Technomagica 2 : 30 Violets (Patreon)

We gathered around the dining table, my parents already busy preparing breakfast while Kliss nibbled on a piece of toast, her ruby hair reflecting the orange sunrise. Delta, satisfied with eating pastries from the Moscow cafes all night, bounced around the kitchen, humming a cheerful tune as she helped set the table.

“So,” Delta said, plopping down next to Kliss with a smug look, “What should we call our new… joint-posse? The Lilac League? The Ishira Angels? The Dragonheart Brigade?”

“Joint… posse?” Kliss asked. “What?”

“The ex-cultists of Ishira currently inhabiting our dad’s workshop,” my twin explained. “You’re their mommy-dragon while I’m their new wize, umm, sheppard as Bishop Delta, see?”

“Hrmmm…” the dragon girl bit her bottom lip. “I'm not their mommy-dragon. I'm… uhhh… I mean, yes, they’re my kobolds now, but I…”

“Oh I know! How about we call them 'Violets'?” Delta clapped her hands, ignoring the dragon girl’s look of somewhat frustrated contemplation.

“Violets?” Kliss asked.

“Because of their robes, duh!” Delta said. “Lilac is basically violet. Violets are pretty and delicate flowers, just like our reformed, no-longer-evil priestesses. Well... except for Ellirra, maybe. She was a tad prickly, but we’re cool now. Violets are a symbol of humility, loyalty, and faithfulness. They bloom in the spring in Skyisle, bringing hope to the world after a long winter!”

Kliss opened her mouth.

“It’s perfect,” Delta decided before Kliss even said anything.

I couldn't suppress a smile. Delta's early-morning enthusiasm was infectious.

“How are the Violets doing by the way?” Delta prodded me.

“According to the scan I just ran, without the Vows and the blood iron artifacts draining their souls and with all of these vitality crystals around the workshop, their bodies are already starting to gradually heal,” I replied.

“I’m glad.” Kliss said. “They deserve a second chance. We all do, I suppose.”

“Pah, I don’t need no second chances to do better,” Delta commented, attacking her meal. “I was born awesome and died being awesome. Was the brightest Agromancer of my generation, made the best dryad ever. Was reborn a thousand years later to reap the benefits of my own timeless work.”

She then snickered at her own praises.

. . .

“Alright,” I said, pushing back my plate as we finished breakfast. “Let’s go visit our… Violets and see how they’re doing. Hopefully, Giovashi didn’t get to them in their sleep.”

I pushed an Infoscope into the ant-mech activating the construct and making Archmage Delta come down from the attic.

The scent of sawdust and wood varnish filled the air as we entered my dad’s workshop. The twenty-seven former cultists were asleep on makeshift beds, their lilac robes replaced with simple, cotton tunics. A few of them stirred, their eyes flickering open as we entered.

“Good morning, ladies,” I greeted them from the lips of Archmage Delta. “Did you all sleep well?”

There were some confused murmurs, a few nods, and then a chorus of hesitant “Yes” came from the girls.

“Any dreams featuring renegade Giovashi?” I asked, scanning the room’s mood with the basic Truth-hex.

Negative replies came back.

“Excellent. It seems that your prayers to Ishira are keeping you safe from the dark influence of the deceiver,” I said. Presumably Giovashi failed to reach her cultists because I had cut them off from their Vows to Ishira.

I noted that Georgi also entered the workshop behind us.

“Elder, will these, erm, fine ladies be occupying my workshop for the foreseeable future?” He asked the Bishop.

“For now,” I nodded with the ant-mech’s head, plastering what I considered to be a wise expression onto the Bishop’s face. “As you can see many of them are pilgrims from distant villagers, guided here by Ishira’s invisible hand to help me fix Skyisle!”

“What about the local barmaids?” Dad glanced at Magenta with a look that implied that at the very least she and her friends should return to their homes here in Skyisle.

“They’ll be staying with us too,” I replied as the Bishop. “I suggest you coordinate these ladies to build a dormitory next to the workshop.”

“A dormitory?” Georgi rubbed his orange beard. “It’ll take me some time, but with twenty seven capable hands it can certainly be done. It will be rather inconvenient for them all to sleep here though, so… perhaps they could stay at the church while…”

“No,” I shook my head. “Their bodies and souls were damaged through the use of cursed, blood-iron armor given to them by Giovashi. The Alan family Estate is covered in Vitality wards designed by me - they will help them heal.”

“I see,” Georgi nodded.

“Eventually, we will build a proper stone dormitory next to the Church of Ishira,” I said. “But right now they need a place where I can monitor their health.”

“You wish to modify the Church? Baroness… Kliss will allow this?” Georgi asked curiously, eyeing Kliss. “Does she not worship Equality?”

“She’s already approved it,” I replied. “Our Baroness is quite fair and just to her people, she is well aware that we all worship Ishira and recognizes our right to do so.”

Kliss sent Georgi a small nod. Dad smiled at her.

I walked to Magenta.

“Magenta, your family owns the Fox and Fiddle pub, yes?” I asked as the Bishop.

“I am in charge of the pub, your excellency,” Magenta’s pink eyes sparkled as she offered a respectful bow. “The other baremaidens work under me. My parents… they… uhm…”

She suddenly stuttered and stopped talking, looking straight down.

