Unruly Summon Chapter 60: Trap (Patreon)

"Can't sleep?" whispered Eve as she climbed into my bed, guided by the flickering candlelight.

"Nope. I'm weirdly tired, and yet I just can't drop off. We should have organised a watch rotation. I'm just thankful we managed to talk them out of giving us separate rooms."

"Minoru obviously has no concerns," replied Eve. "I'm sleepy as anything, too, but it's amazing how anyone can sleep through her weird snoring."

Indeed, aside from Eve and myself, everyone else in the room was already asleep. Part of my inability to sleep was due to keeping Maius Omnia Visus active, which only reassured me that there still wasn't any suspicious activity nearby. No-one was hanging around windows, holding ears against doors or furtively fingering daggers. There was still an occasional demon walking around, but most others were asleep. No sign of miasma, beyond the normal background contamination, or any active magic. Nor had Deprehendere Venenum revealed anything all evening. "..." I chanted, silently recasting Maius Tolerare Venenum on everyone, before Maius Deprehendere Venenum on myself.

Then I sat bolt upright.

"Everyone up!" I yelled. "Maius Sanatio!"

"Huh?" gasped Eve. "What happened?!"

"Mreoww?" asked Minoru, struggling to stir herself.

"Urk. I feel hungover..." muttered Wendy. "Please keep the volume down."

Mary didn't even stir. Nor, alarmingly, did Stephanie. My yell to get up should have had her sitting instantly bolt upright.

"We've all been poisoned!" I hissed.

"Deprehendere Venenum!" chanted Wendy. "Shit! Well, don't just sit there. Dispel it!"

"Maius Remedium!"

"I told you not to bother with that," sighed Wendy. "But please do the rest of us. I feel like hell."

I didn't immediately respond, being too busy feeling myself out with the poison detection spell. Unlike the vision spells, it didn't provide an overlay to my sight, but just a vague sense of the presence of poison. What it was telling me was that despite both Maius Sanatio and Remedium working perfectly well to cure the poison, I was immediately getting poisoned again. Yet the spell showed me nothing whatsoever in our vicinity that carried poison. It wasn't in the air, or in my bed. There wasn't a trace of poison in our room, only inside us occupants.

"Maius... Sanatio..." gasped out Minoru. "Urk. What the?!"

There was a thud as Eve, who'd been sitting upright in my bed, fell back over, missing the pillow. Thankfully, Maius Omnia Visus showed no weakening of her vitality, or that of anyone else in the room.

"Maius Remedium! Maius Remedium! Maius Remedium!" I chanted, blasting everyone one by one. "Whatever it is, it's being delivered continuously, but I have no idea from where! It seems to be some sort of anaesthetic."

"I concur," said Wendy. "We're all infected, but I can't see any source."

"Dammit. If only Maius Deprehendere Venenum showed me greater detail. Isn't Maius Omnia Visus supposed to show me everything?"

... But that wasn't my image, was it? My image included all the overlays Wendy had told me about, and one or two I'd thought likely on my own, but 'poison sight' hadn't been part of either. With what I knew of the way words combined...

"Maius Venenum Visus!"

"That's not a thing..." sighed Wendy. "Well? Any help?"

I stared around, still unable to see any obvious source of poison, but rather than 'I have been poisoned', I could now see my veins lit up in green. Not all of them, though; it seemed concentrated in my chest, although it was spreading rapidly.

"Remedium!" I chanted, confirming my guess. Indeed, the poison immediately started spreading again from my lungs. Something was in the air, but that something wasn't poison. Rather, something in the air was reacting to something in my blood to produce poison in situ. "It's in the air!" I said.

Minoru immediately sprinted to the window, throwing it open.

"Ventus!" shouted Wendy, conjuring up a heavy wind that blasted out of the window.

With all this spellcasting, we'd naturally woken up some of the closer demons. Activity in the mansion was starting to pick up, although no-one was yet heading in our direction. That was lucky; I wanted to deal with the poison before any potential assassins showed up, and Wendy's spell wasn't enough.

"That's improved matters, but it hasn't solved it. We're still getting poisoned," I said, staring around the room. Where could poison be coming from? Something must be actively releasing it into the air. I could see nothing poisonous or magical. There was nothing suspicious at all, although admittedly the candlelight wasn't the best.

... Candlelight?!

The inns we'd stayed in had used candles, the magical lighting orbs being a bit expensive for commoners, but we weren't in an inn right now. Through my mana sight, I could see plentiful lighting orbs around the mansion. Then why did we—important state guests who they'd laid on a banquet for—only have candles?

"Lux!" I chanted, followed by "Parvus Aqua," using the minor water summoning spell to snuff them from a distance. Wendy once again blew the air from our room, causing the rate of poisoning to decline rapidly.

"It was in the candles?" asked Wendy. "But they didn't respond at all to my Deprehendere Venenum."

"It wasn't just the candles. They gave off something that wasn't poisonous itself, but that reacted with something in our blood to produce poison. Maybe a two-part poison, with the other part delivered earlier? Maybe the food?"

"Oh, hell. Impossible to detect in advance. And I didn't miss you casting Maius Tolerare Venenum on us all, and yet I felt it through that and my ring. What the hell was that stuff?"

