Soul Merger

Alissa looked out over the mandrake field. The plants looked young, definitely too small to harvest, but this suggested that the enhanced magic had been going on for a while. "So what could be causing it."

Fili pointed at a scarecrow sitting in the middle of the field. "I have a theory." She led the group over to the straw effigy and poked it with her staff.

The air shivered as Fili disturbed the object. Even Alissa could feel the power surrounding them deform. "What is that?" Alissa asked.

"Don't think it's standard for scarecrows," Clara added.

Fili shook her head. "It's some kind of magic generator. And I have no idea how it works. We'll have to dis-"

"Hey what are y'all doing on my land?"

Alissa turned to see an elf with a watering can angrily approaching. "This is private property. You can just go walking all over my fields without reason."

"I'd say we have a very good reason," Alissa responded, quietly putting a hand on her knife. "Since you're polluting the entire city."

"What are you on about?" the man asked with a wave of his can. "City seems clean to me."

Clara folded her arms. "You notice how the whole place is filling up with slimes?"

"Yeah so? That's a mage thing," he snapped back.

"Can I eat his brain?" Kotori muttered.

Alissa shook her head. "Not yet."

Fortunately Fili took control of the conversation. "Yes, throwing magic around is a mage thing. Because mages know that saturating an area with magic causes monster formation! What did you think was going to happen when you pumped magic into your fields to help mandrakes grow? Pretty butterflies and rainbows and massive profits?!"

The man shrank back a bit from the slimegirl's tirade, but Fili didn't let up. "A proper mage would have told you that this device is pumping out eight times as much magic as you'd need to create an artificial mandrake field. They'd also mention that you've got a good chance of forming plant monsters. Or did you not consider what kind of weeds farmlands pumped full of magic would make?"

Fili poked her staff right into the man's chest as he flinched. "Of course you didn't! You weren't even smart enough to think about what would happen when you started harvesting these things! Or did you somehow think that earplugs would keep the screams from shattering the greenhouse across the street!?"

"H-hey now. I was gonna use sound dampening magic." The man shuffled a bit in embarrassment. "And the lady that sold me the scarecrow didn't say anything about the range or nothing. Just told me it'd be good for mandrakes."

"Who sold you this?" Alissa asked, stepping up. If there were other items like this around that could be a problem. "Did she tell you what guild she worked for?"

Set down his watering can and thought about it. "Uh... that's strange. I don't really remember much about her. What did she say? Uh she looked like... she had... uh-" He chewed his lip.

"Huge tits?" Kotori asked, causing Alissa to snort. Everyone looked over at the harpy. "What? That's what guys are thinking about when they make that face. Well most of the time."

"Caught me," the man admitted. "But to be fair it was kinda her main feature. Hard to notice anything else."

A terrible thought wormed its way into Alissa's mind and she pulled down her hood. "Did she have red hair? Like mine?"

The man seemed surprised but after a moment nodded. "Now that you mention it she did. Real bright red like that. Very striking."

"And how much did you pay for it?" Alissa asked.

"Uh." The man frowned. "You know, I can't remember."

Clara caught on quickly. "You think a succubus charmed him into setting this up?"

"It's possible," Alissa said. And she had an idea which succubus would be doing that instead of causing mass havoc. "Fili, I think we've got permission to search that damn scarecrow. Right, sir?" She fixed her gaze on him

The man nodded quickly. "Uh, yeah. Sure."

Fili wandered over to the scarecrow and carefully peeled off the outer clothes. "Hm, I think the source is inside. Let's see..." She prodded the body, then head. The second was what caused the air to shiver. "Kotori help me get this thing off."

"I can help," Alissa offered.

"It'd be safer if a magical creature did it," Fili replied. "Otherwise I'd prefer someone with hands. But we don't have that choice."

As the duo started to work on getting the head off, the man hesitantly stepped forwards again. "But wait, what am I going to do with these mandrakes?"

"Gonna have to cut your losses I'm afraid," Clara said patting him on the shoulders. "That's the danger with rare crops."

"Might consider applying for compensation for demon related damages, assuming you're telling the truth." Alissa added. "Though you'll want to start pulling out your records to figure out when you got that damn thing. Because they're going to want a lot more answers than you have right now." She could forgive some of his mistakes. There was nothing he could do against succubus hypnosis. But when he found he'd planted a whole field of mandragora with some fancy magic scarecrow he probably should have put a little more thought into things.

The man groaned. "Right, let me check my books...."

About half an hour later they had both the artifact and as much info they could get about the purchase in hand. "So that damn succubus handed the artifact over two days after we killed the dragon."

"And overcharged him too." Clara said with a shake of her head. "Seems to be making 'petty bitch' part of her personality."

"Sounds like someone who needs their brain eaten," Kotori muttered. For once Alissa agreed.

"And this is definitely demon magic," Fili said, showing the skull that had been inside the straw 'head' of the scarecrow. It didn't look entirely human, and it was covered in rings of runes "I recognize some of the symbols here. I think they relate to power, but I'm not certain. Maybe someone in the Tower knows."

Alissa sniffed. "I think we know what it does. Or at least a big part of what it does. Do we have to carry it all over the city?"

Fili nodded. "Yeah. It'd be dangerous just to smash the thing. The magic would react violently. In fact I wonder if that was the plan. The explosion from improper disposal would be pretty nasty."

"It'd only blow up some farmland though," Clara pointed out. "Not exactly a deathblow to the city. Not that I want to see a bunch of dead people, but there's gotta be better ways to strike at us."

"Maybe she's just being petty," Kotori suggested. "Like with stealing the money."

Alissa considered it. "Not impossible, but I bet there's more to things. I'm also curious about how long it took to impact the city. If the artifact had pumped out magic more quickly we'd be dealing with elementals and scamps right? Or even real monsters."

"Yeah," Fili nodded. She considered the skull poking at the runes carefully. "Maybe they can't make it more effective with an object this size? Or perhaps they've got multiple sources. My compass can only find the closest one."

Clara gave a little hum before adding, "Might be they wanted it to take time as well. We're assuming they wanted to kill a bunch of people. Maybe having a lot of magic around is the point. Took us weeks to find the thing and get rid of it after all."

Fili blinked. "You're right. And because it was a slow bleed the magic will have permeated the local area. It'll take just as long to bleed out. So we'll have greater than normal magic for a few more weeks."

"So what does that mean, other than more slimes for a bit," Alissa asked. She didn't think it was anything that simple.

"That's... complicated," Fili admitted. "Monsters will survive outside of labyrinths, it will be harder to find them with magical sensors, natural mages will have more power to work with.... Well those are the big effects. There's a million little ones proposed."

Alissa sighed. That made sense. It was a complicated subject. "Well maybe the Tower will have some info." And they were almost there.

"Fili!" Alissa looked up to see Fili's friend Sally waving at them. The woman hurried over, her kitsune at her keels.

"Sally, what's happening?" Fili asked.

The snake woman gave a few hissing pants before standing up. "Someone raided the Tower's rare earth metal supplies. Bryan's writing up the info, but doesn't that fit with your last raid?"

Alissa smelled durian as Fili blinked. That was very bad. "Fili, what do rare earth metals have to do with that dragon nonsense."

"One of those metals is what's needed for putting together an apocalypse bomb," Fili replied.

"Ah." Well that explained it. "Fuck."