Chương 71: Other People's Plans

When Ella got back to the animal shelter, Rufus was waiting outside. His tail began wagging excitedly when he saw her.

"Did I keep you up again?" she said.

"I couldn't sleep anyway." He wasn't a very good liar. She hadn't known Rufus or Rhianna for long, having only met the pair when they came to the Ygg Latten Peninsula, but they seemed to have grown rather fond of her. It was quaint how easily these mortal races developed trust and formed attachments.

"You needn't have worried. I spent the evening chasing this little one through the cabbage fields. Nowhere near the shore." She handed him the puppy in her arms. He cradled it carefully.

"This poor girl doesn't look like she's been eating well. Let's go fix that right now. You too, Ella. We saved you some dinner." It was thoughtful of them. She joined him inside and scraped the leftovers into a bowl while Rufus placed the puppy gently into a cage and went to prepare food and water for it. While he was away, a tuxedo cat wandered over to stare at the newcomer. It was Whiskers.

"Did Amberlin drop Boots off?" she asked, since they only knew Whiskers by this other name.

"She wanted him to make some friends," Rufus replied. Whiskers sat there unperturbed while the puppy barked at him. These weren't fearful barks but exploratory, as he wasn't very menacing in this form. For his part, Whiskers returned the curiosity. Did he actually care to make friends with the creature?

"Where'd Rhianna go?" she asked.

"A supply run," Rufus replied.

"I don't know why, since we've still got plenty." She had a guess. The mood around the city had been rather tense today. Word had gotten around about how far far their defenses had been pushed last night, and people were preparing for the worst. For some this meant scrounging up every bit of food and water to be had. Once the puppy was taken care of, Rufus went outside to stand vigil. He wouldn't be able to sleep until Rhianna returned.

Ella finished her meal and then scooped Whiskers up into her arms before heading out the door. Rufus looked surprised.

"You're leaving again?"

"I feel like stargazing," she replied.

"With Boots?"

"Don't worry, I'll have him back before Amberlin comes by to pick him up. Don't wait up for me, okay?" She carried Whiskers up toward the hills. Emerging from street level, where the buildings could no longer shield her from the ghostsong, the beautiful harmony once again filled her ears. A million voices from the sea joined in a haunting choir that sang of loss and tragedy. Once upon a time, their words would have evoked a deep melancholy within her.

But that Ella was long dead, her heart hardened a hundred times over, and it was no longer of concern to her that the inhabitants of the peninsula would soon become passengers of that fleet. She found a secluded spot before setting her old friend Whiskers down. He affectionately licked her hand, as if sensing the disquiet within her.

"We can't fight our destinies, old friend," she murmured. He started batting at her with his paw.

"You really want to go to the shore, don't you?" she said.

"Your curiosity has always been as insatiable as your appetite. Let's meet back here before dawn, and remember to stay out of sight." She watched him morph and grow as he ran off back toward the city, where he would make his way along the rooftops toward the muck-infested harbor districts. Then she turned to her own goals. Thin, bony wings appeared on her back and lifted her into the air. Staying low over the hills so as not to get spotted, she flew inland and continued her exploration of the peninsula.

Rava was having a late dinner with Echo. As executors, they had access to the private dining room shared only with the herald and the high priests. The lockdown had gone on long enough that the quality of the meals had fallen off. Thankfully the peninsula's many hills made ample grazing land for the local livestock, so meat was still on the menu—in this kitchen, at least.

"What do you want to know about devils for?" Echo asked.

"Didn't you say that there's devil magic behind the mucks?" she replied.

"But that isn't why you're asking." She didn't want Echo to know about her deal with Scholar Juan. So she gave a vague answer.

"It could help with my investigation." Echo grinned.

"You reckon a devil made that rabbit door? Ha! You'd think that with centuries under their belt, they'd have found the time to learn to draw."

"I just need to know which ones are active and which ones are dead. Currently dead," she corrected herself.

"It isn't like summoning a demon, you know. Resurrecting a devil is as hard as the stories say. And there's no guarantee they'll be of any help with your door or my mucks."