"Nothing I'm aware of, but I'm not exactly a poisons expert," answered Minoru.

I didn't join in the conversation, devoting my attention to what I could see through our walls. Perhaps the poison would have become fatal in large enough doses or with prolonged exposure, but thus far, I hadn't seen any direct evidence of that. If it had been intended only to put us to sleep, it stood to reason there would be a follow-up move of some sort. There was no point in putting us to sleep and then waiting for it to wear off and us to wake up, unless it had been arranged by an adversary determined to do nothing more than give us all a good night's rest.

The mansion was now a hive of activity, and yet still no-one approached our room. That was rather suspicious in itself. Were people being kept away, somehow? But someone would need to approach our room to carry out any follow-up attack. We were in an enclosed room, after all, with thick wooden...

... Shit.

"Maius Scutum!" I yelled, spinning away from the door.

There was a quiet ping as something bounced off the shield I'd just cast over our open window. Through my mana sight, I had a brief glimpse of powerful miasma before it fell away into the gardens below.

"Assassins, outside the range of Maius Omnia Visus!" I shouted. "Some sort of miasma dart."

"What's going on?" called out Mary, groggily. With the poison fully purged, she was finally able to wake.

Rather than respond, I once again spun around, grabbing my sword from our luggage and drawing it from its sheath. Finally, a small group was approaching our door.

Rather than burst through, the visitors slowed and the one in the lead knocked. "It's Claw Bryklynt," he called. "We're getting you to safety. We're going to teleport you all directly to the capital."

"What's happening?" asked Minoru.

"That's what I was hoping you could tell me! First everyone was woken up by strong magic cast in the servants' wing, then we find you missing from your rooms, and just as we're looking for you, we get an emergency missive from the castle telling us exactly where you are and to teleport you over."

"Not in our rooms?" I mumbled in confusion.

"Damn the fangs," swore Minoru.

"Huh?"

"I'll explain later. No time now, just do as he says."

I cautiously opened the door, revealing someone who did indeed look like Claw Bryklynt, with a couple of guards behind him. My mana sight showed no signs of illusions, nor any mana acting on their brains. The balance of probability leaned in favour of it really being him.

"Follow me," he demanded.

"Stephanie, up!" I called as each of us grabbed our packs, abandoning anything not already in them. Nothing further impacted on my magical shield as we fled the room, sprinting along corridors and down stairs. Heading towards a basement did nothing for my nerves, but Minoru still seemed happy.

Before long, we ended up in a room that bore many similarities to the ritual chamber I'd first been summoned into. A magical circle was burning with mana on the floor, far more intense than any I'd previously seen. Half a dozen demons in the usual thin robes of their mages stood around it. A couple were swaying dangerously, small piles of empty glass vials around them.

"The heck?!" I asked on general principles.

"There's a reason carts exist," explained Wendy. "Teleportation is seriously mana intensive, even more so if you want to teleport anything alive, or if you're trying to do it at short notice. They're doing both."

"Don't worry about us," said one. "Just get that damn hero somewhere safe."

"Is there any way to confirm the target of a teleporter before we step through it?" I asked.

"This is not the time for paranoia!" exclaimed Minoru.

"This is exactly the time for paranoia!"

"Look, I used to work for Bryklynt. I trust him with my life."

"Fine. Let's get out of here, then," I said as our group stepped onto the teleporter.

White light shone around us, the mages, Bryklynt, the guards, the walls and furniture all fading away. Even the floor flowed and shifted, despite the way the circle remained fixed. Along with the other members of my party, they were the only parts of my vision that weren't dancing.

And then the light faded away, leaving us in a room no bigger than the summoning circle, apparently carved out of rock. The floor, ceiling and walls were all natural stone. There was no door, but only a row of bars.

"... Trust him with your life, huh?" I muttered.

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Fang Zorzomon smirked as report after report came in. "Three cultists captured alive. It was rather nice of them to give away their position like that. Not quite their leadership, but enough of an intelligence boon that the capture of their leadership hopefully won't be far behind. A little concerning that they were able to replace a few of Claw Bryklynt's servants, but at least they didn't get any of his guards or anyone in a vital position."

"Three? We retrieved over a dozen," replied Claw Thazremath, who wasn't convinced he was quite on top of events.

"But only three of them were part of the Cult of the Fallen, while the others were just extra hired muscle. Or, at least, that's how it appears, and I'll admit it's never wise to trust appearances. We'll be checking everyone regardless. The sect use miasma capsules in their operatives, as a means of suicide if they're captured. It's why we need to keep them unconscious until Thomas turns up and we can ask him to destroy the capsules safely. It's a shame he hasn't arrived yet. Given his personality, I gave him fifty-fifty odds on refusing the teleporter, so we... Uh... What's wrong?"

"He did teleport. Here; a statement from Claw Bryklynt."

Zorzomon grabbed the sheet of parchment and stared at it intensely. "Crap. But we checked his mages... Did they replace one later, somehow? Get our own people over there, right this second! Bryklynt's men aren't to enter the room! Find out where the hell that teleporter sent them!"