Arceia – Chapter Four

Right after the tomboy left, I decided I was ready to begin my own day. I bid Ragnis farewell and departed for the Tower District to talk to Franz again about what he might have found, since I was incapable of meeting with him prior as agreed. Guilty, and maybe a bit too eager to see his findings, I made my way out and into the wild of the city, greeted by the usual busy streets and cluttered river of people, flowing in the circle as they did. I thought briefly on how they resembled livestock, but pushed the thought aside in confusion as to where it originated.

Without much effort I assimilated into the flow, and with even less effort I was able to make it to the Tower District with no hiccups. In fact, I made it all the way to the entrance before I noticed something different – Namely, the guards posted there seemed to be refusing entry to everyone, including professors. At this, I was immediately curious, but also terrified. A nameless fear stirred in my heart, but also seemed to feel as though it was pulling me forward to the source. I inhaled sharply as the closer I got, the more I could smell the iron of freshly evaporated blood. At once hating myself for knowing what that smelled like, I gripped my shoulder in pain and observed closer at what might be the cause.

Between the guards, the door was closed, but it had an obvious stain on it. I could tell the two of them seemed uncomfortable with the smell, but this was their duty, and the professor who passed me was far worse off with the odor. He seemed like it was his first time experiencing any sort of gore like this, let alone the sensory overload that came from the smell and sight together.

“Oh, turn back here miss.” the professor spoke, gagging between sentences. “One of the guides, he-” the professor couldn’t finish speaking, but insisted I turn back. I appreciated his warnings, but I shook my head and showed him my crest.

“I’ll be of help to the investigation, so I’m afraid it’s my duty to go and find out what’s happened.”

He seemed to accept that and hurry along. I’ll never understand why a crest of royalty implies I was capable of everything, but this was one of many instances I would take advantage of that. I approached the guards with slightly more confidence, now that I’d spoken about the situation. At once the two guards raised their hands, and the male spoke to me.

“Sorry, princess, but you’ll have to turn back.” he said, and in a voice I faintly recognized.

“Are you the gatekeeper I saw yesterday?” I asked. His face turned red, which confirmed it. “Aha, good to know. I’m afraid I can’t turn back though, as there is Imperial business to be discussed with a man named Franz inside the Tower today. Interruption of that activity would not do well for our country’s relationship.”

This time, I could see him fumbling his words trying to explain, but instead the woman next to him spoke up.

“Franz is the victim.”

“Ah.” I responded, sounding more unenthused than I meant to. “That certainly is a concern, then. What happened? He was caring for an Imperial artifact when I last saw him.”

“We found a note in his room with strange runes. Anyone who tried to read them got a headache, so we assume he enchanted it before his death, which appears to have been jumping from a few floors up while setting himself on fire.”

“He lived here?”

“No, miss.” The male spoke up again. “But we found his body at the gate, and this smell as well. They’re the same as what’s at his home right now.”

“Thanks for your cooperation.” I crossed my arms, masking how uncomfortable this scene was making me now that I’d had names. “And this note, is it with you?”

They both shook their heads, with the male speaking again.

“That’s currently at his house with the other officers who are standing guard. Why, do you think you can read it?”

“Unfortunately, probably.” I said. “I’ve been exposed to similar magic in the past, so I’m a bit more tolerant of it than normal soldiers. May I aid the investigation? This concerns the Empire as much as it does you since he was working with us.”

“Of course, I’ll send word via Sending Heart to expect you.” he said, which helped me greatly. No more banter, I could just go there.Speaking of:

“Where did he live?”

“His flat is due North and then one block West from the gate beyond the Tower. You’ll see guards, so you can’t miss it.”

“Got it. Thanks.” 

I didn’t wait for any response, doubling back to the main path so I could navigate myself to where I was told to go. Along the walk, I noticed an incredibly short woman carrying someone much larger than herself, both of them with silver hair, the one being carried in fact was glowing slightly and it seemed that she was unconscious. I’m not sure why, but I felt like I knew one of them.Still, that wasn’t my concern. I filed it away for a later observation to pursue and continued, down the stairs and due Northwest where I was greeted by an obvious gathering of soldiers. The walk took less than an hour, which I felt was unusual considering the north area beyond the Tower was at least double that in time from the entrance by foot at a casual walk. Perhaps I was running and didn’t realize.

Nothing stuck out to me as different about the northern area of the district, save for the soldiers already mentioned. It was a very symmetrical city with very similar designs everywhere you looked, so I didn’t expect new scenery. 

“Soldiers.” I greeted, approaching with a wave. One of them, who wasn’t wearing a helmet and thus was someone I could identify, approached me. She had orange-red hair, freckles, green eyes, and human ears, yet she was only a head shorter than myself. I assumed her to be a half=breed.

“Lady Aldritch, thank you for coming and offering to help.” she spoke. “I’m Zephyra, and this is my investigation team. None of us can read this note Franz left, and those who try get severe headaches and fall unconscious. It’s very dangerous.”

“Understood. I’ll be careful. Where is it?”

As if she knew I would ask that next, she handed me a slip of paper that I at once recognized as parchment from the tome I handed Franz. Guilt washed over me, and I began to realize that this was no doubt my fault. The symbols that the earlier guards described to me as runes were actually written in an aged alphabet that I learned in the Empire when studying the Pantheon. 

