Strength Based Wizard-Chapter 49. The City, Part II.2 (Lean Cat, Mean City; Part of 2)

Chapter 49

The City, Part II.2 (Lean Cat, Mean City; Part 2 of 2)

POV: Veronica Sampietro, Lost in a Weird City

People push past me, chattering, drifting. The press of the crowd is like a slow tide, warm and stinking of spices and sweat, and threatening to pull us all deeper into this sandstone ocean. But it’s all just white noise to me now as I try to catch what I had seen a few moments ago.

The blue babushka. No. That blue babushka.

Joseph had led us into another square of merchant stands and shops. He had pulled me towards something that caught his eye. And that’s when I had seen her bobbing down the street. I let the touch of his hand slide through mine. My stomach lurched like it was trying to climb into my throat. That can’t be, I thought. No fucking way. But I knew that color. I knew the way that wrap clings to a narrow set of shoulders, the way it flutters with the exact same frayed edge.

That was at least thirty seconds ago, and I finally spot it again—bobbing and weaving through the street, just ahead. Faded sky blue, twisted at the back and pinned with the little brass rose.

Nona.

My feet keep moving with a life of their own. I shoulder a wide orc woman out of the way. She shouts something in a language I don’t know, but I don’t look back. I don’t bother to ponder why the System chose certain moments to turn off the translation function. Perhaps there’s no English equivalent for whatever curse she spat at me. The cobblestones feel weird under my boots—rubbery, like my legs are full of static. That’s odd, I think. But the thought is washed away like footprints on a distant shore.

“Nona!” I yell.

Nothing. The blue wrap turns down a narrow alley, swallowed by shadow.

She died. She died a long time ago. I buried her. I cleaned her blood off my face with a towel I’ll never touch again. I scrubbed my hands for hours that night and they never stopped shaking. I told the therapist about the scream I made when it happened. About how her last breath gurgled out like air from a popped balloon. About how it was my fault.

I told myself it wasn’t. Enough times and over the course of enough therapy sessions that I stopped believing it. And then my Constitutional Law professor exploded into red mist right in the middle of a lecture and there I was, back in therapy.

My hands are shaking again. I clench them. Push forward.

Something tugs behind my belly button. Hard. Like someone’s reaching through me and yanking my guts forward. I’ve felt it before. Where have I felt this before?...

Right before I stepped through a Gate for the first time.

People blur past me. An old elf hisses as I graze his sleeve. A kobold hawker spins, startled, his basket of dried frogs wobbling dangerously. I duck a hanging banner and leap over a crate of what looks like glowing mushrooms. My System-enhanced reflexes are doing their job (thank you, magic-world upgrades).

The babushka flutters into view again. Closer this time.

My breath comes hard. That sucking pull is louder now, like a vacuum inside my bones. Something’s not right about this. Nothing in this world should look like her. Nothing should move like her, or smell like her—lemons, basil, old books, and threadbare wool. I can small her as I hurry down the alley, her back in sight.

I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste iron.

I finally catch her at the end of a narrow alley, breath hot in my throat, chest burning. The crowd noise drops off behind me like a curtain fell. It’s quieter here—like all of that white noise from the street was cut off with a mute button.

She’s just standing there. Back turned, head bowed like she’s inspecting the stones. The blue babushka is tied in the exact same knot I used to do for her. The one she always asked for because her fingers were too stiff and knuckles too swollen to do it right. Brass rose pin. Threadbare hem.

“Nona…” I whisper, too quiet for even me to hear.

I don’t know what I think I’m doing, but I close the last few steps and hesitantly reach out to grab her shoulder. My hand clamps down on a body I haven’t touched in nine years.

She turns.

I stumble back with a gasp. My legs tangle. My heel clips a loose cobblestone, and I nearly fall.

It’s her. It’s my Nona.

It’s her face. Every wrinkle, every fold of skin, every freckle. But pale. Drained of color. Like someone left her out in the sun and then painted over her with death. Her eyes are wrong—milky, dull, no pupils. Like clouded glass over an empty room. Like a dead fish staring up from a plate.

This isn’t real. This can’t be real.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“This can’t be real,” I mumble. “No. No. No.”

The thing in front of me smiles with lips too dry. “Ah, you’ve found me, child,” she says, voice like cracked porcelain. “But what is it you were really looking for, hm?”

I don’t move. I can’t—I’m frozen in place. My hand twitches at my side, trying to remember how to summon my hammer. I say the word in my head—Nothing.

Come on. Come on!

Still nothing.

“After I left those nine years ago,” the thing says, “I came here looking for your Papa.”

My mouth works. It’s dry as bone. “Wh…what are you talking about? What are you?”

“But I did not find him,” she continues, nodding with a slow, broken rhythm. “No, no. I found something else.”

That tug in my gut again—only now it’s clawing at me. Like a hook inside my spine, twisting, ripping.

She coughs. A wet, gloppy sound, like a lungful of mucus hitting cold stone. “Do you know what it is I found when I followed that light all those years ago?”

“I…” My lips move. Barely. “What?”

“An angel,” she says.

I almost laugh. But the air’s too thin for it.

“An angel who pulled back the veil,” she whispers, “to show me that under all of this beauty I left behind…”

She leans forward. Her head tilts. Her neck cracks like old wood.

“Are monsters.”

