but he hadn't made any move like he knew we were there. He ordered a drink and went to get the coin out of his pouch, and froze.

So did we.

The pouch he had put the vial in was gone!

He looked around on the floor, panicked, but clearly he had been robbed by one of the people milling around in the place. I fought the urge to smack my face. Now not only did we have a cultist on the loose, there was some unknown vial out there in the wind. What if some kid opened it and that activated it? The cultist would no doubt throw it, they wouldn't want to be caught in their own spell but still. I doubted anyone would be stupid enough to drink some unknown fluid but on a dare? People could do weird stuff. He was looking freaked out and finally decided it was time to go, so we followed.

"We have to know what that was," I hissed to Malachite.

"I agree," he probably said with a nod, I couldn't see him still. "Let's see if he goes near an alley and I'll grab him."

Maybe we can get him to tell us where his hideout is? Get the guard involved at last? This is inside the city now, there's no excuse anything outside the walls isn't their problem.

But the man was being very careful. While it was fairly late and there were not a lot of people on the streets, still he stayed to the middle of the roads, avoiding anyplace we could grab him into.

"This isn't working," Malachite muttered. "Orchid, get home, I'll see what he has to say for himself."

"Is that really the best-" I started to say, but it seemed he was done waiting. His hand left mine, and a moment later he flashed into visibility as he grabbed the guy up and flew into the sky with him. Of course this caused the man to shout in surprise, and I heard another voice from down the street.

"What's that then? Stop in the name of the law!" I sighed as a guard came into view, looking around. "Someone prowling round here," they decided. "What's that then?"

I made my exit, heading in another direction, and when I was a few streets away I crouched behind some bushes (not my finest hour) and asked the universe.

"Is the stolen red liquid once held by the cultist I saw tonight directly dangerous to anyone?"

"No."

Somewhat relieved I didn't have to go chasing that down I made my way back home. Naturally it took me awhile, and Malachite was waiting for me when I got there.

"There you are!" he exclaimed. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, what did you learn? Where is the guy?" I looked around. "Is Snarly tying him up inside or..."

"Uh, dead?"

"He killed himself rather than answer your questions?" My eyes got wide. "This is more serious than I-"

Malachite shook his head. "Not that. I kinda dropped him."

"Because he was struggling, right." I nodded. "Panicked, no doubt. I would be, if something swooped down and grabbed me while I was walking around." Well, no, I would needle the assailant and TK myself before I hit the ground but whatever. "Not your fault, I'm sure you did everything you could to… What?"

He gave a little cough. "No it was pretty much on… purpose?"

I glared at him. "You killed him on purpose."

"He was creepy, I had to!"

I crossed my arms over my chest. "Explain." At least he admits it. But I thought we were past this!

"He was all shouty and screamy at first. Didn't know exactly what was in the vial. Then said it was just an ingredient."

Right, that's why torture doesn't work. The person just tells the torturer what they think will get them out of it. And his death was the only thing you could think of? How were we supposed to get answers at that point?

"Then his personality totally changed! He got all cold and was like, 'you better just drop me.' It was nuts."

"Changed?"

"Yeah, like I said he was screaming and pleading and saying his wife was at home with their child and whatever and then boom. Nothing. I even dropped him and caught him, and he was like 'oh is that all you can do? I expected better.'"

"So you dropped him for real, just to show him?"

"Kinda? I guess. I felt bad about it."

"Felt bad? Malachite, the man is dead. We needed to turn him in to the guard. They can't ignore the cult if they're working right in the city. They could have hired Solara, or a seer, or something to see what he had been up to lately. This could have been the break we needed!" One dead cultist doesn't mean anything. We have to strike at the heart of it. But we have to find it first!

He squirmed a bit. "I thought you might say something like that. Sorry, it was just a spur of the moment thing. I'm no good at thinking about stuff like that."

"Clearly! Well, it's done now. Honestly, stop killing people!" Especially people who are completely in your power.

"I'm trying- and I realize now how that sounds too. I really am sorry."

"I know," I breathed. Honestly, what were you thinking? But he does seem to be.

"What do you think, you know, happened to him?"

"If I had to guess? He was taken over by the Gloom. If he changed that much, maybe anyone in the cult that has touched the Gloom or whatever they do as an initiation can be taken over. That ice demon I questioned was the same. It didn't seem to care about its own life just went on about how the Gloom was going to win and there was nothing we could do about it. But if that's the case, my God, it's worse than even I thought. We have to be careful."

"Yeah, handling anything from a cult site could 'infect' us the same way. So then, in a way, it's good he's dead right? What if he infected a guard or whatever? Or what was in him could move to another?"

Then it would have moved into you, dope. In fact, how do I know it hasn't? And there it is, paranoia. Great, another thing to worry about. Would question magic even detect if such a thing happened? It would explain, not that dropping the guy isn't in character for Malachite. I'll ask later, and hope for the best. "Don't try to justify it, Malachite. You screwed up. You should at the very least pray for forgiveness and hope that man really was about to do something awful. The cult needs to be destroyed, yes, but that means saving the people we can, not killing them." Being able to study someone touched by the Gloom, that I didn't have to make a deal with or could just turn into water and melt away would have been invaluable. Could I have broken that connection? No, but someone might be able to. A priest?

"What about the vial? Or the other man?"

"I asked about the vial. It's not directly harmful to anyone. The other man, I don't know." I shook my head sadly. "It's our word against his, even bringing magic into it. It would be a whole thing. He may not even be a cultist, why would one cultist give another cultist something? That wouldn't make sense. No, it makes more sense that's an innocent, or as innocent as one can be doing a shady deal in a crowded room like that. The cult can't be that stupid, I'm sure he would have plenty of plausible deniability."

"We could stake the place out, see if he comes back?"

