AO 5 Ch 37

Chapter 37

Missy turned to Eva. "Yes, I am the one that gave Zinov his magic. W hat you would call, soul magic. It's boundless and endless, able to shape the world in your image, if your soul is strong enough. However, Zinov betrayed me and shared a piece of my magic with the goddess Freya in turn for the four spheres. The spheres were simpler magic derived from seeds that had yet to bloom into monsters from Freya," she explained quickly to Eva. "By Freya getting a portion of my magic, she will be able to consume me as a god."

Eva blinked several times. "So, Zinov made you vulnerable to Freya."

"Exactly. While also betraying me after I heavily injured myself to give him magic. You see, I became trapped in this world. This world is cut off from the rest of the universe. The thing I find most interesting, however, is it seems I am no longer alone in being trapped in this world. Freya, as well as many other gods that I have come to know over the years, have also arrived in this world. I can only assume they are trapped as well, fighting for the scraps of followers and power that they generate."

Eva's brows slowly rose. "So, you're an enemy to my country's goddess."

"If you choose to be proud of the fat-titted cow and two-faced betrayer, I suppose that’s your choice. You may worship her all you wish. I don't hate you for it, but when it comes to receiving help, you won't actually get any from her." Missy was sounding incredibly biased.

Eva frowned and nodded. "I won't pray to her."

"Good. Best you don't do it. Have you done it recently?" Missy was trying to look like she did not care and failing miserably.

"No," Eva said. "I can't say that I have.”

“No problem either way, but you're welcome to pray to me," Missy said with a bright smile. "After all, the foundation of your magic, your soul magic that holds the spheres, is all my doing."

"This is a lot to take in." Eva stared at Missy.

"I know," Missy said, glancing back at Ard. "I was surprised he hadn't told you much about me."

I shrugged. "Usually that conversation spawns up around the idol we carry around. Eva asked briefly about the temple in the oldest manor in Faylin, but we haven't spent much time together where I would be praying to Missy."

The goddess began to float up amid the bedroom, trying to seem more godly as she rose in the air. "You're welcome to resume praying to me anytime."

I laughed, but dipped my head a little in a magnanimous gesture. "Goddess Missy." My eyes were open and I could see her frown at the tone of my voice, yet I could feel the connection between us as I prayed. "I do hope you'll help us on the mission tonight. Lend a hand and help it pass smoothly. I know you have power over the night. I ask that you help us hide safely amidst it."

Missy huffed. "That'll do.”

“Can you get something from that?” I squinted at her.

"I get a lot from you, Ard," she assured me. "I've told you before that you have a lot of the potential that I once gave Zinov."

"And how does that mean he’s more helpful when he prays?" Eva asked.

"Because that potential does equate to the strength of your soul. Think of it as your soul naturally sheds the same way you shed skin or hair and it builds up around you. It's completely useless to you, however to me or any other god, we can take those sheddings as power." She floated back down onto the bed. "Thus, more potential, more shedding, more power," she explained simply.

Eva was still looking a little dazed.

I finished up with the mistress and Missy had already done her part, so I sat down on the bed and patted for Eva to join me. "If you'd like, we can talk about this. We have time." I glanced out the window, waiting for the signal for the next part of our plan.

We had finished our preparation far sooner than I expected. We needed time for Zuri's sleeping draught to kick in and Uncle Valken still had some time before his distraction should kick off.

He was supposed to make enough noise that no one would be looking in our direction. Instead, the entire city and its guards would be surrounding the Lord's Manor to try and capture the Vel'Shae.

"Are you going to harm the goddess of Zenovia?" Eva glanced at Missy, who opened her mouth as if to refute, before snapping it closed. 

"Honestly, if I get the opportunity, I would absolutely take a pound of her flesh. However, as it stands right now, she has far more allies than I. You must understand, she is behind King Martin's transformation." 

I raised an eyebrow at Missy, but I kept my mouth closed.

Technically, Missy had at one point helped King Martin gain access to tap into his soul magic in the first place. It was only later, after he had gone down a dark path and she had stopped helping him, that Freya had stepped in. It remained to be seen which one King Martin would call his accomplice. 

Missy detected my look and gave me a smile. "My primary concern was breaking out of this prison of a world, but that plan has changed rapidly as I have come to learn other gods have continued to arrive here, to the point I would possibly say we've all been stuffed in here. And like the old days when multiple pantheons were on a single world, it will result in catastrophic wars.”

“I assume it's important that we then have a god on our side for said wars." I suggested.

"It's important you have more than one." Missy pursed her lips and looked out at the horizon. "But I am working on that."

I tilted my head and squinted at her. "Izzy?"

