Lily remembered hiding. This wasn't the first time she'd found herself tucked away, out of sight, from something or someone meaning to do her harm. Survival was second nature. The glyph researcher held her lucky pendent close to her chest and tried not breathing too loudly.
She didn't even make a sound when the terrible thing with the slime-covered face, like a squid placed onto the head of a human, found the security guard and began to 'feed' off his magick, Lily tuned out the squelching sounds and focused on how she was going to make it out of this office.
Lily also tuned out her coworker Georgio's occasional timid, muffled cries. Of course, of all the employees Lily should find herself surviving a siege alongside, it would be the most annoying one.
The light magi slowly moved her head towards a crack between the desk and wall, trying to get a better look at the 'things' Semyon Grigorivich had unleashed on Aradia's headquarters.
From behind, they wore the cowls of priests or monks--and in their realm, they may have very well served in a monastic capacity. Illithids, the books sometimes called them, or Magiaphages, foul creatures of the netherworld that subsisted on magickal essence, attracted to those with glyphs, and were immune to enchantment and sorcery. Incredibly rare and nearly impossible to summon, they could only be conjured by truly forbidden tomes.
Such as the one Semyon had taken from the Dark Library and sequestered as a failsafe. An army of one or two was enough to take down an enchantment locked facility like Aradia HQ.
Semyon had four.
Lily clenched her hands. She had warned Central Command something like this might happen. Salim's tip-off had come too late, it seemed. Eyes shut, she tried to think what any of those oversized, muscle-heads she called her friends might do in this situation. She remembered, as a child, watching spellbreaking over at Buck's house. Back then, Lily's best friend, and Colt's son, would show off his dad's matches to almost anybody. Lily had always considered the form of 'entertainment' both mindless and ridiculous, if not delightfully camp. She'd never gotten into it. But there was one match in particular, Queen Mab vs Colt, that she'd always remembered.
Queen Mab bested Colt in his early years. She was a fire-haired goddess of incredible beauty and strength, and for Lily--likely one of her first 'awakenings' of being a woman. Instead of whining about being beaten by a girl, Colt had gotten on the mic and congratulated her--some say helping to open the door for more women in spellbreaking. Lily knew Colt to be an occasional womanizer, but he was hardly a misogynist, and had always looked out for her.
Queen Mab's was the strength Lily needed right now.
"What...what are we gonna' do?" Georgio squeaked at Lily's side.
Lily took a deep breath. "I'm trying to think like a spellbreaker," she whispered back, just as she heard the sound of wet foot steps approaching them. She sighed. "So, probably something stupid...like this."
As Lily rolled out from the desk (one of the few moves she remembered Colt teaching her during his self-defense seminars) the magi threw her hands out towards the demon's eyes. The bulbous-headed, tentacle faced being wriggled its tendrils at her, hungrily. It was, of course, immune to magick.
But it was not immune to light.
Lily channelled her powers into a dazzling gleam, blinding the creature and turning its disgusting façade away from her. Her successful deflection took her by surprise--so much so that she quickly realized she didn't have a follow-up.
"Oh, sh**."
Then, across from the stilled corpse of the secretary, splayed across the floor, Lily noticed the letter-opener on the desk.
Lily spun a thread of light, a long string, and threw it out at the sharp implement, wrapping it with her threads and bringing it to her just in time for the Magiaphage to turn back towards her, ready to grab her head and draw her into its sucker-lined mouth. Instead, the creature ate the tip of the opener. Screaming, half for adrenaline, half out of shock, Lily thrust her hand forward, burying the sharp tool in the soft part of the creature's upper pallet, piercing into its skull.
The Magiaphage regurgitated a noxious spray of green slime before it fell back, dead. Lily likewise collapsed against the desk and forced herself not to go into shock. Now that the danger had passed, the reality of the corpses lying around the room began to sink in.
She heard Georgio shuffling behind her. He was a liability, to her and himself. "Go and get as far away from this building as you can," she said, in a stilled monotone.
Georgio shivered. "What...what about you?"
"I'll follow you," she lied, rising to her feet. "Go. Now."
Her coworker didn't argue. When he was gone, and Lily left on her own, she held her hand over her mouth and let out a sob.
No. You don't have the luxury of fear. Or mourning. That comes later. Right now, you need to survive.
