Slowly, a black shadow smothered Alicia’s entire being. Splayed behemoth wings with eye patterns spread out on various sides, glaring at the triplets. Magnificent wings. Magnificent, intimidating wings. That was the expression coming from the recesses of their hearts while they were fearful to die.
The Mothman uttered to Alicia, “You are alone here, hnnggg! No Magisterium Wizards will come to help you, unlike the last time when that foolish Necromancer was sent away!"
Alicia’s eyes widened in realisation. “You—so it was you...!”
“There is no escape for you, especially you, Crimsonmane girl. Die in your dome!”
The Mothman then raised his hand high. No chanting. No muttering. No recitation of absurd sentences in a gruesome voice like the corpse-loving mage in the past. Nothing but a buzzing, hissing, and squeaking. An invitation for the insects from the unreachable corners.
The magician’s wings thrummed and shattered into thousands of enraged bees, swarming every side of the protective dome with a barrage of stings. One insect stung and died straightway, but for every one that fell, a thousand more would rise. Each sting sparked against the force field, eliciting a scream from Alicia as she crumpled to her knees. Nadine and Gilmore rushed to her side, trying to rouse her from her distress, but her screams only grew louder and her body grew more rigid. As time slipped away her protection was getting weaker. The malicious Mothman looked down with a sneer, relishing Alicia's suffering.
“Hnnggg, I told you, your will never escape. My bees' stings are imbued with dark magic, capable of delivering a jolt of electricity as strong as that of a power line. Imagine if there were thousands of them! Do you know what happens if you get electrocuted, young girl? You’re right! Your body will become more numb, clinging ever tighter to the source of voltage. You will be forced to keep your dome intact. You cannot let go until you are weak, your insides are on fire…, then you die.”
“Stop it, please!” Nadine screamed as she sobbed. “Just take the Arcane source, but don’t make her suffer!”
“Hey! Ye heard him, ye bloody bug-man! Let go of Alicia, little shite! Let her go, ya pure cunt! Let her go!” Gilmore cursed as he hammered against the Arcane dome, immune to its electrical charge for he did not possess the Divine Grace.
“It’s too late, children,” mocked the magus, “As she said... she has already said the answer. And you shall join her once she is dealt with!”
“G-G-Gil…m-more…! N-Nad-dinee!” Alicia stammered through convulsing lips. “E-e…eyes… E-ea-rs… C-cl…. Cl-close!”
Her words took aback her two friends, wondering about the reason behind her utterance. But as Alicia's screechings grew louder, they knew that any further explanation was beyond her ability. Gilmore and Nadine backed away, eyes and ears shut.
The Mothman was confused by their behaviour. Alicia gave a gleaming look to those wide, empty eyes.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
The desolate and depressing cityscape burst into a sudden, blinding white.
The deafening blast left no soul unscathed. Nadine and Gilmore did not escape the whiz, but they were faring better than the others, thanks to Alicia's suggestion.
The insect mage was the first to regain composure. His minions could not even lift their bodies due to the reaction between Khaos and Arcane still corrugating inside them. He saw all the bees had vanished. And so did Alicia and her best friends.
“They flee! Hnngggg! Hoist yourself and grasp your magic broom! Scatter! Slay them all and seize the magic ball! Hnngggg!” The Mothman wrestled to beat his wings, the agony from the clash of forces still raw. He shut his eyes, concentrating his mana, infusing the sombre essence of Khaos to supplant the consumed ones by Arcane. Cultivation through anguish. Screams and rage vented through him as forms of expression. His once-beauteous eyes turned crimson, wings outstretched, and he took the sky, merging with the horizon.
Gasps shattered the quietude of Hamstagg’s thoroughfares. Gilmore and Nadine hastened their frantic steps. Even though Alicia was limp on the man’s shoulder, it did not stop The Big Yin from equaling Nadine’s speed. Alicia herself had not fainted; she was just debilitated. They could finally pass the Eidyn monument, a sign that the illusion magic had been cut off.
They did not care about the people looking at them with confusion. Nadine shouted, “Get out of the way! A group of black magicians is after us! Get away from here!”
The residents seemed to ignore the lady’s chatter, before they actually saw a congregation of soaring mages from diverse directions. But that was not what made the people disorganised, but a giant moth that loomed over the city like a winged monster. A number of nearby civil guard units responded to Nadine’s warning. How significant it could be for several armed forces to fight against the magic-fuelled vultures gazing from the sky?
