Drip-Fed Pt. 08

It had been a silent agreement that both Mehily and Remezan had come to independently that this slime, Apexus, had not been the mere creature they had thought him to be. Once was a fluke, twice a coincidence, but three times was a pattern. Once the slime had spared Mehily, at the time she thought it was to ridicule her. The angel, still locked in her room, had made it very clear that the slime had never been a bad being and looking at the track record objectively, there was no denying her side of the story. Lastly, the report of one very distraught guardsman had painted a picture about an incredibly regretful creature, no matter how nightmarish it had looked.

Thus, the two of them had arrived at the conclusion that their way to approach this had been twisted. The same could not be said for Evmeria and Bertholdt. While the Warrior simply remained stubborn in his path, not asking a whole lot of (in his opinion) unnecessary questions, Evmeria was fully aware of all of those doubts, but had only expressed faith in Jersoja. Something that Mehily had been struggling with recently. Was it her god's commands that were simply flawed or had she been misinterpreting them from the start?

The second seemed much more likely. Jersoja's teachings taught that the monster was impure. Associating with them was simply unclean and generally bound to bring more trouble than they were worth. In an ordered creation, this made absolute sense. The monsters living on leaves were created as living tests, the Parasytes were dangers older even than the Omniverse and the demons in the Roots were tainted beyond repair. All of them were clearly evil or at least adversarial, there was no doubt there. Which, in turn, meant that this 'Apexus' creature was not part of the current order of creation. That was even more terrifying than her or her god having made a mistake.

"If only we could call upon another Inquisition," Remezan leaned back in his tall chair. If Inquisitions were an easy thing to form, the Church would have used them all the time. It was a tool that was severely limited in numerous ways. The first and obvious one, an Inquisitor was needed. While numerous Inquisitors could join the same Inquisition, there was at least one needed to start the entire thing. Second, the whole thing needed to be of interest to the divine. An Inquisition was, in all technicality, the request for continued divine guidance towards a particular individual.

If there was no interest in providing that guidance, none would be given. With how non-interventionists the gods normally conducted themselves, their help was reserved for the cases of extreme oddity, danger or as a rare reward for the truly faithful. Then there was a number of other limitations that didn't apply to this case: Range, the need for a clear and accurate description of the target and a proper temple to do the ritualistic prayers at.

The last thing, one very rarely important, was that an Inquisition could not be called on the same target twice within ten years. There was no gaming it either, by targeting a usual ally of theirs, for example. Such attempts would just incur scorn from the divine messengers. The rules were the rules and the enforcers strict.

In other words, now that they had caught and lost Apexus, they had even less ways to find him than before. "One would think finding some sort of giant blue blob with a skeleton would be easy," Remezan complained, also, not for the first time, "but nobody has seen it... him. We still don't even know if he has any connections to..." The Cardinal stopped himself, before he could accidentally provide the secret he had kept from Mehily for so long. The Priest herself knew it was probably for the best if there were things she didn't know yet. Great minds had broken, that much the United Gospel taught.

"Perhaps..." Mehily carefully intervened in the Cardinal's thinking session. Since he kept inviting her to his office, a room entirely defined by the outlines of luxurious furniture that Remezan had removed upon taking over from his predecessor, she had taken the opinion that he must have wanted some second opinions. Why his holiness would choose her for that was beyond her. "Perhaps we should tell the angel about this?"

Aclysia was still in the dark, both about Reysha's breakout and the slimes revival. "No, not yet," Remezan shook his head. "Telling her would only awaken a wish to leave. She isn't cooperating right now, but at least she is staying. If the slime is genuinely not a monster and as much in love with her as she is with him, he will come to save her eventually. We will try to capture him then."

"He also doesn't seem to be too stupid," Mehily added to the theory. "It will be necessary to reveal a weakness or a chance for him to talk to us on safe terms."

"Yes... I have been thinking about how we could make that happen... sadly, we do not have a way to communicate with this 'Apexus'," the Cardinal sighed again. Something that only grew more frequent as time passed. "I would send some scouts that simply shout the message into the woods or something, but the public will see any negotiations and respond with outrage."

