Unruly Summon Chapter 16: Miracle (Patreon)

"Damn that woman," complained Wendy to herself, scrubbing her legs with a rough sponge. "Just how on edge was she? She's supposed to be Odimere's genius lady knight! How did she mistake me for an enemy when all that was between us was that flimsy door?"

The scrubbing continued, despite her skin already glowing red; it would take more than a sponge before she felt clean again. A pile of ash by the side of the bath was all that remained of her clothing, already 'cleaned' via the judicious application of Ignis.

"I could have been killed! Some of those shards were a foot long, and they buried themselves halfway into the stone wall! Wood isn't supposed to stab stone like that! It was a miracle none of them hit me! If they had, they'd probably have gone straight through."

The sponge abruptly stopped moving as realisation dawned.

"Shit..." declared Wendy, despite no longer being covered in it. She wasn't stupid, and she didn't believe in miracles. At least, not that sort. When gods interfered in the world, they were generally pretty overt about it. They wouldn't protect a random mage from a few splinters.

No, there were no gods involved. If Christine should have known it was her, and none of the shards of door had hit her, the obvious explanation was that Christine did know it was her, and had attacked anyway, being careful not to cause any actual danger.

"So, there was no assassination attempt. It was all staged, and Christine got rid of me in case I noticed something off and said something I shouldn't in front of Thomas," sighed Wendy. "I understand why they want to keep certain things from him, but that's going too far. I hope the poor girl is..."

"Miraculum!"

Droplets of water launched themselves upwards from the ringing surface of the bath, but Wendy wasn't paying sufficient attention to notice. The sponge fell from her limp hand, all thoughts of morality and cleanliness alike wiped clean from her mind.

"Damn that Christine!" she yelled, launching herself out of the water and breaking into a sprint. "How dare she make me miss that!"

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"Mana potion," I demanded.

"W... What?" stuttered Christine, which was novel. I was fairly sure I'd never heard her stutter before.

"Mana potion!" I repeated. "That took my entire capacity, and I have assassins to hunt."

"Please calm down. A good chunk of the royal guard is already out there hunting down our would-be assassins. If you leave the castle now, you'll only give the assassins another chance."

That was annoyingly logical. "Fine. Then shouldn't we move to a room without windows, for the same reason?"

"... Yes, that would be advisable. I don't think moving Mary right now is a good idea, but you at least should retreat deeper into the castle. You and you," she continued, pointing at two of the knights in the room. "Escort Thomas to the grey room. Wait there with him until I return. I want to question Mary about what she saw."

"Sorry, but I didn't see anything useful," replied the girl in question, who was starting to get some colour back. Proper colour; a rosy red, rather than the unnatural purple tint. "A black, round thing came in through the window, then exploded the moment it hit the floor, and that was pretty much it."

"It's too soon to say that. You might have seen something that you think inconsequential that could nonetheless prove vital."

"Please follow me, sir hero," said one of the knights, his voice muffled by his helmet.

"Please don't call me that," I responded as the knight put his hand on the door handle. "It's weird. Thomas will do."

The knight didn't get the chance to respond, because someone else wrenched the door open from the other side, yanking him forward. He toppled over, hitting the floor in a metallic crash.

"What was that spell?" shouted Wendy, leaping into the room despite the fallen knight in the way. She simply used his prone torso as a stepping stone. "Who taught you that? What did it do? I've never seen so much power in a name before! You shook the whole castle!"

"I... uh... Wendy?"

"Yes?"

"You're dripping wet and naked."

"So? I was having a bath. That's not important!"

"It... kinda is."

"Bleh. If it'll get you to talk, fine," she grumbled, throwing open the trunk at the foot of Mary's bed and taking out a maid's dress from within. The room watched in stunned silence as she struggled to get it on, a task rendered more difficult by the way she was still dripping wet and things kept sticking. Didn't she know a spell to dry herself?

I couldn't help notice that I could see nothing in that trunk other than multiple copies of the same uniform, some underwear and a single lonely nightie. Did Mary have no casual clothes, or any personal possessions whatsoever?

Christine's eye twitched. "Enough," she snapped. "Wendy, once you're done clowning around, you can accompany Thomas and question him to your heart's content."

"No, since Wendy is here, please teach me spells useful for information gathering. Is there anything I can use to scry the city? If it's not safe to leave the castle, I'll do what I can from here instead."

"Err..." said Wendy, which wasn't what I wanted to hear.

"I've already asked that you leave the clean-up to the professionals," said Christine. "I know you're eager to help in any way you can, but really, the best thing you can do right now is get yourself to safety and let us do our work."

"I won't be in anyone's way! Is this because you're worried I'll see something I shouldn't? I just used Maius Magus Visus in front of you, for goodness' sake! It should be obvious it's far too late for that! You think I haven't noticed the mana in Mary's collar and the way it's invading her brain? You think I didn't notice Wendy's slip of the tongue, admitting she was in the bath despite your claims they're out of commission, or the one she made yesterday when she more or less admitted being told not to teach me Magus Visus? I've seen your enchanted carpets. I damn well know you've been lying to me, and right now, I don't care. So if you want me out slaying demons, find me a mana potion and teach me."

"Uh... Obviously I'm missing something here," said Wendy, finally moving on from my spell. "Did something else happen after I left to agitate him this much?"

"Mary wasn't poisoned, as such," said Christine. "She was suffering from miasma exposure."

The way Wendy's jaw dropped would have been comical had I not been in such a foul mood. "How is she still alive? Wait, was that what that spell did? You cured someone with miasma poisoning? What mana capacity did it require? Do you think the same spell would work on land? Can you teach it to others? Where did you even learn it?"

