The mage I know that is the most ‘good’ is a literal godsdamned demon summoner.

- Weylon Ursk on his views of magic in Santoria.

As satisfying as it was to scream my frustrations into my pillow until exhaustion found me, I had to find something else to focus on quickly. There were too many problems that threatened to take away any chance of me enjoying my life, or even being able to live it. As tempting as it was to leap back into my pillow for another scream or three, I needed to think.

Problem number one was self defence. My experience with the Beithir had been enlightening, and as painful as it was to admit that I was probably the weakest person in Veliki, it was true. Casien had caught my arm without even trying, and I had not been able to wrench it free. He had been disturbed by how weak I was.

Learning Rezan was one way of solving that. A way to be powerful without having to be physically strong was something I dearly needed. I’d been pulling on the string of my bow every day for months and that hadn’t made me stronger by any stretch. That I failed to pull back Torment’s longbow was one strike against me, that I hadn’t seen any opportunities to strike out with dad’s knife when I had it was another.

Strike three would see me killed. I had no doubt about that.

The problem with that was that my dad had dismissed Brynn teaching me Rezan out of hand. The Once Chosen of the Heavens had a reputation for living to his word, but I wasn’t sure how he would act on his promise to train me tomorrow with my dad acting like he was. There was nothing for it, really. All I could do on that front was find a weapon that wasn’t my dad’s, show up, and hope.

I hated leaving things out of my control like that, but that was up to Brynn. If he didn’t give me anything I could use, I’d go to someone else asking for training, maybe Taranath. Maybe Maiathah now that I thought about it. But that was tomorrow’s business and I still had two other problems to deal with.

When I told Brynn I didn’t want to see the Shepards until the next blank moon, it hadn’t been a date I’d just pulled out of nowhere. In Veliki there was a regular occurrence that happened every night the moon failed to appear in the sky. When the world was the farthest from the Heavens, Below spilled into Santoria, and one of Voxis’ old companions from long ago stalked the streets. Normally bloody. Always bloodthirsty.

They were strong enough that several retired heroes came out of their homes to put a stop to the rampage. In other words, it was the perfect smokescreen. When everyone was distracted by the fallen adventurer here to catch up with Voxis, I would slip away into the night. This time I wouldn’t bring any beithirs closer to me by cursing at nothing, not until I was far away from Veliki.

Ideally I would be able to defend myself before then, but I would go anyway if I wasn’t. That would get me away from the Shepards. The problem that came after that was keeping myself away from them.

If I ran away then Avien. as my promised husband, would be honour bound to come after me so we could ‘go home’. It would be a quest, one that I would see him fail. There were a multitude of ways that I could do that.

The first would be to change my appearance, cover myself up, and live a discrete life somewhere else far away. Not for the first time, I considered dragging an arrow across my cheeks to make myself less appealing, but once again decided against it.

Yes, the Heavens probably interfered with how I grew like they did Avien. Only instead of ensuring I grew strong, they made certain I was meek and in need of protection, as well as making me grow to be more attractive than you’d expect looking at my parents. I knew I wasn’t a classic seductress, meeting a succubus once had been enough to put those fantasies to rest, but I also knew that I wasn’t lacking.

The girls in Veliki around my age were smaller than me in the ways they cared about, but they were Chosen and had other talents, so I was far more envious of them. That mutual resentment had played a large part in forming the rift that existed between me and all the Chosen kids.

As for my face, it was well rounded, and I knew thanks to my mother that there was a significant pinch to my cheeks. Like my parents, I had brown eyes, though mine were a much lighter brown than theirs were. The same was true for my hair. My family was from Kreg’uune, and that gave us all the bronze skin of the country, only I was a touch paler than both my parents.

That was either because they had grown up south of Juvel while I had grown up in Veliki, which was in the far north, or because the Heavens were stepping in again.

I was, I suspected, exactly Avien’s type. But I wasn’t about to cut his favourite face to spite him. It was my face. Not his. I was the only one who would make decisions for it, even if I suspected it would feel tremendously good to break something that Avien liked.