"Correct," Missy said. “As she left, I sent her a note that hopefully should really reach some of my older allies. “

"Ah," was all that Eva could muster up. "Are we about to enter some sort of, uh," she hesitated, "holy war?"

"I should hope not," Missy shrugged. "But it wouldn't be out of the norm for our battles to result in at least some conflict. However, I would point out that you're currently embroiled in a war. That the gods might be fighting an overlapping war overhead shouldn't bother you.”

“Except the fact that my country's goddess is currently working with a psychopathic king that's killing all of the mages and turning them into monsters," Eva offered, while Missy shrugged. 

Eva shook her head back and forth. "The royal family isn't particularly pious, but we do have a few amongst us. After all, Freya is the goddess that oversees bonding between mages and anchors, as well as passing the spheres into Vel'shae. I think there's some who feel at least a monochrome of responsibility towards the goddess."

"Well, we will cross that bridge when it comes," Missy patted her lap. "Until then, how about I give you and Ard a moment alone." 

With that, she faded out into the twilight, disappearing from the room, only for Eva to turn to me. 

"You have a literal goddess helping you?" Eva asked.

"Well yeah. We talked about the statue and how the goddess is responsive.” I offered.

“I didn't realize she actually physically came here and presented herself to you, not to mention she…" Eva gestured at the three unconscious women on the ground, "helped you. Helped you a lot."

"In a sense, I am her redemption," I clasped my hands over my heart, smiling and enjoying the eye roll I got from Eva before I continued.

"She gave Zenov power. And then he betrayed her and sold it away. So, she was a bit angry and went on a temper tantrum and killed many of Zenov's descendants." I offered up more information.

Eva's brow continued to furrow.

"Yes, I would say the historical being that you refer to as the Hollow Mage is," I gestured at the space where Missy had sat, "one and the same."

Eva blinked rapidly. "So you teamed up with the Hollow Mage?”

"I suppose that’s true. You could say that Zenov's descendant and the Hollow Mage have finally made up in search of a greater foe." I gestured north towards where King Martin likely resided.

"After all, do you understand what King Martin is really doing? Colin and his like are sucking the souls and the potential that Missy once gave to Zenov, concentrating the gift and hoarding it all for himself. If I had to guess, and this is just a guess, Martin has made another deal with Freya and she intends to try and rob more of Missy's power. 

“Thus, that puts you in an interesting situation. You can help Missy and you can turn the Hollow Mage from a once enemy into an ally, or you can help Zenov as a goddess and possibly destroy the hollow mage for good. It will probably unleash a veritable monster on the lands, but my suspicion is that Freya does not have a good ending for King Martin in mind. From everything that Missy has said, it sounds like she is quite the capricious ally, if ally could even be used to describe her."

"I need to think for a bit." Eva said, rubbing her brow. "This is quite a bit to process."

“While I have you off balance, what's my courting gift?" I said, causing her to glare at me. The two of us broke into laughter, which I quickly stifled with a hand on my own mouth. 

Eva shook her head. "Really? In a situation like this?”

“You have to take advantages when you can get them." I replied. “But Missy has been an ally."

I pulled out the pendant. "I know you've seen me use this more than once."

"Yes, and it sucks out souls. Is she doing the same thing as Martin? Concentrating her own gift?"

"I think she's doing more than that. But I can't really blame her for taking it back from people she sees as misusing her gift. At least, that's how I like to think of it. Truth is, she is empowering herself."

Eva shook her head. "I genuinely don't know what to say."

"And that's the best part. You don't have to say anything." I tucked the pendant back in my tunic. "Instead, you just have to help me solve the issue with the city of Fargo tonight. And tomorrow, we'll continue our mission to stop this war."

Eva nodded, a serious expression pressing down into her face, almost with a force of will. "We should focus on the mission tonight."

"Absolutely."

***

Lord Valken was capable of subterfuge, but he had never been one to skulk in alleyways or crouch on rooftops. Instead, the Vel'shae, who was over 500 years old, walked with a heavy cloak, his hood up, as casually as possible through the noble district in the middle of the night.

The few guards that were about didn't even give him a second glance. His posture and poise easily fit in with the nobility. After all, he'd spent hundreds of years dealing with them. 

He hadn't been born a noble, but the title he was born with mattered little. Once he became an anchor of any remote renown, and subsequently an anchor to the royal family, he might as well have been a noble. And now that he was a Vel'shae; he had a small noble house to go with his appointment. But none of that mattered. Not for what he was doing at the moment.

Perhaps he was getting old and sentimental. 

He walked through the dark streets of Fargo, preparing to kill another lord. He strolled straight through the streets, past the guards, and into the lord's house. It was only then that anybody even bothered to stop him. 

"Excuse me, sir," the guard at the front of the lord's estate put a hand up to stop Lord Valken. 