This was Red Elven. That would explain why some soldiers could struggle to gather the meaning of a word or two but not the full piece. Our language was rooted in theirs, but their language was far more rooted in observation and intensity. The deliberate hard pressing of brush strokes to create rougher symbols was their way of punctuating sentences, and the use of the same word for multiple different words would confuse anyone unfamiliar. I did my best to translate what I could, and what I was able to read, I began to read aloud.

“It says that he’s unsure if he will survive the night. He was stricken with a fever and his legs ceased function. He felt his throat swelling, and wrote this to document the symptoms in case anyone else became afflicted.” I stated, pausing for a moment. I looked up to the soldiers around me, and they seemed to be healthy. So, it was just perceiving the document that caused harm.Someone else could read it to you and you would be okay. That was what I could take away from the early passage, but there was more, so I continued.

“He seems to have lost his ability to form a sentence about midway through. A lot of it is badly written single words. Flame. Mist. Grotesque. That sort of thing. Interesting though, as it does become legible again toward the end. He concludes by saying there was a-”

I froze.

There was a man in an iron mask, with blood soaked hair, wearing bones and skin, taller than possible for the room he was in. He stared, wordlessly watching Franz evaporate, which Franz began to notice in himself too. There was no pain, just a difficulty forming words. In his last moments, he did not finish what he was writing, but it seemed he was trying to get the name of the entity down. It began with  the letter ‘D’ and before he could continue, the page ended. The rest was nowhere to be found.

This had to be the same entity that visited me in my delirious state, and now it had targeted Franz after I’d passed along the tome of Primal Names to him. He wrote a note on the same parchment in a language almost nobody outside nobility could read anymore and described his observations instead of begging for his life.

This letter was directed to me. There was no doubt about it. He was trying to tell me something specific, but I couldn’t determine what – did he know this figure appeared before me? Did he suspect that my fainting spell was related to this?

“Lady Aldritch?” Zephyra spoke out,, snapping me out of my stupor. I had to come up with a reason I needed to examine the house further, and quickly.

“The final parts detail the appearance of a figure, but it was at that point that the pain began for myself as well. I can’t read further, I’m sorry.”

“A figure? Then, he was-”

“I believe this was a murder, yes, but I don’t know for what reason and I worry that it may be related to Franz knowing too much. For that reason, whatever Franz knew can be considered hazardous information, so perhaps it’s better we can’t read this for now.” I slipped it into my pocket, hoping that she wouldn’t question me. “We should examine the area of his death. Perhaps we can identify some form of visual clue from that. From the way this is written, the death took place here, so why was there blood on the door of the Tower?”

“Magic?” Zephyra asked. “Does a form of magic exist that could transport the body there? if so, it could have been haphazardly done.”

“No, such spells are only possible by mortal hands. However that blood got there, it was done so physically and with intent.” I confirmed. “Come on, if you’ve got the nose to handle this odor, we should head inside and start searching.”

She nodded, and ordered her group to stay outside to keep the investigation line going. Together, we entered the front door, finding it unlocked as we expected given the circumstances. 

“Nobody’s been inside yet, the smell was too bad.” she confirmed. I assumed as much, but it was nice to hear. That meant the sight of the entire common room being charred was as big a shock for her as it was for me. Furniture in every corner was still smoking, but the smoke never reached above our heads. Because of this, we assumed the fire to be magical in nature, and I cursed my lack of spellcasting that I couldn’t generate some form of barrier against it. Instead, we did the old fashioned method of avoiding smoke and kept our bodies low, not quite enough to crawl but crouch walking for certain.

“If anything is intact, it’s probably deliberate.” I told her. “Magical fire can pick and choose what it burns based on the will of the caster, so if this murderer left anything behind and it’s in one piece, it’s very important that we take it.”

“Got it.” she nodded. “Thanks for the help. You’d think we would prioritize magic studies more being in charge of protecting the people and all, but our training doesn’t cover it beyond the basics.”

“Imperial citizens aren’t even taught the basics, so I guess your government must see this as better than nothing. Shame.”

We went silent after that, scanning the room in different directions as we made our way in. A chair that was glowing with barely flickering embers, next to a table that had collapsed at one side and turned to ash, and nothing out of the ordinary besides that. The walls were also coated in dark scorch marks, which told me that the fire wasn’t a radial expansion, but a select targeted group of blasts. I turned to tell Zephyra about this, and saw her holding an undamaged book – yes! That was perfect! 

“What’s the title of that volume?”

“It says ‘Being and Nothingness.’ and there’s no author mentioned.”

“That sounds familiar, mind if I take a look?”

“Go ahead. It’s written in that same rune language as before.”

Upon opening the book, I immediately recognized it. The specific flourishes on the runes meant that this was a modern tracing of the original, and as such probably lacked the same context, but I could make out details that were important and fill in the blanks with common sense.

“This is a copy, and probably a recent one. Let me show you.”

I opened to the inside cover, where the title was written a second time and below it was likely the first paragraph.

“Modern books contain the title inside the book like this, but ancient tomes, even well preserved ones, never did that. Also, the way the runes are written has more modern calligraphy to it than the old, rough runes of the Red Elves. Whoever was copying this was doing so within the last century.”

“How do you know all this stuff?” she asked me.

“I did nothing but read back home. My eldest sister had a fantastic library.”

“And the Red Elven language? Did she teach you that?”

I paused, and then locked up, with the tome still open.

I couldn’t remember where I learned to read this language.