She also needed to, at the very least, attempt to stop Semyon from getting hold of the Divine Chalices. Running to the security office, where the head guard now lay dead over the control panel, Lily watched on several monitors as Semyon worked his way into the lower level vaults. He still had three Magiphage with him, but more than that, he had something arguably more dangerous. It was another artefact from his cursed library: the eye of a gorgon. An ancient weapon, and not uncommon during the Peloponnesian wars, blind warriors would procure them from the rare few gorgons left on the Aeonian islands, driving their species to extinction (for better, or worse).
Lily watched Semyon, flanked by his squid-faced sentry, as he held up the eye to Aradia's internal security team--all of them armed with both traditional artillery and magick. The soldiers trembled, and then petrified on the spot, their screams frozen in time. The Magiphages fed on the rest.
Fear subsided. Lily's painted nails dug themselves into the security console as she shifted to a new emotion: anger. This man had terrorized her friends, slaughtered her co-workers, and tried to kill her. He would not be forgiven.
But she would need to act quickly.
Lily grabbed the master key-card and sprinted towards the research department, one level up from the vaults. She counted on Semyon being distracted with security measures long enough to complete her objective. The card slid through the reader with a satisfying 'beep', opening on to a sterile room that Lily knew all too-well. The halogen lights clicked on, illuminating the sealed manuscript on the desk that Aradia had recovered from the abbey ruins in Glastonbury, England. Lily's notes were tacked onto the cork board behind it.
She didn't bother with the safety gloves or other measures usually taken to prevent damage to the material--there were more pressing matters at hand. Lily flipped through the page of the Dee Cyphers (allegedly written in the language of the angels) that she'd been studying for the past few weeks.
Knowing that the Magiphage might detect a sudden outpouring of energy, she told herself to act with haste...then again, she hadn't exactly opened a portal before. It wasn't standard light magick. That was something dark magic could do, and only particularly skilful ones like Deadboy Daemian.
Still, the words came to Lily, rhythmically, trance-like, like she had heard them in a dream. Lily barely noticed the soft green light starting to fill out the washed-out room. Then, the sliver of light, expanding fully into a window...
A voice echoed out of the ether, snapping Lily out of her trance. "Damned GSA curs!" it boomed in a dignified, smooth, Welsh accent. Lily looked up into the window just in time to see a muscular man, half-clad in chainmail, tumbling bloody and bruised from out of the light. Lily gasped. The magick subsided.
Slayer St. George, former Firebird spellbreaker, kneeled on the floor, coughing, sputtering, and wounded. The 'Wlesh Wyvern', slender and ripped, stood up--dwarfing Lily with his height.
He tossed back his messy, frizzy long hair, with the one red streak.
"Gahhh!" Slayer roared, looking around wildly. His eyes met Lily, frightened and unsure. They immediately softened. "You. My good lady. Where...am I? Is this not the Faewild still?" Slayer pointed an accusing finger at the magi. "CEASE YOUR TRICKERY, WILY FAE. If thou wish to come to blows, then fight me with honor!"
Lily came to her senses. "Slayer St. George."
The spellbreaker with the knight gimmick lowered his arm and brushed back his hair. "You...know of my moniker?" Warily, he looked around the room. "No, this appears to be the realm of humans, again. Did...you free me?"
Lily gulped and nodded. "Yes, with the book you used to open the portal to the Faewild back in Glastonbury. My name is Lily Suarez. This is Aradia HQ." She nodded to the door. "And your ex boss just broke in to steal the Divine Chalices."
"Ex...boss?" Slayer looked towards the door. "I was just on the tail of those loathsome fools, Cian and Spike." He spat. "They abandoned me to the whims of the Lord of the Dead! I would have their NECKS. Surely they must not be far from here..."
Lily looked back over her shoulder at the manuscript. "I'm...afraid it's been almost a year since you vanished, Slayer. Time runs quicker in the mortal realm than it does in the Faewild."
Slayer's shoulders drooped. "Ah. So then...much has happened." The knight approached Lily, who attempted not to show fear (even though Slayer was tall, and muscular, scary, and...well...handsome).
The spellbreaker kneeled before her, gently taking her hand and kissing the back of it. "You freed me, milady. I cannot thank you enough. To repay you, I shall be your sword. Though I am known in-ring as Slayer, you may call me...Severin. Severin Arthur Blaidd."
