Chapter 243

'Tobias. Father Tobias, eh?' Lyssandra thought, connecting the dots from yesterday. The one with the piercing gaze and the unsettling aura. The man who had just walked past her. 'You want to play? Then let's play.'

She turned and walked briskly toward the main exit, her footsteps echoing in the vast hall. "Been here for a day, but I haven't taken a proper look at the city," her voice slightly raised. "I should take a look outside."

She pushed the heavy church doors open before stepping into the morning bustle of Agos.

The city was alive. Smooth grey flagstones covered the streets, where a vibrant tapestry of life unfolded around every corner. To her left, a pair of stout figures carrying axes on their belts and braided hair haggled loudly with a merchant over the price of iron ingots. Their skin resembled weathered rock, fiery intensity burning in their eyes.

Down the way, a sleek, feline-featured woman, pointed ears framing emerald eyes slit vertically, purchased a string of glistening fish. Nearby, a group of short, heavily bearded men trudged past, iron picks slung over their shoulders, heads barely reached Lyssandra's chest, their faces set in grim lines.

Everywhere she looked, dozens of different races filled the city, each possessing a unique scent, gait, manner of speaking, and style of dress.

The air was a cacophony of accents, smells from food stalls, and the clamor of a thousand different lives all intersecting in the capital's grand avenues. It was overwhelming and exhilarating.

"Let me see, this city is so big" the crude map made by one of her Shadow Goblins spreading on her hands.

"One, This guy really need to improve his drawing skill, I can't make out anything on this... map" Lyssandra grumbled as she pulled the hood of her cloak up to shadow her masked face and began to walk, merging into the crowd.

Her first stop was a cart billowing sweet-smelling steam. A large, rotund woman with flour on her apron was flipping small, round cakes on a hot griddle. "Honey-cakes! Sweet as summer morning! Get 'em while they're hot!" she called out in a booming, cheerful voice.

Lyssandra bought one with a few copper pieces and took a bite. The warm, flaky pastry melting in her mouth, the sweet honey a delightful surprise. She walked on, listening to the city.

"…heard the King is ill again," a merchant whispered to his friend when they passed a stall of shimmering silk scarves.

"…another dungeon opened up middle of the Withering Jungle," a grizzled, one-eyed warrior bragged to a younger one. "They say the treasure there is enough to buy a castle."

Near a fountain in a small square, a group of young nobles in fine velvet laughed cruelly at a poor beggar.

Did Lyssandra want to intervene?

'No! Why should I?' the question popped up in her mind.

She saw a vendor roasting nuts on a pan over an open flame, the smell rich and toasty. She bought a small cone of them, the shells warm in her palm. As she walked and munched, she kept a careful watch on her mini-map. The yellow dot was still there, moving behind her, staying about hundred meters back, always hidden in the flow of traffic.

'He's persistent, I'll give him that,' she thought. 'But he's not very good at this. I know he's there. He must know I know he's there. So why keep following?'

She stopped at a bookseller's stall, a small, cramped space filled with dusty tomes and scrolls. The owner, a thin, elderly man whose spectacles perched on the end of his nose, was hunched over a book, completely oblivious to the world. Lyssandra browsed, fingers tracing the embossed titles. She picked up one with a faded leather cover titled "A Compendium of Unknown Magics."

While she was flipping through it, the bookseller finally looked up, eyes twinkling. "Ah, a fellow seeker of knowledge. That one is… a rather interesting choice."

'Magic… hmmm. I've been in this world for almost two months, but I don't know anything about magic. I just… use it instinctively. I need a proper foundation,' her curiosity piqued by the book. She looked up from its pages, ready to speak to the elderly man.

But at that exact moment, a commotion erupted from the other side of the square. It was a man, wild-eyed and disheveled, his robes torn and dirt smudged. He was standing in the middle of the street, arms held wide.

"I'M FREE!!!" he shrieked, his voice cracking with hysteria. "THEY CAN'T LOCK ME UP ANYMORE! NOT IN THE MIND! NOT IN THE CAGE!"

He slammed a foot against the flagstones. The stone cracked, a spiderweb of fissures spreading out from the point of impact.

"Get away from me! All of you!" he screamed, waving a hand in a frantic arc.

A bolt of jagged, red lightning erupted from his fingertips, striking the corner of a baker's shop. Brick and mortar exploded into the air, raining down onto the street. The lightning was wild and untamed. It sizzled through the air, scorching a nearby vegetable cart before ricocheting off a stone pillar and blasting a hole in the roof of the book stall.

The owner yelped, scrambling to protect his books.

The man cackled, a high-pitched, unstable sound. He seemed to have no control over the spell he was channeling. Another wave of his hand sent a wave of raw, concussive force that slammed into a group of onlookers, sending them stumbling back.

One of them, a stout, bearded man, was thrown through the window of a tailor's shop. But the force wasn't clean, it buckled and twisted in mid-air and the magic that had propelled the man also slammed back into his own shoulder, sending the crazed mage stumbling with a cry of pain.

He was a danger to everyone, including himself.

And yet, despite the flying debris and the raw power on display, the crowd did not surge forward. They backed away, giving the man a wide berth, their faces neutral, some even laughing. Lyssandra overheard frantic whispers.

"…just stay back. Don't get involved…" one person hissed.

"…the City Watch will be here. They have Null-wards…" another muttered.

The commotion grew. People were not running to help the injured or stop the mage. They were hiding, watching and waiting for someone else to solve the problem. The mad man was clearly spiraling further out of control. The unstable magic he wielded was consuming him, as much as he was trying to consume the world.

As he let out another inarticulate shriek of fury, his back suddenly hunched and contorted. Follow a sickening sound of grinding rock, two large, jagged protrusions of stone and earth burst from his shoulder blades, crude and ugly like uncarved boulders.

He probably had tried to form himself wings, but his magic was too chaotic, too violent. All he managed was to attach two heavy, useless masses to his back.

"Back the fuck away!" he roared, the sound tearing from his throat. "All of you!"

One of these stone lumps abruptly broke off, ripped from its anchor on his back with a spray of dust and blood. He grabbed the huge chunk of rock which was bigger than a man's torso, and with a strangled scream of effort, he hurled it through the air.

The object flew straight and true, passing over some richly dressed nobles who watched in amused contempt and ignoring the merchants cowering in their doorways. Its path led directly toward the old, scrawny beggar who had been the target of the nobles' ridicule only moments before.

The beggar was frozen, crouching against a wall, terror evident in his wide eyes. He was old and frail with no way to dodge. He could only watch his own death flying toward him.

"Oh, no! He couldn't get away fast enough!" a man in the crowd yelled out, a mixture of alarm and morbid excitement in his voice.

"He's as much as dead as a dirt-poor himself," a young noblewoman giggled from behind her fan. "A fitting end, I suppose."

The rock hurtled closer, the air whistling when it parted. There was no time for anyone to intervene, not that they would have. It was a public execution, and no one was going to stop it.

'Will someone save him?' Luna’s thought echoed in her master’s mind.

'You will be surprised,' Lyssandra’s own thought was a whisper. She didn't move a muscle, simply watching from the shadows of her hood, a faint, knowing smile playing on her lips.

The rock was ten meters away.

Five.