***
The Eidyn National Library was located not too far from the Eidyn monument. A group of people came out of the library door, turned out to be Lachlan Haddock, the Grand Magus, accompanied by his right-hand man Bartholomew Strongbark, along with three Magisterium wizards, and David Whistlehoff, the prison warden. Haddock and Bartholomew bore burdens of tiered tomes, but the latter could not stop barking due to the weighty load, to which Haddock casually replied, “Oh, for the sake of Silent Divine. Don’t nag, Barthie! Was it you who cleaned my room full of disorganised books?”
“Yeah! I bloody cleaned it! I cleaned it like I was your fancy thrall!”
“Well, save your mana then, funny! The castle maids suffice for such chores. It doesn’t even require mana from your side.”
“Of course, if the books do not find their way to my desk, which turns out to be–oh, right–next to yours!”
As the duo stowed the books securely within an expansive winged sling bag and dispatched it to Skycastle, a commotion caught their attention from the direction of the Eidyn monument. "Grand Magus, look!" one of the wizards in their group pointed, drawing their gaze to two teenagers running like mad. Their gaits faltered as they strained themselves to the brink of exhaustion.
Meanwhile, from a distant vantage, Nadine saw the band of Magisterium. “That, Grand Magus, right? Grand Magus! Help us!”
“Kids?” Haddock regarded his entourage for a moment. “Gents, looks like our regular drinking event must be postponed.”
Several of his peers grumbled in discontent. Haddock strode forward to meet the triumvirate. “You,” he said, “what are you doing here? Alicia! Is she all right? What are you up to this time?”
Gilmore gently set down his best friend. Despite her weariness, Alicia stood firm, her breath as laboured as that of her friends. When her eyes fell upon the figure of David Whistlehoff, she reached for Orb in alarm, causing everyone present to gasp in surprise. David remained impassive, yet his body tensed with caution.
“Alicia! What’s the meaning of this?” Haddock inquired the young lass.
“A group... of masked mages and an Insect-Man... assaulted me... and my friends... for Orb!”
“Insect-Man, you say?” Haddock and the others then turned to David Whistlehoff. He was probably the only practitioner of the mystic art of Arthromania—a mystical art that focuses on the manipulation of all arthropodic elements—in the realm of Camelot. But if there was another insect mage present, something was gravely amiss.
“What are you talking about, kid? Whistlehoff has been with us all along!” Bartholomew interjected.
Whistlehoff spoke with his trademark gloom, "Are you suggesting this because you bear a grudge against me, miss?"
“Oi, sir! Take a gander at her just now!” Gilmore barked back. “Could she be spinin' a yarn in her current condition? A gaggle of black wizards, led by an insect mage, truly set upon us!”
Whistlehoff was silent for a moment. He admitted the teenagers were not in the mood to fable. “If there was an insect mage other than myself in Camelot, I would have known—Divine Mercy, that bug mage is actually there!”
Whistlehoff pointed to the Mothman and his band minions, suspended in the delicate dusk sky like a chorus of ominous bats. The insect mage displayed cunning, keeping his distance as he observed the imposing figure of the Grand Magus advancing to defend the three young juveniles. Alicia, although fond of magical things, was unaware of the infamous reputation of the head of the world's magical organisation, known as "The Europa's Wonder Boy", to the point that the rogues had to think twice if Haddock was directly involved in the battle, with or without the might of Arcane. Mothman, wise in his ways, made the prudent decision to retreat into the amber horizon, fading into the bustling city as time ticked on, and the civilisation of Eidyn moved forward, memories of the encounter already forgotten.
“Good thing they’re wise,” said Barthie.
“Not that it’s over,” Haddock retorted. He saw Alicia’s reddened arms and her forlorn expression. Taking hold of her hands, he could feel the tense muscles beneath his grip. It astonished him that the lass' form remained unharmed. No scalds or organ failure. Just drained energy.
Even though the magic she experienced was just a pseudo-electric sensation, without Arcane’s might, Alicia could have lost her life force. “You’re all right, miss, but you still need treatment. Let’s go to Skycastle, and I'll brew a potion to heal you. We'll let Donar and your brother know—”
Haddock suddenly stopped.