Lily turned bright red. "OH....wow. I...don't know what to..."
Slayer looked up. His eyes were green, like emeralds, and despite his intimidating body, his face was somewhat soft, boyish, and handsome. "Aye?"
Lily swallowed again. "Wow. Crazy day." Then, reality came crashing back in, and the thought of what carnage lay outside came rushing to the forefront of her mind. "The security vault. Come with me."
As Lily and Slayer crept the too-quiet, marble halls of Aradia, the knight took in the sight of the dead. "Grigorivich...did this?"
Lily was almost annoyed with him. "You, a virtuous knight, had no inkling that your boss might actually be evil?"
Severin looked aside. "I was blind. He told me we needed the Chalices to preserve the world. That failure to acquire them would result in war."
Suddenly, a brief recollection of Firebird's dossier jarred Lily's memory. "You were a soldier during the war, weren't you. You fought with the Albans."
Slayer was quiet. "I was conscripted. And then...I deserted." He bowed his head, shamefully. "I would do anything to prevent another war. Anything. At all costs. That is why I sought the Chalices."
He was mislead, Lily thought, but knew better than to shame the man. "Slayer, I think you're a good man. I cannot imagine the life you must have led. But Semyon turned out to be a dangerous man. And now, he's desperate."
"He's more dangerous than you can imagine," Slayer said. He looked to the end of the corridor. "We must act with haste. Magiphage, you said?"
"They absorb magick."
Slayer processed this information with quiet respect. Then, a sly smile crossed his handsome face. "But are they immune to fire?"
---
The three demons stood in a triangle, arms raised to the vault ceiling, and tendrils glowing, pointed. A solid beam of black light passed between them, focusing on a spacial doorway leading to a frozen wilderness. A snowy wind passed through the door, blowing across Semyon's brow as he pushed through five titanium cases--each of them housing one of the Divine Chalices--through the portal. On one side, Greece. The other, Kitezh.
Semyon's eyes lit up, as he heard the footsteps behind him. He acted ahead of his demons, turning around with his gorgon's eyes--engorged and red--raised to petrify whomever foolish enough to approach.
Almost right away, he was met with a flash of light, and a brief reflection. Lily created a a luminous shield, a mirror, redirecting the eye's gaze back at the cursed relic.
The eye immediately scabbed over with the stone, the sudden weight dropping it from Semyon's hand, onto the ground, where it cracked and split in two.
The dark magi frowned. "It matters not," he said, waiting for the light mirror to subside.
He was more surprised, than anything, to see his former subordinate scowling at him. What a headache. "Ah, Slayer. How good to see you in one piece. Unfortunately, I do not have the time to indulge you in a blissful reunion." He nodded to the two demons on his immediate left and right.
The squid-faced creatures broke from their trance, though their portal was unaffected. They approached Slayer and Lily with a fiendish hunger.
Lily looked to her companion with concern, but the spellbreaker had already reached out with his hand. "Normally, I would perhaps tie you two knaves into knots or torture you with one of my punishing, submission techniques," the proud knight leered. "But for you, I shall offer you neither pain nor pleasure!"
Slayer's skin on his right arm began to crack and scale, almost to nauseating affect. The muscles on his forearm re-arranged themselves, forming into a shape far more familiar to Lily, who stood back to protect herself.
The neck and head of a dragon, eyes burning green, sprouted from Slayer's arm, the spittle from between its teeth stretching as it opened its mouth.
Lily threw her hands in front of her face at the last minute, just as the dragon breathed out a steady stream of green fire. The two Magiaphage let out a scream, not unlike the sound of chimes, before the fire engulfed them. When it was safe for Lily to do so, she looked and saw nothing but two piles of ash, and traces of bone, where the the creatures once stood.
Semyon grit his teeth and pointed to the third phage. "You. Open the second gate."
The creature did as instructing, making a strange, circular motion with hits long fingers, willing open another portal--this one onto a more sunnier, humid local. Lily caught just enough of a glimpse, of red dust and blue sky, before Slayer trained his draconic weapon on the third demon, blasting it with fire.
Semyon, however was quicker. He threw himself into the portal, just as the demon was incinerated. With no magick left to sustain the gates, the windows to other parts of the world blinked out existance.