No, that wasn’t on the table. Standard disguises would have to be my first option when hiding from Avien, followed by simply putting distance between us, and ultimately finding a way to break the connection the Heavens had forged which I never wanted.

Three goals. Self defence, getting out of here, and spitting in the face of the Shepards. One was up in the air, one involved waiting for the blank moon, and the last relied on the success of the second. The first would be good to accomplish, though I’d simply move on to the second if the time came and I’d failed to accomplish the first. But that didn’t involve screaming at my pillow anymore. Before I could really get moving, I inadvertently knocked something off my bed and to the floor.

It was the charm with the scrying stone embedded within. Realising it was there made my mood darken again.

When the eight sages came to Avien, he’d refused to sit with them unless I was there. At the time I was much younger and less able to get out of Jewel-Shepard obligations, so I had had no choice but to be there and get bored out of my mind by the boring old men. By the time Avien had demanded I be there, they’d already passed the basics, so all I got from it were a bunch of advanced magical theories that went in one ear and out the other.

I still retained some of it, though. Magical names normally described exactly what the associated spell or item did being one golden rule I walked away with. Brynn had mentioned a faux demiplane and a suggestion stone. The latter of the two implied that holding on to the stone would compel the user to act in ways they otherwise wouldn’t. The former was essentially a room beside Santoria, but outside of All. I didn’t know how the faux nature factored in, but I was able to draw a rough conclusion from that.

Mary had been the one to give me the charm at my father’s request after I received my bow. It stood to reason that Mary, not wanting me to kill myself, simply made an item that would make me walk into her safe demiplane whenever I wanted to go hunting instead being a decent person and not dominating my mind.

All signs pointed to Mary controlling me, but I stamped down on the anger. From now on the scrying stone would stay in my room, until the night that I left. At that point, I would leave it on their front doorstep as a message, or simply throw it through their window for greater satisfaction.

I couldn’t wait, but now was the time to find a weapon. I gathered what coin I had before escaping my house through the window in my bedroom. After listening out by the door to make sure Brynn had already left, I sneaked away and considered my options.

And hit a dead end.

Veliki had adventurers galore, so they were all well armed. Yet I wasn’t aware of any dedicated blacksmiths. Probably because all the adventurers that retired to Veliki were well traveled enough to have amassed a collection of rare magical items and artifacts that did not require standard maintenance.

Normally that was awesome. Good for them. Right now that was terrible. I had no idea where to start asking, and a fair number of people that I could ask would check with my dad before letting me even touch something metal that wasn’t a cooking utensil. All the cool adventurers were being very uncool and hiding in their various hiding spots, likely Chooze your Booze which I was too young to enter. With nothing else for it, I began to wander.

I passed three people who would’ve sent me back to my dad before seeing someone I felt like I could take a chance on. Wrenn Astorio was having a pleasant walk on a pleasant day, and was making the shadows around him deepen and reach towards him ominously. When I started walking towards him, he simply stopped and waited for me, then continued to walk, all without even glancing my way.

“I need a favour.” I broke the silence when I couldn’t take it anymore. “Two actually.”

“You drive a hard bargain.” Wrenn said. His head twitched in my direction, but failed to look at me. “Let’s hear them.”

“First, don’t tell my mom or dad about the second favour.”

Wrenn hummed. “I suppose that depends on the second favour.”

I grit my teeth. “Either you’re on my side, or you’re driving me into the ground for no reason. Can you do the first favour, even if you say no to the second?”

Wrenn pondered on that as the shadows grew around us. “I swear to not mention your second favour to your parents.”

“Good. Can you help me get a weapon? One made of metal. Wood won’t work.”

“Ah.” Wrenn voiced his understanding of my requests. “I’m afraid that would go against my oaths as a doctor, and as a citizen of Veliki.” He smiled an apology. “But I must ask, what is wrong with a good quarterstaff?”

“It would explode.” I sighed. “Thanks or whatever.”