“Oh, no, it came back again.” Gilmore cradled the girl with concern.
The girl was tired. Her body ached. Her emotions were a tumult. She yearned to vent her passionate anger. To Spencer, Uncle John, and Aunt Aimee. To Alasdair, her grandfather. To House Crimsonmane. To the world. To herself. However, the girl bowed down, for she was unable to do so. All she could do was clench her hands until their skin reddened, then struck her own temples with tightly clenched fists.
Alicia wept.
“Alicia…. Don’t hit yourself!” Haddock tried to grab her hand. He sought an explanation from Gilmore and Nadine, but their lips were too laden to speak. Only a look of remorse could be given to the Grand Magus, which was certainly not enough to explain what had happened.
“T-they… are my family,” the girl stammered through her sobs. “A-after… all these years… they… th-they…”
All present watched her. Even Barthie and Whistlehoff felt a twinge of concern.
“…They s-still want to kill me…”
She had forgotten about all the deadly stings earlier. Even a slight bruise from her self-harm was not as painful as an old wound in the recesses of a torn heart. It would be very difficult to close the wound this time. Not without reason, she said so. The memories were still there. Several members of her own kin had conspired to plot an assassination for her, solely to purify the image of Crimsonmane. They were still there. Now, the same goal, equipped with a spice called "Seizing the Source of Arcane Might".
Haddock stared at her with thoughtfulness. The idea of a pure magician’s lineage disgusted him. Sacrificing an innocent little girl for the sake of the fame of the family name was something that could not make sense to him. Killing one’s own family for the sake of Divine power only multiplied his fury. The rage at Alicia's family began to resonate within him.
Haddock held Alicia’s hands to halt her self-inflicted blows. He hugged the girl, and she too surrendered on the Grand Magus' back. Comfort was what she truly needed at a time like this. “I promise to hunt them all down, Alicia,” he whispered. “We will investigate your extended family soon. They will be well-deserved.”
Alicia still had not ceased her moaning, but Haddock allowed her this moment. He embraced the girl to stand up, and with the others, returned to the magic castle above under the sky. []
Slowly, a black shadow smothered Alicia’s entire being. Splayed behemoth wings with eye patterns spread out on various sides, glaring at the triplets. Magnificent wings. Magnificent, intimidating wings. That was the expression coming from the recesses of their hearts while they were fearful to die.
The Mothman uttered to Alicia, “You are alone here, hnnggg! No Magisterium Wizards will come to help you, unlike the last time when that foolish Necromancer was sent away!"
Alicia’s eyes widened in realisation. “You—so it was you...!”
“There is no escape for you, especially you, Crimsonmane girl. Die in your dome!”
The Mothman then raised his hand high. No chanting. No muttering. No recitation of absurd sentences in a gruesome voice like the corpse-loving mage in the past. Nothing but a buzzing, hissing, and squeaking. An invitation for the insects from the unreachable corners.
The magician’s wings thrummed and shattered into thousands of enraged bees, swarming every side of the protective dome with a barrage of stings. One insect stung and died straightway, but for every one that fell, a thousand more would rise. Each sting sparked against the force field, eliciting a scream from Alicia as she crumpled to her knees. Nadine and Gilmore rushed to her side, trying to rouse her from her distress, but her screams only grew louder and her body grew more rigid. As time slipped away her protection was getting weaker. The malicious Mothman looked down with a sneer, relishing Alicia's suffering.
“Hnnggg, I told you, your will never escape. My bees' stings are imbued with dark magic, capable of delivering a jolt of electricity as strong as that of a power line. Imagine if there were thousands of them! Do you know what happens if you get electrocuted, young girl? You’re right! Your body will become more numb, clinging ever tighter to the source of voltage. You will be forced to keep your dome intact. You cannot let go until you are weak, your insides are on fire…, then you die.”
“Stop it, please!” Nadine screamed as she sobbed. “Just take the Arcane source, but don’t make her suffer!”
“Hey! Ye heard him, ye bloody bug-man! Let go of Alicia, little shite! Let her go, ya pure cunt! Let her go!” Gilmore cursed as he hammered against the Arcane dome, immune to its electrical charge for he did not possess the Divine Grace.
