***
Moon of the Murdered Singer, 1067 AR
***
The meadow, now without its enchanted lilies, lay in eerie silence. Only a gentle breeze and the distant sounds of merriment from Romystedt could be heard.
The remnants of plant-like flesh and the already crumbling bones of a woman murdered a thousand years ago were gathered in a little mound with a single, ordinary lily as a grave marker: a second resting place for Romy, whose soul died another death mere hours ago.
The meadow had a visitor. A woman with black wings sprouting from her back and billowing hair with a dark green magical glow. She was beautiful, save for her completely black eyes and the cracks all over her body, as if she could crumble to dust any minute. Faint green light emitted from those cracks, marking her as a proud and pure, immaculately conceived daughter of the night itself.
She approached the little mound and kneeled down in front of it, hovering a hand above the dirt and closing her eyes, taking a deep breath as she let the essence of the curse that once permeated this place course through all of her senses.
“My dear grandmother outdid herself with this one,” she whispered with a smile. “It would be a waste to let it end here.”
She took another deep breath and spread out her arms, with her black eyes now looking to the skies.
The lingering essence of the curse poured into her and she let out unsettling moans as her own soul mingled with it and grew a crystal from her chest.
Discordia immaculately conceived her child: Lethe. The curse was undone, its essence too weak to ever be able to do the amount of damage it did before, but a personification of forgetfulness was born from its remains, to bring oblivion to mortals.
The crystal needed the energy of its home dimension to create a body for itself, so it remained in its base form right now, and would probably remain like this for a decade or longer. Discordia caressed it, smiling.
“Another child conceived in secret. They won’t ever know.”
She turned her head as she heard footsteps behind her and rose to her feet, spreading her arms wide with a smile as she saw one more of her secret children approach her.
“Fames, my dear daughter! Come to see your new sister?”
Her child had grey skin like her, but without cracks. Her hair was white, glowing like that of others of her kind, and her body was almost dangerously thin. Her black eyes, the same as her mother’s, stared at the crystal, her new sibling, for a while, before she spoke.
“I’ve come to tell you that my work is proceeding as planned, mother. A famine is pushing the populace and their ruler to the brink of despair. They will soon decide to take matters into their own hands to seize food from wherever they can… and I will make my grand entrance to offer them guidance from... the ‘heavens’.”
Discordia nodded and reached out to caress her daughter’s cheek.
“Wonderful. Grandmother will surely appreciate what we are doing to undo her mistake. So that we may all be whole again.”
Fames closed her eyes and let her mother caress her.
“Can’t we simply kill them ourselves?”
“No…” Discordia smiled at Fames.
“If we get involved and attack the daughters of the high king directly, he is going to get involved, and the game is up. We shall influence events from the shadows, like always. I’m even considering making use of one of our old assets again…”
Fames narrowed her eyes at Discordia’s words and finally gritted her teeth as she realized who her mother meant. “Her. Didn’t she fail? Morpheus’ gift was utterly wasted on her, as was ours.”
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Discordia laughed in response and shook her head. “Oh, but my dearest daughter. She didn’t fail. We just primed her to gain what she needed to succeed the second time.”
“And what would that be?”
“Hatred,” Discordia simply answered. “And a strong desire for revenge. For five years now she stewed in that emotion, looking for a way to get back at the one who bested and defaced her. And by having her in the right place, at the right time, she will spring right back into action where we need her.”
September 2024
***
“So… tell me how this happened again?”
Fumio’s voice was hoarse, as he was extubated just yesterday, and now he stood in the scorched ruins of the main room of his office building, with its
shattered windows, cracked walls, and a sizeable hole in one of them, as well. Desks were split in half or burned to cinders or were otherwise damaged. All of this awaited him the moment he felt strong enough to walk again; barely, at least. He was hooked up to the machine for a day, meaning it would take at least a week for a full recovery, mostly from the sedatives they had to put him on.
