Once Mark had put out food and water for the dog, he and his new companions—two adventurers and an infected Granny Shroom—set off down the dirt path headed for Crestwood. The old lady hovered in the air, dragged along by the demon mage's spell, as unnervingly placid as before. He couldn't tell if she wasn't trying to move so much as an inch, or really couldn't. Probably the latter.
"Okay. Explanations," he said after walking for a minute. "But maybe names first? I'm Mark—thanks again for the help. Things were getting dicey in there, not sure what I would've done if you hadn't shown up. So yeah, appreciate it."
Mark's eyes had fallen on the demon as he spoke, since she seemed like the leader of the two girls. But she was visibly distracted, gazing instead at the hovering woman with a scrutiny that was contradictorily intrigued while dispassionate. He didn't think she'd heard him.
She had said she intended to study Miss Agnes' condition, but he hadn't thought that meant during the walk to town.
He looked at the redheaded beastkin as his second option. The girl was more consciously present in the conversation, though when he met her gaze, her lips tightened into something that bordered on a frown.
"No problem," she said, polite despite her plain suspicion of him. "Just doing what we can. I'm Saffra."
"Nice to meet you." He chose to ignore the girl's expression. His attention turned to the still-distracted demon. "And this is…?"
Both he and Saffra waited for an answer, but the woman once again didn't acknowledge him. He assumed not through any intentional insult—she really was that focused on her task.
"My master," Saffra replied.
Master? His eyebrows rose. The woman seemed rather youthful, but he supposed demons were long-lived and thus ambiguously immortal-looking. Determining their age could be close to impossible. Add in some… height challenges… along with thick black robes to hide any hints of a womanly figure—if it existed—and telling the difference between 'short' and 'young' could be exceedingly difficult.
Or so he surmised. Crestwood didn't get many demons. They didn't get many visitors at all.
"And her name?" he prompted, raising his volume in an attempt to draw the woman's attention. He wasn't offended, exactly, by her continued disregard of him, but he felt that she was definitely being rude.
Yet despite his effort, the demon remained well and thoroughly occupied with her study of Granny Shroom; once more, she didn't respond. He guessed he couldn't be too upset, seeing how she was trying to help Crestwood's reclusive-but-liked apothecary and sort-of witch. The demon was hardly intentionally snubbing him, or even ignoring him for something unimportant.
Introductions were what didn't matter, really.
Mark raised an eyebrow at Saffra.
The girl deliberated on how to introduce her master. "Lady Nysari," she eventually said, but only after a conspicuous hesitation.
The name made the demon—Nysari—finally glance at them. She seemed to run the conversation in her mind backward to catch up. "Ah," she said. "Yes, my apologies. You can call me Nysari. My attention was… occupied."
Lady Nysari? He faltered at that. The title didn't necessarily mean nobility, but it would be the common explanation. Or perhaps she held a high enough adventuring rank that she'd been granted honorary peerage. Meaning mithril at the lowest.
A mithril rank appearing from nowhere wasn't so outside the realm of possibility that he dismissed the idea outright—especially with the strange perils Crestwood had faced this past month—but he did find it unlikely. He reserved his judgment, but made a note to tread more cautiously.
"Not a problem, Lady Nysari," he said. "You're trying to heal her, I take it?"
"Heal?" The demon was quiet for a moment. "Yes. When I can. But for now, only analyzing. As I said, it's complicated magic, and I don't want to act before I'm certain it's safe. Which might take time."
"That complicated?" the beastkin asked, sounding for some reason shocked. "Even for you?"
Mark glanced curiously at the girl for her reaction. Why did she sound so surprised? Weren't all mages bad with healing magic? Some could cast those spells, but even a full rank difference might barely let them compete with a [Priestess], for example.
Then again, maybe it was only expected a young teenager would have boundless faith in her master. She was just a girl, even if she had somehow made silver rank. Or maybe I'm missing context, he acknowledged. He didn't actually know what this woman's class was. She seemed like a mage, but he had no real proof that she was. Or that she was only that.
The demon hummed. "I'm fairly sure it's what I suspected from the start. So yes. I need to keep analyzing. Please, continue with your explanations, Mark. I'm listening, just… occupied."
The cat beastkin's eyes seemed even more stunned by the demon's words, and Mark had to stop himself from suspiciously asking why. In particular, he wanted to pry about what she meant by 'what she had suspected from the start.' He stayed focused, though.
"You said you're here to help, so I think you have some idea of what's going on," he said as he gathered his thoughts. "I'll start from the beginning and catch you up, at least with what I'm aware of. The bailiff and the rest of the town's leadership would know more. You'll want to get the full story from them." They were surely keeping certain details under wraps—as was reasonable, even if it was frustrating. "It started with the team of mithril ranks from two months ago."
He'd expected the momentous opening statement to pull the demon's attention—an entire team of mithrils wasn't common anywhere in the Kingdoms—but her focus had returned to Granny Shroom and didn't waver. Only the cat beastkin gave him an interested look. He internally sighed and faced her. It seemed he would have to speak with the girl and not her master.