“It’s too late, children,” mocked the magus, “As she said... she has already said the answer. And you shall join her once she is dealt with!”
“G-G-Gil…m-more…! N-Nad-dinee!” Alicia stammered through convulsing lips. “E-e…eyes… E-ea-rs… C-cl…. Cl-close!”
Her words took aback her two friends, wondering about the reason behind her utterance. But as Alicia's screechings grew louder, they knew that any further explanation was beyond her ability. Gilmore and Nadine backed away, eyes and ears shut.
The Mothman was confused by their behaviour. Alicia gave a gleaming look to those wide, empty eyes.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
The desolate and depressing cityscape burst into a sudden, blinding white.
The deafening blast left no soul unscathed. Nadine and Gilmore did not escape the whiz, but they were faring better than the others, thanks to Alicia's suggestion.
The insect mage was the first to regain composure. His minions could not even lift their bodies due to the reaction between Khaos and Arcane still corrugating inside them. He saw all the bees had vanished. And so did Alicia and her best friends.
“They flee! Hnngggg! Hoist yourself and grasp your magic broom! Scatter! Slay them all and seize the magic ball! Hnngggg!” The Mothman wrestled to beat his wings, the agony from the clash of forces still raw. He shut his eyes, concentrating his mana, infusing the sombre essence of Khaos to supplant the consumed ones by Arcane. Cultivation through anguish. Screams and rage vented through him as forms of expression. His once-beauteous eyes turned crimson, wings outstretched, and he took the sky, merging with the horizon.
Gasps shattered the quietude of Hamstagg’s thoroughfares. Gilmore and Nadine hastened their frantic steps. Even though Alicia was limp on the man’s shoulder, it did not stop The Big Yin from equaling Nadine’s speed. Alicia herself had not fainted; she was just debilitated. They could finally pass the Eidyn monument, a sign that the illusion magic had been cut off.
They did not care about the people looking at them with confusion. Nadine shouted, “Get out of the way! A group of black magicians is after us! Get away from here!”
The residents seemed to ignore the lady’s chatter, before they actually saw a congregation of soaring mages from diverse directions. But that was not what made the people disorganised, but a giant moth that loomed over the city like a winged monster. A number of nearby civil guard units responded to Nadine’s warning. How significant it could be for several armed forces to fight against the magic-fuelled vultures gazing from the sky?
***
The Eidyn National Library was located not too far from the Eidyn monument. A group of people came out of the library door, turned out to be Lachlan Haddock, the Grand Magus, accompanied by his right-hand man Bartholomew Strongbark, along with three Magisterium wizards, and David Whistlehoff, the prison warden. Haddock and Bartholomew bore burdens of tiered tomes, but the latter could not stop barking due to the weighty load, to which Haddock casually replied, “Oh, for the sake of Silent Divine. Don’t nag, Barthie! Was it you who cleaned my room full of disorganised books?”
“Yeah! I bloody cleaned it! I cleaned it like I was your fancy thrall!”
“Well, save your mana then, funny! The castle maids suffice for such chores. It doesn’t even require mana from your side.”
“Of course, if the books do not find their way to my desk, which turns out to be–oh, right–next to yours!”
As the duo stowed the books securely within an expansive winged sling bag and dispatched it to Skycastle, a commotion caught their attention from the direction of the Eidyn monument. "Grand Magus, look!" one of the wizards in their group pointed, drawing their gaze to two teenagers running like mad. Their gaits faltered as they strained themselves to the brink of exhaustion.
Meanwhile, from a distant vantage, Nadine saw the band of Magisterium. “That, Grand Magus, right? Grand Magus! Help us!”
“Kids?” Haddock regarded his entourage for a moment. “Gents, looks like our regular drinking event must be postponed.”
Several of his peers grumbled in discontent. Haddock strode forward to meet the triumvirate. “You,” he said, “what are you doing here? Alicia! Is she all right? What are you up to this time?”
Gilmore gently set down his best friend. Despite her weariness, Alicia stood firm, her breath as laboured as that of her friends. When her eyes fell upon the figure of David Whistlehoff, she reached for Orb in alarm, causing everyone present to gasp in surprise. David remained impassive, yet his body tensed with caution.
“Alicia! What’s the meaning of this?” Haddock inquired the young lass.