The guards were generally held in high regard on Ctania. As such, the death of not one but several of them in a couple of days had the people at the cusp of rage. If the Church was to step into that situation saying that they wanted to have a calm talk with one of the two culprits, particularly the one that had been so high profile these last months, there would be an outcry for slimeshed. That the leader of the local Trader's Guild outpost took personal (and now public) interest in re-obtaining the core only worsened the situation. Where outrage didn't talk, money surely would.

"I will invest more thought into this after the Day of the First Ascensions," Remezan summarized his thoughts. He needed to gather energy first, make sure things were secure even for the little break he took. Afterwards, there might be some room to take minor risks.

Mehily simply nodded. That made sense. It was one of the three days in the year on which the Cardinal left the building. The Day of the Original God, dedicated to the Progenitor Deity, the Day of the First Ascension, in honour of Trember, the second god and godhood in general, and the Day of the Thirty Third Ascension, to honour the creator of this very leaf. Each time, he was only out for about half an hour, travelling to the festival site, delivering a public prayer, and returning to the church.

"Once that ordeal is over, I will have the energy to think about these things in all their complexity with the appropriate amount of energy," Remezan put the temporary final note on this topic.

Aclysia hadn't been peaceful.

She had been watching.

"Would you like to talk to the Cardinal today?" the servant that visited her every day at noon asked. There was a second one, presenting the same question at midnight. Each time, it came along with a simple, piteous, meal. Dark bread, a little bit of meat, fish, cheese to top it off, and some water.

Aclysia wordlessly began to eat, only as much as she needed to maintain an optimal level of mana. Without Apexus, or anybody else, that would give her mana, she was bound to extract it from physical sources instead. A less effective, not to mention vaguely unpleasant procedure. Not because the food had to leave the body again, unlike mortals she turned her food into magic, not sustenance, leaving no waste by the end of it. Instead, it was just a lot of internal work that made her unnecessarily sluggish. Taking in physical matter was a last resort for a divine creation, not something to be relied on.

The servant left, the thick door closing behind her with the sound of heavy iron locking, and soon Aclysia pushed away the remains of her meal, only to once again stare at the teeth and the feather she had been left with. Days ago, she had finally stopped sorting them in different patterns. Not because she had finally found the one that seemed correct, but because she had finally resolved what she would do.

Leave.

It was a remarkably short-sighted plan, especially for her. She had no idea where to go afterwards, aside from elsewhere. She wanted nothing to do with this leaf anymore, with these people or anything associated with them. All she wanted was to be free to travel and see the things her beloved could no longer see, until she was satisfied with her life here and returned to the Trunk. Then she would see her father again and be the angel she had always been supposed to be.

That it was the Church she had to escape to fulfil that, well, her father was one of the less convinced gods that such an institution even had a place in the Omniverse. It was an opinion Aclysia had now come to share, even if her initial thoughts on the matter had been in the opposite direction. They failed to be the bastion of decency and ethics she had sought. All they had for her were questions.

How to leave, however? The door was always locked and she lacked the ability to overwhelm the servant while they went inside. At least, without using potentially lethal magic. Even if she did muster the conviction to do so, what good would it do? She was still stuck within the walls with dozens more Priests, Paladins and servants running about.

There was a second option, the windows, but the Cardinal had thought of that. A magical barrier was layered over the windows, as she had found out while opening one a while ago, in search of a way to flee. Some sort of defensive installation by nature, doubtlessly, but just as effective at keeping things in as it was at keeping things out.

Regardless, those were her two paths outside. Trying to fight her way to the outside or forcing herself through the barrier. For the former, she could strike at an opportune time, when the guards were in bad positions or something to that end. She would have little influence over this, but all she needed was to reach some point from which she could fly away. Once she took to the skies, she was safe. There was no way she could rely on or hope for any luck in the second strategy. It was harder, less likely to succeed and painful.