“Come see me if any more quarterstaffs explode.” Wrenn called after me as I abruptly walked away. Once I was around the corner I remembered what Brynn said about the rule change and winced as I kicked myself. I could have convinced Wrenn, but he mentioned more than one kind of oath. Chances were he wasn’t any help to me anyway.

After passing another few people that I didn’t trust to help me, I found myself outside a very active household. Five very young kids were screaming and playing, and generally making a wall of sound I didn’t want to walk through. I hesitated, then walked onto the property.

“Ah, it’s Amber!” The youngest, a boy that couldn’t have been more than four shouted.

“You didn’t die?” The eldest, a girl about ten asked me at a much more reasonable volume.

“Why didn’t you die?” A younger girl asked, looking incredibly confused.

I sighed. I really wasn’t good with kids. “Dragon.” I said, hoping, and they all made noises of amazement. That is, except for the older of the two boys who was much more interested in a ball that he was kicking about in the mud. “Who is in there?” I gestured at the large three story building that could probably be called a mansion, and was actually pretty modest compared to some of the buildings in Veliki.

Fabrication magic meant people just went too overboard.

“Mom’s home!” The youngest announced.

“I think two of my brothers went on quests the other week?” The girl that hadn’t spoken yet tilted her head as she said that, but the others patted her on the shoulder and agreed they were gone.

That made me frown, since quests weren’t supposed to be allowed. I didn’t press the issue though. It wasn’t my purpose.

“The twins and the other one are out on errands.” The oldest told me.

“Other one?” I repeated. I only knew this family in passing, so I wasn’t familiar at all. That being said, Veliki was a small town so I knew them well enough. But calling someone ‘other’ was new.

“Yeah, she doesn’t fit in and doesn’t like it when I call her my sister.” The youngest girl told me enthusiastically. “But she doesn’t like it when I call her my brother either. So she wants a different um… not really sure, but we just call her the other one.”

“Okay…” I didn’t get it, but this wasn’t helping me.

“I think it’s because mom went and had sex with that elf.” The oldest girl mused. I blinked and stared at her. “Yeah… she’s like that. The ‘other’ one is a half elf. They stay weird for some time apparently.”

“And Casien…” I lead on, the one kid they hadn’t mentioned who lived here was the only one they hadn’t said anything about.

All the kids stared at me bug eyed.

“You’re here for Casien?” The middle girl asked in disbelief.

I frowned, trying to think up the best response. I gave up and shrugged. “Sure. Is he not in?”

All the kids except for the one who was now squatting in the mud and rubbing his hands around in it huddled up. They were whispering, but not quiet enough that I couldn’t hear them. Unfortunately, they were kids and three were talking at any given time, so I couldn’t track the conversation.

Eventually the oldest ran inside. “Oh Casieeen!” She cheered, enjoying it far too much. A hand went to my face as I realised what was happening. The girl disappeared into the house and all too quickly Casien’s mom, Angelica, came to the front door to see what was going on.

Angelica looked like an angel, but only if that angel really liked looking depressed. She had the extremely pale skin of Maris, straight raven black hair that perfectly behaved as it fell down past her bust, and piercing black eyes. All traits that her children mostly shared, barring cases like Casien who had weird influence, and the stone grey kid in the mud. She was wearing a faded blue dress that ended below her knees, and over that wore a black vest with rows of pockets that were filled with reagents and chalks. Even with that she was displaying a generous cleavage.

“Oh. Amber.” She was wiping her hands clean of something and looked none too pleased to see me. I supposed that had something to do with how I was born on the day that devil found a loophole in his contract with her.

“Hi Angelica.” I responded stiffly, then floundered inside the privacy of my mind. She wasn’t the one I had come here to talk to. I hadn’t come to talk to anyone except Casien, and only because he might sympathise with my problem, then give me a weapon out of pity or something.

“Well?” Angelica demanded. I didn’t know what she was asking for. “You look like a chicken standing there. Come in and- Marble no!”