Then her jaw splits. Too wide. I hear tendons snap. Skin stretches and pops like wax paper soaked in oil. Her mouth opens and keeps opening until her whole face is a maw—and inside is a fathomless darkness. An cold, absence of everything.

And something moves inside it. A slick, black arm unfurls from her mouth, extending like a tongue of liquid shadow tipped with wriggling fingers.

I scream. But no sound escape my lips.

I don’t remember running. But here I am, the rippling banner emblazoned with a gryphon my beacon. The Monster Hunters Association.

It’s all a little overwhelming—the light and everything. The color of the street hitting my eyes like they’re new again. Every face is too bright. Every smell too sharp. I’m sprinting, legs a blur, lungs heaving, and then I see them—Joseph, waving, his mouth moving but no sound comes from his mouth. My stomach lurches at the sight.

Clyde’s there too. Calm, but confused. He turns as I stagger toward them.

“What’s wrong with him?” I gasp, voice shaking like glass in a vacuum cleaner.

Joseph speaks again—or doesn’t speak, since no words come out. He gesticulates wildly, gesturing towards his mouth.

Clyde shrugs, glances sideways at Joe. “I thought you’d be able to tell me.”

Jelly Boy—Joseph’s gooey blue buddy—gurgles in his hands. Something between a burp and a warning. Clyde smiles, poking a thumb towards the slime, “I think Jelly Boy says Joe is better this way… I have to admit, it’s quite the improvement.”

A laugh stumbles to my lips. I snort. “I agree.”

Joseph’s shoulders slump and he drops his head in exaggerated sadness.

We move toward the building together. Heavy doors open wide.

My HUD pings, and I try to ignore the message that’s been yelling at my since leaving that alley. A red blinking notification, up in the corner.

[You have been Soul-touched.]

NEW QUEST: Soul-touched.

[Access your Quest Menu to see new Quest details!]

POV: Illrune Abascal, Middle Son of the Abascal Crime Family

Illrune Abascal stormed through the marble halls of his father’s uptown mansion with all the fury of a familia scion who had just been punched in the nose by a goddamn wizard’s hand cantrip. His boots thudded with exaggerated weight, more for effect than necessity, and he held a bundle of enchanted ice wrapped in silk against his swollen face. Every step throbbed with humiliation.

Combat-focused Wizard’s Hands, he thought bitterly. What the hell was that? And the human bastard made him use his Tier V Spell-breaker Skill too… It was a Skill he had gained with the use of a Skill Capsule, which provided access to higher leveled Skills and Spells but at the cost of being single-use only. The Capsule had cost Illrune a near fortune. GOD DAMMIT!

The path to Elashor Abascal’s study was as long and gilded as his father’s ego. Mosaic murals depicting the Abascal family’s triumphs stared down at him—some literal, some metaphorical, and all self-aggrandizing. Magic lights hummed in enchanted sconces. The floors were so polished he could almost see his shame reflecting back at him.

Waiting outside the reinforced oak double doors was Elaithe.

She leaned against the wall casually, arms crossed over her chest. She wore a well-tailored suit the color of a heavily-tannin wine. A long, spell-forged sword was slung across her back. Her pale skin was a spiderweb of scars that didn’t mar her beauty so much as sharpen it. She was tall, muscled, dangerous. Like a statue sculpted for war—and with about as much compassion. Illrune hated the bitch.

The look she gave him was pure venomous amusement. “What’s this? Has the pup come yapping again? Can’t you see the big dogs are in a meeting?”

Illrune’s jaw clenched. He dropped the ice from his face, letting her get a good look at the damage. His nose had gone crooked and purple, swollen like it was trying to escape his face.

“I need to see my father. Now.” he said, trying to inject a level of commanding authority he hadn’t quite mastered. The words instead came out nasally and sounding even more petulant “I have intel. Something very, very important. The kind of thing that changes everything. So, let me in!”

Elaithe didn’t move. She raised a pale brow, raised a hand to cooly move a loose strand of blond hair from her face. Then she smirked, and glanced at the swelling on his face. “Let me guess. You got into another magical misunderstanding with a farmer who was secretly a god-tier combat classer?”

That smirk. That smirk.

Illrune’s hands balled into fists. His brother got respect. His brother got resources. He got babysat by his father’s henchmen and sent to shake down street merchants like some glorified errand boy. No one took him seriously. But that was about to change. And that farmer incident only happened once… How was I supposed to know he was a retired mercenary?!

“I’m serious,” Illrune snapped. “You have to let me in. If Greed were to learn that my father let this opportunity slip through his fingers…”

That wiped the amusement from her face.

Elaithe’s gaze darkened, her body going still. Like a predator suddenly catching the scent of real prey. She chewed on the implications, jaw twitching once.

“Greed’s name isn’t one you should toss around lightly,” she said at last, voice low and sharp.

“The news I have is worthy of evoking the name.”

“You better not be wasting his time. Or mine.”

“I’m not,” Illrune said. He met her eyes and—despite the ice burn on his nose, despite the pain, despite the way his voice cracked slightly—he meant it. “I swear it.”

Elaithe stared at him for a long, uncomfortable second.

Then, finally, she sighed and turned toward the door. “One moment,” she muttered. “And this better be serious.”

She slipped through the door, shutting it behind her with a click that sounded louder than it should have. Illrune stood alone in the corridor, heart hammering in his chest, fingers twitching with anticipation.

They think I’m nothing, he thought. But today, that changes.