Unruly Summon Chapter 56: Discovery (Patreon)

Schedule for June remains unchanged, but A Willing Victim will reach its end. There may be a (SFW) replacement starting in July, depending on how much I get written.

Additionally, An Unruly Summon has made it through to the finalists of the J-Novel Club original English light novel competition. As such, I'll be scrubbing the some of the first volume from here shortly. (Not sure yet if I'll need to kill it all, or only the first few chapters that will be appearing on j-novel as part of the competition final...) An Unborn Hero is, alas, out the running, as funny as it would have been to force yet more judges to work out if a story about a foetus is publishable...

————————————————————

Simon sat in a clinically sparse room, the only furniture a few metal chairs around a metal table. They were practically the only contents. The only other thing the room contained, beyond Simon himself, was a camera tucked away into an upper corner, a little red light a constant reminder to Simon that he was being watched.

He didn't much see the point; it wasn't as if there was anything interesting to see. Taking pity on his watchers, he tapped out a meaningless sequence of letters in Morse code on the table, in the hopes that trying to decode the non-existent message would give them something interesting with which to occupy their time.

The camera's recording light winked out.

Simon barely had time to frown before the door opened and a pudgy, balding man in police uniform wordlessly stepped in, closing the door behind himself. He glanced at the camera before speaking a single word, presumably checking it was off.

"I'm sure you can guess why you're here."

"I'm not saying a word without a lawyer present. Aside from these words, obviously."

The man frowned, his expression mirroring Simon's own. "I think we're a little beyond the realm of lawyers here."

"On the contrary. Neither you nor I get to choose when the law applies and when it doesn't."

"Look, you aren't in trouble. How can you be, when we're as far beyond the law here as we are beyond lawyers? I'm not about to disappear you. I just want a little chat, off the record. We know Eve called you right before she vanished, so it's obvious that you're involved. You have a viable method of transport to Ricousian," stated the pudgy man.

Simon didn't respond. His visitor obviously knew approximately where Eve had gone—presumably they'd been under surveillance in a way they hadn't been able to discover—so repeating their official cover story about her sabbatical was useless. Better to just not say anything.

"Fine. I've waited this long. I can be patient a while longer," replied the interrogator, taking a seat on another of the chairs. "Let's see how long you're prepared to keep up your act."

Simon checked his watch. "Another twenty minutes," he replied.

"What?"

"You asked how long I was going to give you the silent treatment. I answered twenty minutes."

"Why? What happens in twenty minutes?" replied the pudgy man, who was starting to develop a horrible feeling that he was following someone else's script.

"Shall we wait and find out?" replied Simon, smiling. After all, as Eve had said, they'd considered many potential outcomes of using the summoning circle. Among them was The Government showing up, either to stop them or capture them after the fact. There was also the possibility of groups who were not The Government getting involved, but given that Simon had been brought to a real police station by uniformed officers, it seemed the operation hadn't been completely clandestine, despite the attempt to remove the video evidence.

An attempt that might even have been successful had they searched Simon properly, instead of just taking his phone. Obviously, their surveillance hadn't caught everything.

As such, Simon was fairly confident that his prearranged contingencies and dead men's switches would be more than enough to attract rapid attention to his situation. He was a little less confident about what would happen afterwards, but unless the conspiracy was truly massive in scope, having video of a uniformed officer stopping the recording and denying him his legal rights should be enough ammunition to do something.

Of course, there was always the option of cooperating, but what sane individual would give The Government access to another world, particularly one that contained mind-control collars and magic like Pereo? He'd agreed with Eve that in this sort of situation, cooperation would be the last of all last resorts.

He just hoped that she wasn't relying on the promised twenty-four-hour extraction, because cooperation or not, it was likely going to take a lot longer.

————————————————————

"W... Wendy?!" exclaimed Mary, who was ahead of me in the queue to use our inn room's door. "What are you doing?"

"Oh? Back already?" asked Wendy from inside.

I pushed through, finding Wendy sat at the room's desk, poking at a circle of metal. Stephanie's collar, I belatedly realised; the former princess's neck was bare. "I second Mary. What are you doing?"

"I said I'd search for ways to solve Stephanie's problem, and I am. On that front, I... Uh... Have news..."

"Good news or bad?" I asked, although from the hesitation, I could hazard a guess.

"Let's start from the beginning. I needed to see it active to properly analyse it, but it was no good on Stephanie."

"You want someone else to wear it?!" asked Mary, aghast, her face blanching.

"No, I wasn't going to ask that of anyone. I tried putting it on myself."

"You what?!" I exclaimed.

"Yeah, I knew you'd think that. Which is, I assume, the reason I took it straight back off again."

"Doing that without acclimatisation was... uh..." stammered Mary.

"Stupid? Dangerous? I knew what I was doing, and decided it was worth the risk," replied Wendy.

"You knew I wouldn't want you to wear it, so you kept taking it off? So, now what? You want me to order you to wear it?"

"No. You can't. Without acclimatisation, the conflict would shatter my mind, and I'd rather not go through that even if I am pretty sure you could heal me afterwards."

"Then what are you..." I started, before another thought wormed its way out of my brain. "... Wait. Didn't you say this was an orders-only model? Then why were you acting based on what I'd think?"

"I said I thought it was an orders-only model, because I didn't see any other reason for her condition. I also said I didn't know where they'd have dug one out from. And therein lies my news; I've found another reason."

"Well?" I prompted, when she stopped speaking.

"They never acclimatised her. They lobotomised her."

"Pardon?"

"The reason she's completely unreactive to any stimuli is because her mind has been completely destroyed. She doesn't act on anything other than explicit orders because she's been rendered incapable of the empathy required to understand that you have desires of your own."