"Just tell me what materials I need," she said. At that moment the herald entered the dining room, looking rather flustered. Without asking, he took a seat at their table.

"What's going on with you?" Echo asked, more out of curiosity than concern.

"Our take has been low this week," the herald replied with a heavy sigh.

"It's the collection plate. People are reluctant to part with their coins since the bank suspended withdrawals. They'll let you put money in, but you can't take money out."

"Why would the bank do that?" Echo asked. Rava was as clueless as her companion on this one. The two of them had hardly any use for banks, since their high-level inventories could hold almost unlimited money and were more secure than any vault could ever be. There wasn't a single soul in the world capable of robbing the mighty Rava.

"I don't know!" the herald cried.

"It makes no sense, right? I appealed to the governor, but he refuses to interfere with the bank's business." Unlike the herald in Ardark, the one appointed to Ygg Latten Bay wasn't so adept at political maneuvering, so Rava had even less respect for him than she had for his counterpart.

"You'd think it would be a problem for the governor, since he's been needing to bring in so many supplies," she said.

"He's already got that sorted," the herald replied.

"Haven't you seen the merchant town?"

"We flew in."

"Oh, right. Well, the garrison has a mobile bank set up there with its own Bet-on-Wood tablet. All payments are made through the system instead of with coins." He shook his head.

"I don't understand why the bank would cause such an inconvenience."

"Isn't it obvious?" Echo said.

"They've run out of money."

"That shouldn't be possible," the herald said.

"Every coin in an account can be matched to a real coin in their vaults. It isn't like they're magicking money out of thin air."

"But they have more than one vault," Echo pointed out.

"And we live in a world where people like to travel—adventurers especially. If an adventurer deposits their coin in Lorelark and then pulls it out in Ygg Latten Bay, the vaults here will be a bit short."

"Oh!" The herald clapped his hands.

"And since the governor summoned a whole bunch of knights and adventurers to the bay, that would drain them real fast."

"This wouldn't have happened so soon if you weren't hoarding all that gold here," Rava said.

"The temple's vault is top of the line," the herald said.

"The mucks will break into the bank's vault a thousand years before they get into ours." Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"But if you deposit the money with the bank, and they lose it, it's their loss and not yours," she pointed out.

"Until you try to withdraw money and they don't have the coins to pay out," he retorted.

"Then it becomes your loss just as much as theirs."

"And what you said isn't true, at least in the Star-Turq Kingdom," Echo said to Rava.

"Banks here don't have shareholders, or rather, all the money in a bank is collectively owned by everyone who has deposited money there. So if any of that money gets lost or stolen, they can simply rebalance the books to share the loss among the customers. Which means that if the entire vault gets destroyed, that's pretty much a complete wipe." She looked at Echo.

"How do you know so much about the banking system?" The demon shrugged.

"You think the only way to disrupt human society is through violence?"

"Okay," she said.

"So the bank running out of money is actually a good thing. Their vaults being empty means that no one will lose their life savings when Ygg Latten Bay falls. And the temple's gold will be recoverable from its own vaults when the royal army retakes the city."

"Sure, sure," the herald said.

"But is any of that really worth it if it also means that our profits will be down this month?" At this moment an acolyte came in with a tray of food. The herald stood up and waved him back out the door.

"I'm going to eat in my room. A new chapter of The Secret Apprenticeship of Amy-Lynn landed on my desk this morning." Seeing the two executors give him a funny look, he quickly added, "It isn't that kind of story!"

"No judgment from me," Echo said.

"Don't worry," Rava assured him.

"My opinion of you hasn't gotten any lower." After the herald left, Echo turned back to Rava.

"Sometimes I wish there was an easier way to find books. I've been searching decades for the final volume in a series I read in my younger days."

"How do you know the series was ever finished?" she asked. Echo glared at her.

"Don't joke like that." Rava raised her hands in apology.

"Maybe I can keep an eye out for you. What's the name of the series?"