“A group... of masked mages and an Insect-Man... assaulted me... and my friends... for Orb!”
“Insect-Man, you say?” Haddock and the others then turned to David Whistlehoff. He was probably the only practitioner of the mystic art of Arthromania—a mystical art that focuses on the manipulation of all arthropodic elements—in the realm of Camelot. But if there was another insect mage present, something was gravely amiss.
“What are you talking about, kid? Whistlehoff has been with us all along!” Bartholomew interjected.
Whistlehoff spoke with his trademark gloom, "Are you suggesting this because you bear a grudge against me, miss?"
“Oi, sir! Take a gander at her just now!” Gilmore barked back. “Could she be spinin' a yarn in her current condition? A gaggle of black wizards, led by an insect mage, truly set upon us!”
Whistlehoff was silent for a moment. He admitted the teenagers were not in the mood to fable. “If there was an insect mage other than myself in Camelot, I would have known—Divine Mercy, that bug mage is actually there!”
Whistlehoff pointed to the Mothman and his band minions, suspended in the delicate dusk sky like a chorus of ominous bats. The insect mage displayed cunning, keeping his distance as he observed the imposing figure of the Grand Magus advancing to defend the three young juveniles. Alicia, although fond of magical things, was unaware of the infamous reputation of the head of the world's magical organisation, known as "The Europa's Wonder Boy", to the point that the rogues had to think twice if Haddock was directly involved in the battle, with or without the might of Arcane. Mothman, wise in his ways, made the prudent decision to retreat into the amber horizon, fading into the bustling city as time ticked on, and the civilisation of Eidyn moved forward, memories of the encounter already forgotten.
“Good thing they’re wise,” said Barthie.
“Not that it’s over,” Haddock retorted. He saw Alicia’s reddened arms and her forlorn expression. Taking hold of her hands, he could feel the tense muscles beneath his grip. It astonished him that the lass' form remained unharmed. No scalds or organ failure. Just drained energy.
Even though the magic she experienced was just a pseudo-electric sensation, without Arcane’s might, Alicia could have lost her life force. “You’re all right, miss, but you still need treatment. Let’s go to Skycastle, and I'll brew a potion to heal you. We'll let Donar and your brother know—”
Haddock suddenly stopped.
“Oh, no, it came back again.” Gilmore cradled the girl with concern.
The girl was tired. Her body ached. Her emotions were a tumult. She yearned to vent her passionate anger. To Spencer, Uncle John, and Aunt Aimee. To Alasdair, her grandfather. To House Crimsonmane. To the world. To herself. However, the girl bowed down, for she was unable to do so. All she could do was clench her hands until their skin reddened, then struck her own temples with tightly clenched fists.
Alicia wept.
“Alicia…. Don’t hit yourself!” Haddock tried to grab her hand. He sought an explanation from Gilmore and Nadine, but their lips were too laden to speak. Only a look of remorse could be given to the Grand Magus, which was certainly not enough to explain what had happened.
“T-they… are my family,” the girl stammered through her sobs. “A-after… all these years… they… th-they…”
All present watched her. Even Barthie and Whistlehoff felt a twinge of concern.
“…They s-still want to kill me…”
She had forgotten about all the deadly stings earlier. Even a slight bruise from her self-harm was not as painful as an old wound in the recesses of a torn heart. It would be very difficult to close the wound this time. Not without reason, she said so. The memories were still there. Several members of her own kin had conspired to plot an assassination for her, solely to purify the image of Crimsonmane. They were still there. Now, the same goal, equipped with a spice called "Seizing the Source of Arcane Might".
Haddock stared at her with thoughtfulness. The idea of a pure magician’s lineage disgusted him. Sacrificing an innocent little girl for the sake of the fame of the family name was something that could not make sense to him. Killing one’s own family for the sake of Divine power only multiplied his fury. The rage at Alicia's family began to resonate within him.
Haddock held Alicia’s hands to halt her self-inflicted blows. He hugged the girl, and she too surrendered on the Grand Magus' back. Comfort was what she truly needed at a time like this. “I promise to hunt them all down, Alicia,” he whispered. “We will investigate your extended family soon. They will be well-deserved.”
Alicia still had not ceased her moaning, but Haddock allowed her this moment. He embraced the girl to stand up, and with the others, returned to the magic castle above under the sky. []