"Stephanie? Is that true?" I asked.

Of course, with her collar in Wendy's grip, she didn't even acknowledge my question, let alone answer it.

"She did say she spent her first night screaming, and her memories of the time were blurry," said Mary. "They didn't hurt me at all, and I can remember it all clearly."

"Yeah, I assumed it was just because they were rushing her, and she was resisting, but..."

I had to pause, on account of the return of my old nemesis—bile.

"So, now what?" asked Eve. "What has changed since earlier? What new actions can be taken based on the new information?"

Everyone fell silent.

"King George was rather insistent that whatever had been done to her was irreversible," I said.

"Yeah... I was hoping to modify the collar to 'reward' emotion, in the hopes she would gradually come back to herself, but that's not possible. Conventional healing magic won't touch her. She needs Miraculum."

"So we're right back where we started. She needs Miraculum, but Thomas can't cast it on her," said Eve.

"It does mean that we can be certain that there's no part of the original Stephanie in there, watching us, praying for a rescue," said Wendy. "Although I doubt that will change Thomas's mind about handing her over to someone else or... doing something more permanent."

"It will not," I agreed.

"Are you certain?" Eve asked me. "Handing her over to the demons would be safer for her than keeping her with us, and would them milking her for information really be any worse than us making her walk dozens of miles a day? What are the concrete advantages of keeping her with us? As far as I can see, it's only that keeping her in your sights where you know she's safe makes you feel better, and that you can continue to make attempts to heal her. Minoru, what are the chances of you being able to ritual cast Miraculum once we get to Bonehill?"

"Not immediately, but it's certainly the plan," she answered.

"What about Parvus Miraculum?"

"We've never used that for healing..." I said.

"Then it's worth a try. Can you cast it alone, Minoru?"

"Alas not," she answered. "With my focus, and with the boost from our partial heroic blessing, I can get very close, but it's still not quite enough. However, my capacity still has room to grow, blessing or not, so I'll become capable at some point. If the blessing continues to enhance my growth, it will be a matter of days."

"Then that should be our next step, should it not?"

"It's nice to see that you can think for yourself, but I'm afraid you're not the only one," said Minoru. "I already planned to try."

"Really? Then why didn't you say anything?"

"Because the mere act of casting the spell would cause complications, so I intended to try in secret."

"Complications?"

"Think about it. If it succeeds, it proves the pair of us have differing values, and that I don't think Stephanie did anything wrong. Imagine how that would make you feel. On the other hand, if it fails, we have no way to know whether it's because Parvus Miraculum is insufficient to heal her, or because I subconsciously view all Ricousian royalty as undeserving of healing."

"Hmm... And knowledge isn't a requirement," said Eve. "If it doesn't work for you because she's human royalty, it's likely not to work for other demons. We'd need humans to heal her."

"Or elves or dwarves," added Wendy. "Not that it makes much difference; we're unlikely to have any such opportunity soon."

Eve gave an inappropriate little laugh.

"What's so funny?" I asked.

"Don't you find it amusing? I know humans are infamous for their cognitive dissonance, but back on Earth, I struggle to think of any situation in which it was so blatantly rubbed in our faces."

"A valid point, but not one I find funny..."

Yes, it was true that I simultaneously wanted to heal Stephanie, but couldn't because I didn't think she deserved it, which was certainly cognitive dissonance of a sort—and again, that voice in the back of my head that hoped she'd get herself killed through no fault of my own made itself known—but that didn't mean the situation was in any way amusing.

"I suppose I have the advantage of not knowing her personally," admitted Eve. "So, the consensus is that there's currently nothing we can do, and no hope of being able to do anything in the immediate future?"

"Unfortunately, yes," agreed Wendy.

"Then I agree that a cast of Parvus Miraculum from Minoru is our first goal. Should that fail, options for the future include a ritual cast of Miraculum or a cast of Parvus Miraculum from someone who doesn't believe Stephanie has committed a sin rendering her undeserving of healing, but neither are things we can do right now. Give Stephanie her collar back, then teach Thomas more spells. Meanwhile, Minoru and Mary, I'd appreciate a lesson on common sense. I've heard Thomas's tale, but that doesn't cover some of the basics. I was rather surprised to find gold coins were almost worthless, for example."

"... Did you elect a new leader while I was waiting in our room?" asked Wendy, with a hint of amusement.

"No, and if anyone has any better ideas, feel free to mention them," I answered.

No-one spoke up, eliciting a smug grin from Eve.

"Magic lesson it is, then," laughed Wendy. "Since it's fresh in my mind, let's start with a green spell for masking sounds; Quies. It's a pain in the arse to cast, but I suspect you'll find a use for it."

"Wait, I've been building complex nested stone shells to cast Miraculum, and there's been a spell that would mask it all this time?"

"Quies deadens sounds within an area, but it's meant for holding private conversations, rather than masking loud noises, so it can be easily overwhelmed. You can boost it with Maius, but it's still not going to mask a Miraculum cast all on its own. On top of that, these sort of hyper-specialised utility spells generally have far more complex images than simple combat magic, to the extent that it's possible even you won't get them first time."

So, the spell created a zone that sufficiently quiet sounds couldn't escape from? Well, I knew how sound worked; pressure waves rushing through the air. Or other mediums, but air was important for our usual hearing. It was simple enough to imagine a magical shell completely blocking such waves.

"So, the first thing to imagine is..." started Wendy.

"Maius Quies," I chanted, interrupting her.

"... Heroes are such bullshit," complained Wendy, voicing her favourite complaint in an oddly muted voice.

"What a useful spell," I commented, my own voice sounding equally odd in a way I couldn't quite grasp. "Is there an equivalent spell for light?"