I ignored the torrent of questioning. If Wendy wasn't going to teach me anything useful, and no-one was going to fetch me a mana potion, I could at least make use of what I had. My mana sight was still active. Mary was now looking normal, mana once again expelled from her body, which had been left completely void. Nothing else in this room looked suspicious.

Looking through the wall into my room revealed hints of the attack, though. The usual blue fog of mana was tainted by purple swirls, rising up from every flat surface. It was strongest at a point in front of one of the windows, about halfway into the room. The taint grew weaker with increasing distance from that point. Christine had described a sort of powder-laden grenade, which would fit. I couldn't see the weapon or its payload directly, but I could guess I was looking at the fallout.

Confirming what we already knew wouldn't help, though; I needed to find who did this. The range on my mana sight—even this enhanced version—was nowhere near great enough to see through the castle's exterior wall, and even if it was, what would I expect to see? Once again, Christine's logic was sound, as much as I didn't want to admit it. What could I do to help people who'd actually been trained for this?

The cynical part of my brain pointed out that the people trained for this hadn't managed to prevent the attack, so they obviously weren't that great.

Outside of the window, all that I could see within my range was a small patch of the purple corruption. Maybe some of the dust had been blasted outside?

"You shouldn't be getting out of bed. Please stay where you are," said Christine, reminding me that the rest of the room existed.

"It's okay, I'm fully recovered," said Mary, who was indeed now standing upright, showing no sign of her earlier weakness.

"That's beside the point, you..." started Christine before frowning. "Huh?"

"What's wrong now?" I asked. Mary's rapid recovery at least did something to dull my bad mood, and the sight of her and Wendy standing next to each other in matching dresses provided some amount of amusement.

As did the wet footprint on the back of one of the room's stoic guards.

I took a deep breath in and out as I did my best to calm down.

"Thank you, Master," continued Mary, curtsying at me. "You saved my life."

"Didn't I ask you not to call me 'master'?" I grumbled, but my heart wasn't really in it.

"Aww. Please let me? You've always been so kind to me, and not only did you get so angry for my sake, but you saved me."

"Huh?" went Wendy.

"Well, if you really insist, I guess I can cope. I can hardly turn down the first request you've made... since... Huh?"

Wait.

Mary cocked her head, apparently not seeing what the three of us were confused about.

Mana sight showed Mary as a complete void. There wasn't a single trace of mana within her. Not even linking her collar up to her brain. Had my spell not merely cured her of miasma poisoning, but of whatever had been done to mess up her head, too? She'd just rejected one of Christine's orders, in such a natural way that we hadn't even noticed it had happened!

"So..." said Wendy. "About that spell you cast earlier..."

"Miraculum," answered Mary in my place. "It's not a real spell. It's from the myth of Anypha and Sirclius."

"Sorry, what?" asked Wendy, once again only avoiding depositing her jaw on the floor because human anatomy didn't allow for it. "Anypha? As in the goddess of life? I... can't say I've heard that one."

"Mmm. It's a popular story among healers. Anypha fell in love with the mortal Sirclius, but Sirclius's brother grew jealous and poisoned him with a terrible poison that he claimed no magic could cure. Anypha rushed to his side, where a crowd of white mages were trying their hardest to help him, all to no effect. She told them to stand aside, declared that there was no injury, poison or curse that magic couldn't cure, and cast Miraculum, fully healing Sirclius. Then she turned Sirclius's brother into a gerbil and decreed that all anyone would ever remember about him was his folly, and that not even his name would be recorded."

"Sounds like a goddess, alright," sighed Wendy, before peering over at me. "Heroes are such bullshit," she declared.

"Language!" snapped Mary.

"... Ha. I'm liking this new attitude."

"What new attitude? Oh, Mistress, you're bleeding!" said Mary, suddenly turning to Christine. "Parvus Sanatio!"

Christine did indeed have a bead of blood on her lower lip. When had that happened? How had that happened? Did she bite it?

"Thank you," said Christine. "Now this is all very interesting, but can we please return to the matter at hand? Wendy, please take Thomas to the grey room, and discuss mythical spells to your heart's content while I talk to Mary. Then, once I'm done, there are some interesting accusations Thomas has made that must be addressed."

Oh... Right... I'd blurted out all that stuff in the heat of the moment, and everyone had just kinda ignored it. Why? With Mary already healed and the hunt for the perpetrators allegedly well under control, I'd have thought my outright accusations of them lying would have been kinda high priority.

"Why do you want to talk to Mary alone?" asked Wendy, a little sharply. "Just bring her with us."

"Wendy..." answered Christine, which didn't seem much of an answer to me.

"Come on. It won't do any harm."

"Is something wrong?" asked Mary, echoing my thoughts.

Yes... Yes, something was wrong. There was a niggling feeling at the back of my head that I was missing something important, and Christine's reminder of my accusations had given the feeling a bit of direction.

"Mary? You said that when the device came in through the window, it exploded the moment it hit the floor? It didn't bounce or roll?"

"Yup. It hit the floor and boom."

... The angle was wrong. My mana sight showed me the epicentre of the explosion, and it was too far into the room. Too far from the window. If it hadn't rolled, it must have come in at a shallow angle. But Christine had claimed it had come from outside the castle, beyond the exterior wall. The thick, tall exterior wall. If it had been launched over that, it would have come into the window at a far sharper angle. It was doubtful it would make it into the main part of the room at all, given the alcove shape of the arrowslits.

Something wasn't right here, and I was damn well going to find out what.