"Crestwood was starstruck, of course. I was starstruck." A measure of heat rose onto his cheeks to admit that, but at the same time, any town would be fascinated by a passing-through squad of mithrils. "They were vague about what they'd come for, but they did say they had a lead on something. Hush-hush, couldn't get much out of them. Next morning they left for the Middlerose—that's the woods down south—and, well, that's the last we heard from them."
"Ever?"
He shrugged. "Again, last we heard. We thought that they'd done what they'd come for and hurried off."
"They'd still come back for a sleep and resupplying."
"Almost definitely. That's what anyone who's done real adventuring would assume. But Crestwood isn't exactly drowning in real adventurers. Believe it or not, I'm one of the best that's come from here in decades." He snorted; he knew he wasn't anything special in the grand scheme of things, though he'd once believed in that delusion. "Even I just kinda shrugged my shoulders, though. Not impossible they left in a hurry, a tight schedule maybe, and no one wants to assume the worst without proof. Anyhow… yeah. The monster showed up two weeks after that."
Saffra waited, gravely, for him to continue.
"First sightings came as people started going missing… and as people started falling sick. It's part of life that there'll be monster problems, even we know that. But it's not something Crestwood has had to deal with often. Definitely not at this level. I mean, look around." He gestured at the serene woods surrounding them. The Southern Kingdom didn't lack dangerous, monster-infested territories, but the patch of forest Crestwood itself was nestled in didn't have so much as silver-rank territory bordering it. The Middlerose was the most dangerous zone nearby, and that was merely bronze sprinkled with silvers. "It was described as… human," he said. "But with the wrong proportions, bulging in places, limbs moving in odd ways. Not a proper human at all, even if no one ever got a close look."
Saffra's gaze flicked to Miss Agnes, making the obvious conclusion. "Further gone?" she murmured.
"Yeah," Mark said grimly. "That's what we think, now."
"So one of the mithril ranks themselves? They… turned into something?" Her brow furrowed. "But you said one monster. Not several."
"The sightings were one at a time," he said. "But that doesn't guarantee only one. Could be several out there. Dunno. But yes, that's our running theory now. Maybe those poor fools found something out in the Middlerose… maybe they let something loose." A shiver went through him. "We don't know anything for sure. Especially not how the sickness fits into the story." He spared another glance at Granny Shroom and quickly looked away. He didn't like seeing her in that state. "With every week that things kept getting worse, though, the idea that the monster might've been human once became more and more common."
Saffra studied Granny Shroom, eyes not flinching from the warped part of her skull where the infection was most obvious. She clearly wasn't a squeamish girl. "Can you tell us more about it? The sickness? What was the timeline? Should we be worried about it?"
Mark hesitated. Should they be worried? "I mean," he started, then stopped. "Yes?"
It was kind of a given. The demonic woman had opened with 'we're here to help,' and Miss Agnes' appearance alone suggested something very wrong—an illness, quite plainly. But maybe he should have warned them regardless.
"We don't know how it spreads, but it is spreading," he said. "Might even be through the air. People started falling sick, no pattern to it. Some members of a family but not others. Miss Agnes isn't the kind of woman who's out and about much—she hasn't been in town since it started, far as I know. But it got her. And yet some people like me have been fine the whole time, and I definitely haven't kept myself locked up. So… yeah. Who knows?"
He rubbed at his forearm. He'd gotten lucky so far, but that fortune had run out. The high chance that he'd been infected himself would need to be addressed, and he obviously intended to do so once he got back to town. It wasn't like he would go mad within minutes. Wasn't immediately pressing.
"Even through the air," Saffra repeated, though her tone was less alarmed than he would have expected. She turned a questioning look to Nysari.
The demonic woman seemed to sense the girl's attention, or maybe she hadn't been as focused on Granny Shroom as her expression suggested. She offhandedly replied, "Don't worry, we're protected."
Saffra nodded, and the worry that had pulled her shoulders down disappeared. He found it endearing that the girl continued putting so much faith in her master, but at the same time, he felt strongly obligated to push back against the dismissal.
"I don't know who you are, miss, but I would still be careful. Very careful. No touching, keep distance when you can, especially indoors. Best to be safe. Nobody knows what's going on, but it's bad. We think a team of mithrils kicked the whole thing off. And when the situation got bad enough, we sent a plea for help to the city, and they sent another. Supposedly one closing in on orichalcum. Yet he's gone too, the gods only know where." Maybe just another monster terrorizing us now, he thought darkly. "If none of them could do much to help us, much less themselves…" He let the obvious implication hang in the air.
The demon made a noise of acknowledgement, though she had clearly dismissed his warning. Mark clamped down on a surge of frustration at that. There's confidence, and there's foolhardiness, he thought.