Right next to him was Seika Hitoishi, 30 years old and his most trusted editor, who he left in charge of operations after he suddenly found himself unable to breathe and had to go to the hospital. She didn’t look much better than the room, either: she wore her right arm in a sling and one of the lenses of her glasses was cracked. She now had two scars going over her left eye, as if a particularly large cat scratched her.
“Some interdimensional beasts materialized and wrecked the place. Almost killed me, until the Magical Girl Minerva Crimson arrived, that is!”
Fumio narrowed his eyes. He’s known this woman for eight years now, and there was no way in hell that she wouldn’t be jumping up and down giddily like a little girl if she got personally saved by a Magical Girl. Instead, her explanation sounded a little bit too rehearsed.
“She even healed me to the best of her abilities!”
“Right. And how come that the PCs were conveniently stored in the downstairs storage room ahead of time?”
He saw Hitoishi break out in a cold sweat and raised an eyebrow, but just as he was about to ask her his follow-up question someone bumped into him.
It turned out to be a man in a suit, wearing a surgical mask and sunglasses, holding a weird device that made clicking noises like a Geiger counter as he swung it around the office. A patch was sewn into his suit, depicting two wide open eyes and a third, crystalline one above between the first two.
Triple-eye, the Interdimensional Incident Insurance. They paid for every interdimensional incident, no matter how steep the costs. In return, they had the right to plunder any interdimensional artifacts left behind. Fumio couldn’t fathom how this could in any way be profitable, but this was how things worked.
“Sorry about that, sir. We’re almost done. Looks like a pretty standard renovation job will do the trick, all things considered. The desks aren’t that costly, either. We’ll send you the payment tomorrow at noon at the latest.”
“Hmph, sure.” Fumio let out a sigh and looked through the room.
Multiple men like the one who just bumped into him combed the place. They put everything in plastic bags which looked out of place, like strange leaves which were scattered around, but as the workers tried to pocket them, they crumbled into useless ash.
There was also a lot of Hitoishi’s blood in various spots on the floor and on a desk, enough that Fumio worried she must have been in mortal danger before the Magical Girl she spoke of healed her. The men took samples of that, too, as if they wanted to see if Hitoishi was some kind of beast.
“Just how violent was that thing that got you?”
“Oh, very violent. An absolute monster!” Hitoishi nodded multiple times after her words, still acting highly suspicious, and Fumio was about to grill her again as they were interrupted.
“Sir!”
A man wearing a yellow hazmat suit emerged from one of the side offices, presenting one of the men in suits with what appeared to be a golden rod.
“A weapon type. The signature matches -”
The man in the hazmat suit interrupted himself after looking Fumio and Hitoishi’s way for a moment, then he leaned in to whisper the rest to his superior.
“You’re certain?” the obvious leader of the group asked.
The man in the hazmat suit nodded in confirmation.
“Alright people, pack up! The trip paid for itself! Mister Watanabe! We’ll reimburse you for the damages and include a two hundred percent bonus as well, how does that sound?”
Fumio was taken aback by the sudden offer but nodded.
“Uh. Sure, of course. That sounds wonderful.”
Seika let out a long sigh, wiping sweat off her forehead with her good hand. She barely got out of this situation, and only because Watanabe got an offer that was too good to be true. He even thanked her for storing the PCs and the work saved within them, then he went home to arrange his finances. From now on the editorial would have to work from home until the office was renovated, as well.
Triple-eye found the magic hammer she failed to use against Lethe and which in turn almost turned her own head to paste. It appeared to be something special, the way they were willing to pay out a larger sum than usual. Maybe it would be prudent to ask Miyu and Momo or even Madame Bille what was behind the magic item.
Seika took the train further north into the city. She had a doctor’s appointment to schedule surgery and rehab for her damaged shoulder. Thanks to the healer Madame Bille brought to Seika’s side, she wasn’t as bad off as she could have been, but she still had trouble moving her arm properly.
She didn’t want it to take too long, so she planned to employ a mixture of regular therapy and magic by visiting Romystedt and hiring a healer. And the only doctor she could trust with her plan without blowing her cover was the one she added as a friend in her LINE contacts: Sayaka.