Regardless, she chose it.

When the sun vanished behind the horizon, hours before the second servant would visit her, Aclysia took a deep breath and finally decided to move. She had gone through so many variations of this event, thought and doubted how this attempt could go. There was nothing left but to try.

She opened one of the windows. The crystal glass reflected the light of the full moon. Careful Aclysia stretched her arm out, only to stop before she could touch the invisible barrier. Any flare at this dark hour could have alarmed somebody, every second could count. One last breath. Then, she pressed forwards.

Blue fire spilled out around her, a basic magic discharge. At first it was just a warning, cold burning that didn't harm her in any way, an unpleasant prickling on her skin, as if the hand had fallen asleep. A prickling that soon turned into a sensation more akin to needles stabbing into her every pore. The harder she pressed against the barrier, the more of her physical and magical power she threw against it, the stronger it fought back. The metal fairy felt as if her palm was melting, turned liquid by the sting of urchins.

Then her hand managed to get through.

The pain only got worse.

The barrier tried to close the hole in itself with the same natural force as water would. To the cold burn and the stings now came an immense pressure. Aclysia's vision blurred as tears of pain rose into her eyes. Yet, still, she carried on, gripping the frame on the outside of the window. 'Anywhere... anywhere but here...,' she thought as the skin was seared off her forearms, revealing the black, metal bones underneath. 'Apexus.' The name simply appeared in her mind, gave her the strength to carry on.

The rest of her arms pressed through with relatively little issue. It was her head that gave the biggest trouble. Bit by bit she pressed through, screaming despite her best effort to keep quiet. If the constant blue flickering hadn't alarmed anybody yet, those screams did it with absolute certainty. Screams that she could have spared herself if she had just been willing to hurt or kill.

Finally, her head was through and by comparison, the rest was a cakewalk. Shoulders, chest, the clenched fist she held in front of it, every bit of her that followed through, it all hurt, but it was manageable. There was a ruckus behind her, several people storming into the room. They witnessed the legs of the metal fairy getting through. A particularly quick interventionist reached her in time to grab her by on her moth-like wings.

It was too late by then. Gravity helped Aclysia's cause and the base of her wings was too damaged to even hold a little weight. Like a wilted flower petal, it ripped off her back, creating only a tiny spark of pain.

A burned and partially crushed body fell three stories down to the hard ground below. No human could have survived going through a barrier like that. Indeed, even for a divine being, that had been a test. Aclysia was blind, largely without skin and whatever had remained of her maid uniform was just ash now. Still, she began to crawl the moment she knew again where up and down were. One hand was clawing at the dirt, the other was pressed against her tormented, false flesh. Healing magic flowed into herself. Soon she went from a crawl to a three-limbed hunching, then to a stumble, finally to a run.

Little more than her legs and eyes had healed. She couldn't expend too much mana, if she did, she would simply collapse into unconsciousness. The rules of her supernatural body limited her in this regard. It was also what prevented her from flying, having not nearly the power to restore an entire wing.

She was slow. She could hear the people screaming behind her. Heard their trampling steps in the grass, then cracking over the thin branches that covered the forest floor. 'I just want to be free...' she cried in her mind, knowing that these monstrous humans would not listen to her. 'Please, leave me, please, I just want... I just want to see him again... Apexus, please,' her limited vision blurred as the pain and the panic made her once again lost in grief as her body mechanically moved along. 'Please, come back to me, let me see you...'

She stumbled, didn't even notice the flash of light in the night. She hit the ground hard, the flat grass, and the fist she had held tight until that moment opened. The sight of the feather caused the tears to run over her face uncontrollably. At the ends that had peeked out of her hand, it had been seared black, while the emerald in the middle, so close to her own eyes, was crushed to the point that nothing but the colour was of any beauty or grace anymore. The one keepsake she had resolved to take with her and it too was ruined.

'Can't... give up...' she thought, resolving herself past her sobbing. She had already come so far. She needed to get back to her feet and keep running away from the Church and...

The trampling behind her was gone.