I made the ant-mech walk over to her and placed its hands onto her shoulders. Magenta’s eyes filled with tears as I held onto her. She suddenly clung back to the ant-mech, sobbing into Archmage Delta’s armoured chest.

“Tell me what happened, my child,” I said.

“When I was nine, my dad left Skyisle,” Magenta revealed. “I haven’t heard from him since. Mom said that Giovashi revealed to her that he was a sinner… that he abandoned, betrayed us to serve Goddess Equality instead, went to have another family in Agronicle village.”

“Agronicle was destroyed by Aradria’s fire,” Ellirra revealed.

“I didn’t know about this till last night,” Magenta said, her eyes filling with more tears. “Mom’s been… not entirely there, ever since dad left, growing weaker and less responsive with each year. She made me swear several Vows, to dedicate myself entirely to the false Archpriestess, to work hard to answer for dad’s sins against Ishira.”

“Where is your mother now?” I asked Magenta.

“She… she’s in her room in the catacombs,” the barmaid answered, her entire body trembling. “I haven’t… I haven’t spoken to her for years, haven’t opened the door. It’s as if… as if I was blind, confused, sleep-walking and now, today… I’m finally awake. I’ve been telling people that she left to work in a pub in Agamemnon… but that’s not true. I’ve never opened her room! I’m… I’m a murderer! By Ishira, I’m a monster!”

I frowned. Kliss gasped, her orange claws digging into my hand.

“What is wrong with me?” Magenta whimpered. “Why haven’t I checked on her? Why haven’t I told anyone the truth?”

“Magenta,” I said through Archmage Delta. “It’s not your fault, Giovashi manipulated all of you with her Charisma.”

“I left mom to rot… I abandoned her,” she said. “Giovashi told me not to open her bedroom door, told me that mom was meditating and I… I just believed her like an absolute fool!”

“Your mother was an Ishira Priestess?” I asked Magenta.

“Y-yes,” The distraught barmaid uttered, her voice breaking.

“You and your mother were manipulated, controlled,” I said. “Your actions were not your own. Now that you are free from Giovashi’s influence, you have a chance to make things right. It might not be easy, but it is the right thing to do. Go wash up and take us to her room below the pub. Be brave.”

Magenta nodded and ran off to the bathroom.

. . .

In twenty minutes Magenta, followed by a couple of barmaids and our quartet entered the currently empty Fox and Fiddle pub. The shutters were closed and the interior was quite gloomy and cool, the hearth empty of firewood, the pub closed for business.

Magenta fished a key out from the bar and then opened a heavy door into the catacombs. We followed her down the spiral stone stairwell.

My Infoscopes scanned the stairwell, identifying potent wards ahead of us. Magenta pushed a hidden lever and reached the ward control gem, permitting us entry.

“Make my apprentice Dante the Ward’s Administrator,” I said as the Bishop.

Magenta obeyed and had me touch the control gemstone for a minute to assign me as its new Master. Then we went down another stairwell, the air growing colder and more stale. I sent my Infoscopes ahead, rapidly scanning the catacombs ahead as my Infoscopes were no longer fried by the local ward.

As we descended, the walls around us became covered in runes from before the Age of Darkness, belonging to Alanian Seditionists. A functional Astral Engine obelisk pulsed on the lowest level, keeping the ward active even after a thousand years. I recognized that room as the place where Klint Klondike died long ago.

Magenta turned a corner and stopped at another heavy wooden door. She shifted through her iron keys, unlocked it and pulled it open, the rusted hinges resisting. Behind it was a windowless, stone room with a single alcove. A large symbol of Ishira was etched into the wall overhead. A small bed was within the alcove.

Magenta slid to her knees as she gripped the rotting sheets, weeping softly.

My Infoscopes identified a mummified corpse wrapped in a lilac robe on the bed. The corpse was that of a woman in her early thirties. I recognized it right away. It was the barmaid Konstancia, the woman I'd seen tending the bar here thirteen years ago when I was just a newborn babe.

A data tether snapped from Delta to me.

[Slava, I recognize her face,] my twin thought at me. [Isn't she one of the…]

[One of the ghosts recently chained to Giovashi, keeping her immortal, yes.] I replied to her through our connection.

[So that's what would have happened to each of the Violets had we not saved them?] She asked.

[Yes,] I replied. [They would have gradually calcified, rotted from within, cell by cell.]

“Konstancia Novika Skyisle,” I said into the silence broken only by Magenta’s soft sobbing as Archmage Delta. “May Ishira have mercy on your immortal soul.”

The words felt hollow, Ishira would not help Magenta’s mother. There would be no peace for Konstancia until we stopped Giovashi. The ossified corpse had been completely drained of magic just like Aradria, her soul turned into a necromancer’s battery chain, part of a network of a thousand souls that Giovashi held in her Astral embrace like a monstrous necklace of stolen lives.

“Giovashi killed Konstancia,” Delta said to the wide-eyed, horrified-looking barmaids behind us. “Killed her to take her magic. Mark my words, Magenta, we will make her pay for her crimes.”

“Yes,” I affirmed through the lips of Archmage Delta. “I swear it upon my magic.”

Delta stepped forward and hugged Magenta tightly.

“But for now… now, we will have a funeral for your mom,” she said softly.