"Have you heard of Romance of the Three Kingdoms?" She couldn't tell if the demon was pulling her leg.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Echo said, and then added a few seconds later, "It isn't what it sounds like!"

"Hey, it's the world's most popular genre for a reason," Rava replied.

"So tell me, how often do these kingdoms come together in a messy union?"

"I'm going to eat in my lab." Echo stood up. Two plates of food disappeared from the table, and the demon hurried out of the dining room. Rava decided that it was time to get on with her own business too. She made her way to the temple's inner sanctum. The guard politely let her through. Once inside, she cast [Invisibility] before heading to the vaults. She didn't encounter anyone else along the way, as only high-ranking priests were allowed in.

The herald's confidence in his prized vault was well placed, as the door was the most complex she had ever seen. The bank could only wish theirs was so secure. But the complexity was hidden inside, while on the surface the input was very simple, with only an assortment of dials to manipulate. No magic was required at all, which made sense, as the herald wouldn't be capable of opening it otherwise. She placed her hand on the vault door and cast [Inspect] elevated to Tier 9.

She looked for the spot where she'd left off last time and then continued tracing her way through, building a mental map of the internal mechanism. It was a labyrinth of tiny, intricate parts supported by sophisticated wards, making the entire thing a nightmare to decipher. But it was this difficulty that made her want to stick with it. She had no intention of stealing from the temple—she had enough wealth of her own. Instead it was a matter of principle.

Ever since that setback in Ardark, she'd felt this need to prove that no obstacle existed which couldn't be overcome by the mighty Rava.

"What's this here?" The voice right by her ear startled her. She was already channeling a [Firestorm] when she saw that it was only Echo.

"Why'd you sneak up on me like that?" she snapped, though it was really her fault for being so engrossed in the mechanism not to notice the demon's mana presence.

"Can't figure out how to open the vault, huh?" Echo smirked.

"Want me to show you?"

"You've cracked it?" Somehow the thought of the demon conquering it before her hurt more than anything. Trying to cover for her own feelings, she added, "Is there even anything left in there?"

"What kind of person do you take me for?" Echo replied indignantly. Rava took this to mean that the vault wasn't completely empty yet. Sometimes she wondered if the demon was really a dragon in disguise.

"How about this?" Echo said.

"I'll give you a choice. I can either teach you to open the vault, or how to resurrect a devil. But you can't change your mind later." The demon was trying to mess with her again. But Echo didn't understand her very well if she thought this was a difficult dilemma.

"Which devil?" she asked.

"That door of yours has a rabbit on it, right? I happen to know that Ella is particularly fond of animals. It could even be her doing, or she might know who did it." She tried to recall what she knew of the devils.

"Isn't Ella the weakest of them all?"

"She makes up for it in other ways. Like how humans compensate for their weak claws and fragile teeth with smarminess and sharpened sticks."

"And you know for a fact she's dead?" Echo grinned.

"It happened earlier this year. Do you want to know the details?"

"That won't be necessary." Rava was, after all, exceptionally well informed about devils. It was only compared to Echo that her knowledge was lacking. While devils were the only race for whom death wasn't permanent, she knew that it took them years to respawn, sometimes decades. But with the right ritual, the process could be cut short. And though there was nothing binding the devil to their benefactor's will, they were often willing to reward the person who brought them back to life.

In practice this meant you could make of them one request, to be carried out to the best of their ability. That reward was valuable enough that she would have to decide carefully whether to perform the ritual herself or give it to Scholar Juan.

Rava left the Golden Temple already under the cloak of [Invisibility]. After checking that she wasn't being followed—Echo's jump-scare still fresh in her mind—she quick-changed into the special gear she'd prepared for tonight and then took to the skies. She flew away from the city, to the more secluded beaches. The muck invasion spanned the entire shoreline, and while the natural hills and cliffs did much to hold them back, there were places where the defenders struggled.

She spotted one such sector up ahead, where the defenders had been pushed back to the buffer gate. As little as she cared for the humans and their plight, she had too much at stake to let them fall so soon. It all came down to that mysterious rabbit door. The mastermind behind this invasion clearly wanted whatever was inside. Which was why she had to get to it first. She needed the treasure as leverage to make them tell her how they were destroying the keystones.

