Reincarnated! A Tale of the Sorceress Amaya

Dalroc looked at us. “They could have been after the vault. But it has some serious defences. I can’t see them breaking in there quickly. Maybe they underestimated how fast we would respond.”

“What is in the vault?” I asked.

“All sorts of things. Every nation has a certain amount of valuable artefacts.” Dalroc answered. He seemed evasive though.

I suppose you would expect a big nation to accumulate things over the years. And if you had something, like a dragon slaying sword, you would not carry it around all day. But was the vault interesting enough for such an attack?

“Have you made sure that the vault is secure?” Lilith asked.

“We have not detected a breach.” He answered. “It will take time to find out what the attackers were after.”

Fair enough, I suppose. A proper investigation would take some time.

“Have you looked at the bodies of the attackers who did not explode?” I asked.

“No. But I am not an expert on runes. My people are careful, we don’t know if there will be more explosions.” He said.

I nodded. I was pretty durable so I decided to investigate. I stripped one of the armoured intruders and inspected the body. They had runes, but they neither matched Minerva’s nor the ones from the people who attacked Lucy’s parents.

“There is demonic energy in this corpse.” Lilith said. She was standing behind me.

“The original version of the mind control runes uses the person's own magic to power the spell. That means it runs forever but it weakens the victim. I think they might have tried to get around that for their soldiers…” I theorised.

“You mean they wanted absolute loyalty in their soldiers but without sacrificing their strength? So they powered the runes with something else?” Lilith asked.

“You see this here?” I pointed at a part of the runes. “This looks to me like they were storing energy. I think they might have performed some ritual to keep those runes powered.”

“Would that not mean those soldiers could break free? If the energy ran out. Seems like a rather risky way of controlling your troops.” Lilith observed.

“Yes and no. I think I have figured out why some have exploded. If the energy ran out, the runes tried to consume the life force of the host. But they were meant to use demonic energy. This resulted in an explosive malfunction. It’s hard to say if that was a bug or a feature.”

“A bug?” Lilith frowned.

“It’s an expression. It means that something is not working the way it should. It comes from machines malfunctioning because there were bugs inside.” At least I thought that was the origin of the phrase. Anyway, it should provide an explanation that people of this world would understand.

“Why would they want their soldiers to explode when running out of power?” Lilith asked. “It would make more sense to trigger it if they are slain. That way it would provide additional value in battle.”

“True. But what if they are captured? With those runes it would mean they explode, if the power is not replenished. Those soldiers are a trap if they are caught alive. But that was not the original intention. It looks to me like they wanted the host to be consumed to keep the runes working. The explosions are an accident, but it’s possible they liked it and kept it that way.”

“Might that be a defence against your magic? You have freed two people now. Maybe they wanted the runes to fight off any tempering and then consume the host if their power was not enough.” Lilith proposed.

I considered that. “Possible. It would not work, because my magic eats magic. It does not overpower it in the traditional sense. But I doubt they are aware of that.”

Lilith’s eyes certainly widened at my description.

“This person was part of the Inquisition” Iris said. I had not noticed her approach.

“You allow your servants to talk so casually?” Lilith asked.

“Yes.” I answered. “Do you know this person?” I asked Iris.

“No. But there is a tattoo here.” She pointed at the left shoulder. I had ignored it, since it did not seem magical. “It is not mandatory. It’s… a sign of dedication. Some would even call them fanatics.” Iris explained.

“So you think they are not like Minerva. They could have volunteered for such a procedure?” I asked.

“It is possible.” Iris said. “Minerva is a normal person. She would not have gone along with many of their actual activities. They needed the runes to keep her in line. Those fanatics? They would have followed orders anyway. It’s hard to imagine them needing to be controlled.”

“Unless the Inquisition is run by someone, or something, not from the Empire.” Lilith said. “Maybe they found out the truth?”

“We would need to capture someone to get more information.” I said. “Speaking of information, do you have anything to add from your spies?”

“Nothing relevant to this conversation. But I will brief everyone once we have some time. I do have news about Beravis.” Lilith said.

“Ok. Well since I am already investigating runes, let’s look at one of the attackers from inside.” I went to one of the corpses I had brought from inside.

“There is no demonic energy here.” Lilith said.

“Indeed. We now have a third set of runes. They are truly experimenting.”

“They do have the same tattoo.” Iris pointed out.

Something had felt off about those invaders when I first looked at the runes. Suddenly I noticed why. “There is fey magic involved!”