"At this point we're just waiting and hoping," Mark said, releasing his annoyance and looking forward to scan the forest path. Wouldn't be long before they were on the main road leading to Crestwood. "The sickness is the worst of it, not that I'm making light of everyone who's gone missing." Crestwood was a small town, so he knew each and every face that had disappeared. But the entire town was in danger now. They might be wiped out by whatever was happening. "We've been on lockdown for the last week, and things are only getting worse. And getting worse faster." He grimaced at Granny Shroom, clear proof of the statement. "The worst cases become aggressive, as you saw. There's some kind of… mind magic component to it. They stop acting like themselves."
"It's not mind magic," the demon corrected idly. "Not to be pedantic, it just isn't. Mind magic warps a person's internal self, forces them to behave in ways they wouldn't. It could manifest like this"—she gestured at the woman—"but outcomes aren't sources. She isn't acting at all, not on her own. For that matter, she isn't even conscious."
"What?" Mark squinted at Granny Shroom. While the woman was locked in place by the [Telekinesis] spell, her eyes were most definitely open and alert—for a certain sense of the word 'alert.'
"As far as you're concerned, there's little difference. The clarification is more for my apprentice's sake. It's too complex for you to make much sense of," she told the girl, "but you should try to study it however much you can. You might run into something similar someday. That's why I brought you. Experience." She nodded to herself as she gazed calmly at the floating woman. "Yes, it's not mind magic—it's biomancy that mutated her body into a fitting host. There's another consciousness inside her now, the 'sickness' that took time to grow and establish itself. Though I haven't decided whether it's fully dependent, or somehow linked to another entity. Still working on that."
Mark stared at the demon. He didn't know where to begin unpacking the grotesque things she had so casually said. "Linked... to another entity?" Unease pulled up goosebumps all over his body. "What does that mean?"
"I think your assumptions are correct," Nysari said, still sounding far too calm for the disturbing words she was delivering. "The initial adventuring party, the mithrils, unearthed something better left buried. The heavens only know how they heard about it and tracked it down, but in the end, it doesn't matter. I find it likely that everything ties back to that… original monster, or whatever it was." Her brow furrowed just a fraction as she studied Granny Shroom. "I wonder if it hears us. I don't think it can. I've put up safeguards just in case."
Mark stared at her in horror. Hear them?
"So it's what you thought it was," Saffra said, also sounding disturbed, if many times calmer than she should be.
"I'm growing more certain by the moment, yes."
"Can you stop being so cryptic?" Mark demanded. He reined himself in; he'd already told himself he needed to be respectful. This clearly wasn't some silver-rank, and maybe not even a gold-rank. "Why talk around me? What's going on?"
"Because I don't want to create a panic, and you don't need to know," Nysari said, not offended but not apologetic either. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry about that."
He bit his tongue, even if the response was frustrating. No matter the situation, these were adventurers who had come to help Crestwood. "I can be trusted," he pointed out, tone clipped. "These are my friends and neighbors."
"I believe you. Truly. But still, no. I do apologize, but at this point, this is my concern and not yours. Besides, I don't even have confirmation. There's no point in sharing my… unpleasant theories."
Mark frowned a storm at the woman for her words, but she wasn't dissuaded by the silent disapproval. Barely seemed to notice, in fact.
The unerring confidence radiating from her words, expression, and body language somehow didn't edge into arrogance, though it really should have by now. He found his curiosity growing beyond what he could contain.
"Can I at least ask who you are? You aren't wearing a badge."
The demon looked down at her chest. "Ah. I suppose I should. It would simplify introductions, coming up."
A circle of green metal appeared in her hand, and she lifted the item to inspect it with a bored look. Mark slammed to a stop. Then a second badge appeared in her other hand, and it glittered pale blue. Both were made of material he had never seen before, though he recognized them with ease. Anyone would.
The latter in particular could purchase the entire town of Crestwood.
Starmetal? That's a starmetal badge, he thought, the color in his face slowly draining. It has to be. That means…
That meant this woman was…?
She glanced at him and saw his reaction, then sighed and tucked away the white-blue badge. She pinned to her chest the orichalcum-rank medallion instead. It had a symbol of a staff engraved on it. Confirmation she was a purist mage, not that he needed it.
"There's a balance between giving people hope and simply making everything more complicated for myself," she explained. "I don't want people walking on eggshells around me. I want them speaking plainly. Which they might not, even if I'm only wearing this." She gestured at the green badge. Then her voice softened, even if the red-eyed apathy didn't. "I wish I could've gotten here sooner, but as I've told you: you don't need to worry. Your 'Miss Agnes' will be fine, and so will the rest of your friends. I promise."
A Titled.
A Titled had come to save Crestwood?
He stood there and gawked, making a fool of himself. He'd expected a mithril, maybe an orichalcum, from how she'd acted so far. And yet he still would've been shocked by that. Mithrils were rare and revered—the human kingdoms bestowed an honorary noble title for attaining that rank.
So orichalcum? Much less Titled?
"That said," the demon continued as she resumed walking, not paying much attention to his inner turmoil. She waved for him to follow. "There's one last thing I need to ask you about. An elven woman in full plate armor should have come through Crestwood." She paused. "Or she might have, rather. I'm unsure. With a team, but perhaps not. Do you know anything about that?"