"Pardon me," he slid back his hood. "Do you not recognize me?" His tone, filled with arrogance, was practiced for the rare occasions he needed it. 

One of the guards squinted in the darkness, leaning closer while the other at the small guardhouse leaned out. At that moment, Valken smiled. For tonight, he needed to be a Vel'shae, and not hiding as an old man. This smile revealed two overly long, serpent fangs that had grown out now that he had stopped breaking his teeth off. 

The first guard was mere moments from reacting when Lord Valken palmed his face, carrying him to the guardhouse with a swift leap. His head crushed against the stone like an overripe melon. The second guard's head was grabbed in much the same manner, ripped out of the guardhouse, and thrown swiftly on the ground before Lord Valken pierced him through the chest with the sword he had taken from the first corpse. 

He flicked the blade, blood splashing on the guardhouse, a wonderful detail for them to find. Tomorrow, they would talk about how the guards must have put up such a wonderful fight against the Vel'shae. He chuckled to himself. Sometimes these situations required a little bit of theater. 

He swung the sword side to side as he walked past the guardhouse and into the lord's estate. He added a slight whistle as he walked. After all, he was supposed to be a distraction.

He didn't think this petty lord of Garrish could truly put up a fight against him. Especially wot when his two veteran anchors had already been disposed of by Arden and company. 

Valken almost got to the main building before a patrol shouted loud enough that candles lit in half a dozen windows of the estate, and someone blew a clarion horn that likely woke the entire noble district. Valken stopped swinging his sword side to side and grasped it firmly in his hands.

The first guard rushed out the door. Valken shot forward, exploding from within his cloak, leaving it behind as his blade cut through both of the guards, only to shatter against the door frame. He had swung it perhaps a bit too hard.

Two more guards emerged from within the state. Valken moved through the hall, swiftly taking one of them out. Flakes of blood hung in the air between the two of them, wet and glistening, igniting his desire to fight.

For the first time that night, he showed his claws. He was a Vel'shae, after all.

His hands sprouted long nails in a matter of moments as he pumped life magic through his veins. He blocked the soldier's strike with the back of his hand before plunging his claws into the sleeve of the man's chainmail, tearing out a large, unhealthy chunk of flesh. He tossed the man aside, leaving him to bleed out on the floor. 

Lord Valken shook the blood from his hands, grinning as people clamored both inside and outside the estate, shouting about an assassin. The first mage-forged barreled down the hall. A weathered mage, worn from long years, pointed his finger at Lord Valken, shouting to control his mage-forged. 

"That was a good warm-up," Lord Valken said, rolling his neck and cracking his back like the old man he was in reality.

The first mage-forged's blade came within inches of his face before he batted it aside like a cranky old man. His hand jutted forward halfway through the backhand, the claws on two of his fingers gouging out his eyes. 

"Clearly now, I think you could do better," he taunted. More mage-forgeds barreled towards him, but he continued to play the old man, snatching up bandolier daggers from the first mage-forged, only to whip them out. Five daggers shot out, spinning in the air in front of him. He grabbed them all, his movements suddenly lightning quick. His hands barely touched them before he threw them back out, the daggers punching into the mage-forged's chest and sending it to its death. 

"Oh no, don't you know you're the mockeries of what I am?" he growled down the hallway. He stormed up to his suit of armor and ripped a two-handed spiked mace from its arms as if it weighed nothing, running as he spun it around with a flick of his wrist. More were coming.

Lord Valken stayed in the hallway, keeping the number they could throw at him at one point down to a minimum. After all, he had a serpent sphere inside of him, filling him with life magic with each beat of his heart. No matter how many mage-forgeds they threw at him, as long as he could control their number, he could last an incredibly long time. 

More mage-forgeds poured down the hallway. His heavy mace went to work, smashing and splattering them. He ducked low, jumped high, and turned the entire hallway into a smear of blood, pulp, and guts. It had been a long time since he had a chance to really stretch his legs. 

A small row of mages formed up at the end of the hallway.

He squinted down at them. None of them looked particularly experienced, but he knew to never underestimate an enemy. There could easily be a talented youngster in the mix.

Lord Valken kicked at a sword by his feet and it shot into the air, spinning up as he struck it with the end of his mace, sending the sword flying point-first down the hall. The mages flailed, ice and light trying to form up and stop his attack. However, none of them had been expecting him to throw a weapon they hadn't even realized was available.

It pierced right through the sternum of one of the mages as Lord Valken spun his spiked mace, taunting them.

"You lot having fun?" he asked, tapping his mace on the floor. 

"We are Lord Tybalt's apprentices. We will not be so easily defeated," one of them retorted. An adept spell started to form. Lord Valken spun his mace again, readying for the combat.