And with them, Lily and Slayer's hopes of recovering the Divine Chalices...
---
Auntie Jacinda's eyes cut through the darkness of her kitchen, a familiar realm turned strange with the stranger's intrusion. "Let him go," she commanded. "I won't ask twice."
Semyon stood with his arm wrapped around Uncle Daniel's neck. He had seen his own men put so many of their opponent's into chokes that it was easy to replicate their techniques.
Semyon sneered. "Madame," he began, "I have already had quite the taxing day. So, do us both a consideration. Fetch me the Chalice of Vitality--and yes, I know it is here--and place it on that counter." He nodded to the corner of center island in front of him. "I have no reason to kill your husband. And the last thing I'd want is to anger Deadboy Daemian."
"No," Auntie Jacinda began. "The last thing you want to do is anger me."
Uncle Daniel's eyes fell on the ceramic, orange cup perched on the dish hutch, over the sink. Plain sight. It was a good as place as any to hide a scared artefact. He looked at his wife. She nodded to him.
Then, Daniel was gone. Blinked. Semyon looked up, just in time to see the man on the other side of the room.
"YAAAAAHHHHH!"
Now, it was Auntie Jacinda who had him by the throat. Of course, she had to jump up and cling to the man. At first, Semyon's eyes registered surprise, then amusement...
And then, fear.
Fear as the smell of burning flesh filled the room. The man, struggling against the woman's (surprisingly tight) grip, looked down to see his skin peeling away, revealing blood and flesh and bone. Burning scabs appeared across his arms and face.
Auntie Jacinda looked up, her eyes a uranium green glow.
Atomos. The Glyph of Radiation.
Semyon fell backwards. Auntie Jacinda landed, wobbly, onto the floor. Her husband assisted her to her feet. The couple watched, with grim dismay, as Semyon Grigorivich fell back and collapsed, eyes upturned.
Burned. Scarred. Irradiated. Dead.
Supressing a frightened sob, Auntie Jacinda turned and buried her head in the neck of Uncle Daniel's head, holding her close.
"Brilliant woman. You were like an angry koala, you was!"
Auntie Jacinda didn't risk the moment. She pointed to the Chalice. "We best take it and go. You can teleport us to Lachlan and his friends."
Uncle Daniel stared at the orange vessel, nearly indistinguishable from the rest of their dishware. "The Elders have safekept it for centuries. If this creepy bloke here has the others, then it's safer farther away from the rest."
Auntie stared at the charred husk on the ground. "What are we gonna' do about old mate over there? How am I gonna' explain to the constables that we have a dead Russian on our property? You remember the last time we had a muck-up like this."
Uncle Daniel scratched his head. "Nah, yeah, the dingo incident..."
"Let me go rouse one of the boys and see--"
The lady of the house didn't manage to finish that sentence, however, before she felt something grab her ankle. Auntie Jacinda yelped and pulled her foot back, watching in shock and horror as Semyon Grigorivich--still burned and scarred, lifted himself off the floor like a demon.
"Aradia's records were indeed useful," he said, his teeth showing through his burned away lips. "Which means the corresponding Divine Wellspring must surely lay at the foot of that sacred rock of yours."
Uncle Daniel held out his hand to the monster. "If you tread on these lands with ill intent, your death will surely be a gruesome one. This an old country, mate. And our ancestors, our great spirits, don't take kindly to evil magick."
But Semyon was undeterred. "Then, perhaps, I require an escort to the wellspring. You two will come with me. How rare your glyphs are, and I believe your magick is needed."
To Be Continued...
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| Chalice of Power Location: Russia Wellspring: Crater Lake, North America |
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| Chalice of Vitality Location: Australia Wellspring: Uluru, Australia |
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| Chalice of Will Location: Chichen Itza, Mexico Wellspring: Isle of the Sun, Bolivia |
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| Chalice of Compassion Location: Faewilds Wellsping: Glastonbury Tor, England |
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| Chalice of Voice Location: Catacombs of Paris, France Wellspring: Well of Souls, Egypt*
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| Chalice of Spirit Location: Bhubaneswar, India Wellspring: Mt. Kailash, India* *These Wellsprings are not depicted or mentioned in Spellbreaker's Main Event, but it can be assumed these Chalices were activated by either Aradia or Firebird |
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