I looked in the direction she was shouting and saw the kid in the mud had fallen forwards and was swimming in it now. He was face down and didn’t seem interested in righting himself. He had ended up close enough to me that I could just reach down and touch him, so I grabbed him by the collar and pulled him up. “Get up.” I told him for good measure.

Marble looked at me, then his eyes widened in panic as he looked away from me towards his mother. Angelica’s hair was shimmering as if there was a heat mirage between me and her, which there shouldn’t have been since we were standing beside each other, and that’s how I knew she was pissed off.

I released the child as the other kids were jeering at Marble. Angelica launched into a lecture that I was certain I’d overheard variations of over the past few years. The woman’s voice had a tendency to carry, sometimes by magical means. With that, I was even less certain what to do with myself. Everything about this was something I hadn’t expected.

“Inside.” Angelica told her muddy son as she pushed his back with one hand. “You too.” Her other hand started pulling me inside. I tried to resist, but then she said, “Stay for tea so I can thank you,” and all my resistance crumbled.

I knew it was a suggestion spell, but there was nothing I could do about it. My fist clenched, but I went inside Angelica’s house with the full intention to have a cup of tea before leaving.

“Ooh! Mom’s pulling out the spells!” One of the kids hollored. “Sucks to be Amber!”

“I’m really sorry about mom.” The middle girl apologised.

“She isn’t even resisting!” The youngest laughed, taking too much pleasure in the compulsion.

That wasn’t something I was planning on leaving unpunished, so I did some quick reasoning in my head and turned right around. The kids all quieted a little as the youngest kept laughing, completely unaware that I had turned as I approached. He was cut off as I clouted him on the back of the head.

He was incredibly befuddled “What? But you’re supposed to be suggested.”

“I haven’t left the property.” I told him, then stalked after Angelica. My mood had already been bad, but this had just made it worse. I hit the one who claimed it sucked to be me as well as I passed. That one just felt good.

When I joined the matriarch of the family inside, she was snapping her fingers at a boxum figure in the kitchen. “Jasmine, you’re going to clean Marble since he tried to rejoin the dirt again. Before you do that you’re going to put the kettle on. When the kettle is done, you’re going to stop whatever you’re doing and prepare the tea, which you will then serve to me and my guests.”

Jasmine turned to Angelica and curtsied. “As you wish…” She struggled with a word beginning with b, not getting anything more than a ghost of the first sound out, before eventually giving up. “Mistress.”

Angelica turned to me with a smile. “Sit. Casien, you too.” She directed the words at the boy who was hiding not very inconspicuously on the stairs. The rails were see through, so I wasn’t sure what he was trying to accomplish there. He and I sat as Jasmine finished up in the kitchen and came out to collect Marble. I couldn’t keep my eyes off the thin, spade tipped tail and smaller than usable wings.

Obviously, Jasmine was a succubus in servitude to Angelica, and the blue skin went pretty far towards advertising that fact. She was frankly stacked, as was to be expected of her race, but she was also dressed in the most conservative white dress I’d ever seen, and looked like she hated every second of it. Angelica noticed me staring and grinned.

“Ironic, isn’t it?” She leaned forward. “It’s my favourite thing to do with devils. Find out their most important things and trample all over them.” She leaned back and rolled her shoulder. “Ahh. It’s the life.”

Casien looked more awkward than I felt right now. “Did everything...” He gestured something at me. “You know…”

“No, I don’t.” I responded.

“Pointless question, I suppose.” He admitted. Angelica was sitting too close for comfort and was watching the slow go between with great interest.

“I need, uh…” I glanced at Angelica. “A favour.”

Casien frowned and adjusted his chair, leaning in closer. “What is it?”

“It’s…” My eyes flicked towards Angelica again. “I kind of want to keep it between him and me.”

“You want me to leave?” Angelica pressed a hand to her breast in mock offense. “Too bad. You and that boy don’t get that freedom in this household. Although,” She grinned like a predator smelling blood. “If you want to slap the Shepards in the face by kissing my son, for your first kiss no less, you have my express permission. In fact, do it now.”

\V/