"Do you really think, after it's revealed a cult member was dropped out of the freaking sky after coming out of that place that they'll use it again for those sorts of things? All they have to do is ask question magic your name and poof, they know it was you." Honestly that's all the guard has to do too, but I'm hopeful given he was wearing cult attire they won't look too carefully into it. "I'm sure they know us by now, we've been messing them up enough. It'll just be another instance of that. They won't risk using that place again." And will probably go further underground, making our job that much harder again. Great, just great.

"Oh. I guess you're right."

"Of course I am. Let's just drop it. Oh my God let's just forget it is what I mean. We had a chance and-" I threw up my hands and went inside. I just couldn't.

I spent the last few hours the next day engraving my core with the new spells, and made a few tokens the others said they wanted. I also refreshed any that had been used, and repaired Malachite's armor that had been pretty dented in our last fight. All three were off training, which suited me just fine, I now had to create the tool to help us find the nexus. I didn't want to start it until we were ready, just in case something happened, but that was about all I could do at the moment. So I got to work. I traced a circle onto a sheet of paper, then carefully marked it with 0, 90, 180, 270. Then I did my best to cut those marks in half, going for 45, 135, and so on. I made the marks closer and closer together up to a point, I really only needed a rough direction at least to begin with. Satisfied with my work I made up more statues and delivered them, in case we were gone for several days, and cleaned up a little around the house.

When the sun was setting everyone was back, and I showed them the fruits of my labor.

"In the morning we'll use this," I indicated the circle, "to find out where the nexus is. I hope. If this doesn't work we'll have to think of something else, but I have a good feeling about it. Get a good night's rest, not you Hanz obviously. I have no idea what we'll face once we start all this. Check your stuff, pack anything you think you'll need tonight, in case we have to grab it up quickly, otherwise we'll start out early tomorrow. Any questions?"

"Are you still mad at me?" Malachite asked quietly, eyes on the floor.

"Any questions about the mission," I clarified.

"That's a yes," Hanz explained, leaning over to him.

"I don't need you to tell me that!"

Oh yeah, we're going into this with the right mindset. May God help us all.

The next day I aligned 0 with north and took a deep breath. I had the prophesy next to me, and had it in mind as I cast. "Along what heading upon this circle must I travel to reach the location, specified in this prophesy, as 'the nexus?'"

To my delight I got a number back, almost due north.

"It worked," I told them with a huge grin. "I got an answer. Now for the second part. How far in kilometers must I travel to reach the location specified in this prophesy known as 'the nexus?'"

"1900."

"That's… Wow. Okay, that's a trek," I admitted. "May take more than one day. Still, it worked, the nexus exists and we can fly a bit and keep using this method to get a better idea as we get closer. Everyone ready?"

There were nods all around, so we headed out and took to the sky.

I had underestimated Malachite's speed when he was huge, the kilometers got chewed up at a rapid pace, going down about 400 per hour if I was doing the math right. As we got closer and closer I got more and more tense, the spell seemed to be directing me somewhere I was quite familiar with. We had stopped for lunch about an hour ago, and circling now I was sure this was the place. We landed, and I glared.

"I should have known," I cried, throwing my hands up. "It all comes back to this, doesn't it?"

"I don't understand," Hanz admitted. "Do you know this place?"

"Know it? I spent more than a hundred years here, studying magic. This is the cave I moved into with all my books. This is the crystal cavern!"

And it was. Huge slabs of somewhat transparent crystal were poking out of the cave entrance, far more than I remembered seeing after my emergence from the place. There was enough of an opening we could still get inside, but clearly this place was active magically in a way I was ignorant of. "But it wasn't this bad," I told them, turning this way and that to look the crystal over. "I wouldn't have even considered it if it had been this bad. Before it was just a lot of pretty crystals dotting the walls of a regular cave. Now it seems it's more crystal than cave. It's not even that big, if this is some kind of nexus I didn't notice it before."

"You can get pretty wrapped up in your studies," Malachite told me.

"True," I agreed. "Well, let's see what the inside has to offer." Taking no chances I got out my two companion creatures, spent a light token so I didn't have to maintain that either, and we all cautiously made our way inside.

We poked around, the place wasn't that complex or deep, just enough space for a single minded young lady to get some peace and quiet from her family to devote to the study of magic. I had packed up most everything, but anything I had left was clearly disturbed by growing crystals. It hadn't grown into anything, just pushed whatever it was out of the way. As with the entrance, the walls were almost completely crystal now, spikes of it jutting from every surface rather than being sheets of the stuff. Magic was flowing around the whole place, seemingly following the path of the crystals in a way Hanz remarked was like electricity when I explained what I was feeling.

"It's coming from the back of the cave," I remarked, pointing. "We'll need to phase through the wall or go astral to see if there's another chamber I missed. The crystals were always pretty dense there, I never thought anything of it."

We all headed back there, and tried to peer through the crystals that had grown up in front of the cave wall. "I think I thee thomething!" Snarly announced, "I think I can get clother!" He started squeezing his way through the mess.

"Snarly, have you learned nothing from- and he's gone." I shook my head.

"We're a real Micky Mouse operation, aren't we?" Hanz asked.

"A what?" Malachite asked.

"Never mind," they replied with a shake of their head. "We're not even Betty Boop."

"I thee a door," Snarly reported. "Ith clearly a door. There's a weird hand on it though."

"Hand?" I asked.

"The door is made of crythal, but if someone wath pushing a hand from the other thide, thath what it would look like."

"So maybe it's keeping something trapped here?" I suggested. "Maybe you should back off Snarly, I can ask how dangerous whatever is beyond the door is."

"I can almoth touch it!"

"Have we learned nothing about-"

There was a brilliant flash of light, and the cave was empty.