Confused, she blinked numerous times, raising her head. Even through the blur, she spotted a colour that shouldn't have been in the forest. A familiar metallic colour, ordered in a thorn fence and a face like a grinning skull behind it.

"And so we meet again, little angel."

Aclysia would have jumped back if she had the energy left to move in any meaningful ways. "Giz...mo..." she said, her charred lips unable to properly formulate a sentence.

"No, no," the warlock shook his head, "the false one isn't here, Aclysia, its only I, Apotho. The one who got locked away by his misplaced regret," leaning on his stick, the old man slowly pushed himself up into a standing position. "How infinitely interesting that you too would so easily find your way back to me. People who have been here before must be able to penetrate the Field of Desire around this place more easily. I must admit that there were no people before who escaped to test this."

There was a sting of relief when Aclysia realized that Apotho must have been right. After all, none of the people chasing her had suddenly entered behind her. Something she was doubly thankful for, since this meant that the warlock would receive no fuel for his continued life due to her attempt at freedom.

Apotho moved towards his house, returning shortly thereafter with a potion that he placed close to the inside of the barrier. The blue colour already gave away what it was, "a Mana Potion," Apotho declared, looking down at the angel with his blue eyes. There was no pity inside them, only a calculating menace. "I would just throw it at you, but..." he raised a second, empty glass vial and threw it forwards. In a flash of green fire, that caused Aclysia to flinch from the recent memory of what the barrier had done her, the bottle was thrown back. "...as you can see, even this much is impossible for me."

"Why would I trust you...?" Aclysia's raspy voice reached out.

"Trust?" Apotho laughed at her with such blatant ridicule that his old body failed to keep up and caused him to harshly shift into a series of cough. Amusement was turned into irritation as the growled, "You see this frail form I have to put up with? There is no need to trust me, if you have half a brain you realize that I would have long absorbed you or that slime creature, when he was still alive, if I had the ability." He prodded the sitting potion with the end of his cane. "Now drink, I am not having a talk with half a corpse."

The ghastly manner with which that reminder was delivered was to the disliking of the metal fairy, but she was forced to agree. Slowly, she crawled towards the fence. Until the very last moment of her pulling the bottle back beyond the barrier, she doubted the earnest intentions of Apotho, but she had little choice in the matter.

Sip by sip of the mana potion, she healed herself. She was completely naked, only the ash of her own skin giving her the slightest amount of cover. The warlock stared at her with unveiled desire once she was completely recovered. It was such a stark contrast to the way Apexus had always looked at her. Apotho was simply interested in her body, blue eyes that stared with greed at thing he lusted for, the person behind that beautiful face beyond his interests.

Regardless, the greedy sinner had better things to do than waste his time wanting to use her body. As it was, he had no chance to do so anyway. "Now we can talk properly, little angel."

Hiding as much of her as she could by sitting on the floor and angling her arms, Aclysia nodded. Now that her mind was no longer dominated by pain and panic, she could actually think about what Apotho had said so far. "I'm not the first one that recently visited you for the second time," she surmised, "you would not be able to guess that access is easier by just one person alone... and you knew that Apexus is... is dead..." Needing a moment to gulp and control her feelings, the metal fairy finally arrived at the conclusion, "Reysha was here?"

"A little bit on the reaching side for the conclusion," Apotho raised his eyebrows as if he was surprised. "However, accurate in this case. Indeed, your Ragressian friend was here. It was her wish for vengeance that opened her way to me."

"What did you do to her?" Aclysia raised her voiced, glaring inquisitively at the trapped warlock.

"I sent her on the correct path, one that you'll not be able to intercede in, little angel," Apotho spoke true. Even if Aclysia was skeptical, she had nothing but his word to go by. "Is it vengeance that also brings you here?"

Opening her mouth to answer, Aclysia hesitated. In truth, it had been the desire to see Apexus again. Revenge was not what she truly and deeply cared for, although there were some she wished would be tormented by their actions. By lying, maybe she would be able to coerce the true plan from Apotho.