So long as the humans remained on the peninsula, that slowed the mastermind down, and she also had the local scholars to call upon. Therefore she had no choice but to protect the humans. After checking that her mask was on right, she released her [Invisibility] and swooped down to help.

Dalton was tired. He'd come to Ygg Latten Bay on a merchant vessel, where he'd been hired as a healer. It was only supposed to be a short layover to swap out the cargo. For him this meant a week of sun and fun. Instead he got a neverending nightmare. At first it hadn't been so bad. The horde assaulting the southern shoreline, where he'd been stationed, had been thinner than the ones at the bay. Some nights he didn't have to swing his sword at all. But now the swarm was unrelenting.

He saw little of the sun, besides that brief moment of relief every morning, as he had to sleep through the day to be rested for the night. Everyone had been holding out on the promise of reinforcements, but the murmurs were getting louder that none were coming. The kingdom had given up on the peninsula, the rumors went, though they were never clear on why. Perhaps it was because they'd never lived through an undead incursion like he had.

He'd been a child at the time, and remembered the adults' anxious whispers of another town falling under the feet of Annaconda's army. When he asked his parents about it, they'd assured him that the lich was still a long way off and would have enough to be satisfied with long before he reached their little hamlet. But the undead were never satisfied. He remembered Mom and Dad fighting over what to load onto the wagon and what to leave behind.

It was pointless, really, as two days later the wagon too had to be abandoned and the family fled with only the clothes on their backs. For another two days they barely kept ahead of the horde, and then the horde caught up. Mom shielded his little brother while Dad tried to hold the monsters off—a futile gesture, as they'd been surrounded faster than wildfire. Then the light had come down and turned the zombies into dust. The horde turned to flee.

But they were slow and the light was fast, and soon they were no more. The vision of the saint, radiant as the moon, remained clear in his mind. He remembered the way she healed Dad's wounds and consoled his mom and cheered his little brother. That moment was when he decided to become a cleric. And it was also why he knew that the mucks weren't going to be satisfied with the peninsula.

If they weren't held back here, they would only spread and grow in number until such a point that not even the Amber Mage could stop them. But the night wasn't going well. All the soldiers around him were worn down from weeks of fighting. He could see in their eyes the same weariness that must be in his. Even the music no longer lifted their spirits. Then he felt something in the sky. It was invisible, but the mages in the tower felt it too—he could tell by their pointing and shouting.

A wave of mana began pressing down on him. This pressure grew as the source approached. Even the knights and sailors could feel it too. The pressure got so strong that he felt sure this was the mastermind behind the invasion showing themselves at last. He started reciting his final prayers. But then something white flashed by real fast. A barrage of [Fireballs] dropped, setting the outer zone ablaze. The spells missed his crew and landed only on the mucks, leaving behind smoke and burning embers.

Hovering above it all was a solitary figure of pure white. From their boots and billowing robes all the way up to their hood and perfectly round mask, he had the impression of an entity spun completely from moonlight. But those [Fireballs] had been completely real, and his face was still warm from the radiant heat. He searched for evidence that it was a real person under there, but not an inch of skin was visible. Even their hands were covered in white gloves that ran up their forearms.

And then, after a few moments of silent hovering, they disappeared, and the pressure in his head began to ease. He realized that people were shouting.

"What was that?"

"A crystal-ranker. It has to be."

"Even a crystal couldn't do that."

"Was that the royal archmage?"

"Have reinforcements finally come?" The ground commander had raised his sword and ordered a charge to retake the outer gate. They had to move quickly to seize this opportunity. All up, the quick blast of spells from the flying apparition only amounted to several minutes' worth from a towerload of mages. Compared to an entire night of fighting, it was insignificant. Yet the atmosphere around him had completely changed.

The soldiers were hopeful again, putting great energy into their charge, and when the bard's music started up, he once more felt a sense of invigoration.