Sofia, in fact, had more than one plan, preparing a whole series of tests and possibilities as to how to get rid of the stalker on the roof, only to end up going for the very first one she had thought of. She had sent the fairy through a chimney vent to scout the outside. Using all of her stealth passives, the midenicite fairy was extrely hard to notice. If not for being able to sense the bones themselves with [Bone Dominus], and where all of Bookie’s skeletons were at all tis, Sofia would hardly be able to tell if the fairy was really there half the ti. The midenicite bones made her transparent even to her mana senses.
The question was whether the stalker would notice the invisible fairy. It turned out that it did not. The fairy still did not get too close to the creature, as Sofia did not want to risk losing it to the deep, but thanks to this outing, she could help Sofia draw a map of the surroundings and place the main landmarks of the city.
Since it did not react to the fairy, the plan was to safely try luring the creature away.
Under Sofia’s orders, the fairy flew to another rooftop, that of one of the houses halfway through the normal and light world, and dropped pebbles on the roof to make so noise. The creature turned but stayed where it was.
So even with the constant singing it still reacts to noise.
Sofia silently giggled, she found it amusing that she was testing a monster for its hearing with Alith again, just like that ti with the phageid larvae, except this ti the monster stood on the rooftop instead of them.
And just like the phageid back then a single hit could spell our death.
Usually I would wonder if I’m cautious for nothing but if even gods have died here…
The fairy awaited its next order.
Pick up a roof tile and lightly throw it at the thing then co back. If it notices you, unsummon instead.
With a crashing sound, a fired clay roof tile hit the creature squarely, upon which the stalker disappeared from Sofia’s senses.
I lost it?!
Sofia felt the fairy rushing back in through the chimney, and her mana senses finally picked up where the hole created by the creature was now, it was on the other roof, crawling around the spot with the missing tile. It moved so fast it was like teleporting, leaving a blur of mana-less zones in Sofia’s senses.
Sofia gasped out loud.
“What is it?!” Alith worriedly asked in a whisper.
“It’s gone,” Sofia answered.
“The stalker?!”
“Yes. There was… In the house. It’s only halfway through the light world… Sothing was hiding from my senses by staying in the real world. All I felt was a long hole, either a long arm or a tentacle… It shot out from the real world, through the two floors and the hole in the roof. It pierced or grabbed the stalker, I don’t really know, then it retracted back to the real world.”
“Crap. So the light world here is not safe from the things outside like it was from the giant stalker…”
“That all happened in an instant too. I don’t think I would have been able to react in ti…”
“And it was silent!” Bookie added, “I didn’t hear anything.”
Sofia nodded, “Even knowing it was happening I heard nothing. The good thing is we should be able to see what did that while staying in the light world since the two worlds are mixed up in this city. It’s just my mana sense that doesn't work. Fairy, did you see what hides in that house while you were out?”
The fairy stayed invisible and gave no form of answer, which Sofia deduced to an no.
“Well, at least we’re rid of the stalker. Now we need you to go check the house we’re going to move to. Look through the windows first, see what’s inside. If it’s only dark-skin beasts you can kill, deep creatures or a mix of both you co back.”
The fairy departed yet again. Sofia counted the seconds.
Ten. Eleven. Twelve…
A handful of Physikstones were dropped at Sofia’s feet.
“Already?” Alith remarked.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
… I need to summon her more often. Maybe she needs a na.
Extending her mana senses, Sofia confird that the other building was now empty. “We just need to clear the way here, the fairy will open the door for us in the other house. When we’re ready we only have to wait until a good mont to cross the street.”
It took more than half an hour for Sofia to find the opportune mont. Stalkers and other creatures road the roofs and streets, and after a careful analysis of their movent pattern, Sofia was confident.
Now!
Pareth opened the funeral house’s door and rushed out, leading the way. The street was only about five ters wide and the group was only moving to the second closest house on the opposite side, it would literally take less than a second with their speed, but Sofia could still feel her useless heart beat furiously.
The fairy closed the door behind the skeletal caretaker who entered last.
I think nothing spotted us!
Sofia barely had gotten ti to get a glimpse of the outside as she dashed from one building to the other. It was the sa as it seed from a distance: two versions of the city were inextricably mashed together, one pristine and one in ruins, both teeming with shimring creatures. Now she stood with the rest of the group in an abandoned house. The curtains were drawn but the building was not barricaded. The floor and walls were littered with huge flakes of dead skin and bits of shredded dark flesh. The fairy had once again utterly massacred the creatures, leaving no corpses to speak of.
It’s like the house was a mortar, they’ve been crushed and ground to bits, all in a few seconds, by one singular tiny fairy... Sofia thought as she glanced in the direction of the invisible miniature lady hovering near the door.
“Pestle,” she mumbled, “that’s going to be your new na.”
Pestle led the way through the houses free of deeplings, Sofia’s new na encompassing any and all shimring-colors-creature, with brutal efficiency. Although the group’s progress through the city was still extrely slow due to their many precautions to avoid attracting the notice of the deeplings, they reached the building that was the source of the voice and music in under a day.
The voice never stopped singing or playing the lyre during all that ti.
The singer, it turned out, was in a very large building, which was almost unaffected by the mixing of the two worlds, standing almost entirely in the light world, except from the general area inside from which the voice ca from. It was also not very far from the building housing a dead god Sofia had seen in her visions, which they were going to go toward next.
After needing to circle around the singer’s building for a good while to find a way in, because its roof was swarming with stalkers, the group finally entered through a side window. They arrived in a dark room with racks and racks of dusty, washed-out clothes.
After double checking that the room was safe, Sofia grabbed one of the garish robes hung on the racks, its colors had lost their lustre but it was still an over-the-top piece of clothing that she could hardly imagine anyone wearing.
“This must be a playhouse,” Alith explained, “the nobles co to these places to watch plays. That’s how it was in my world, at least. My grandpa used to perform in theatres sotis, though I’ve never gone myself, but the most prominent ones would have costus like these for perforrs.”
“Not a coincidence that the singer is here, then…”
“Can you still not feel anything?” Alith asked.
“No, the central part of the building where the sound is from is entirely in the dark world…”
“Any monsters otherwise?”
“A few. There’s a parasite in one of the rooms I think, we have to avoid getting close to that one in particular. But nothing near us right n-” Sofia started to say before stopping herself, a hand on her mouth.
Alith and the others imdiately understood.
The group had closed the curtains of the room right after barging in through the window, and now they could see rays of multicolored glittering light starting to seep through the gaps. Sothing big and luminous had just stopped right outside of the room. Sofia’s mana senses when she tried to peer outside were nothing but a giant void.
Alith gave silent signs, and the group started to slowly retreat toward the far door of the room, silently putting more distance between themselves and the outside, hiding behind the racks of old clothes as they retreated.
Sofia was on high alert, her senses monitoring everything she could, and ready to cancel any magic thrown her way with [Heat Death]. Whatever the creature outside was, its simple presence unnerved Sofia like no other. For a reason she couldn’t explain, it reminded her of Ormoncleth’s envoy on its spire. The incomprehensible thing that had killed her skeleton dog.
The fairy opened the door without a noise, and Bookie was the first out, followed by Alith and the caretaker skeleton, leaving only Pareth and Sofia still in the room about to exit. Sofia went first.
The singer stopped.
A sudden, heavy silence engulfed the moon city. Sofia and Pareth stopped dead in their tracks. Without the singer’s voice to cover the sound of their movents and footsteps, they could not afford to move, even without the creature outside the window, just the stalkers on the roof would be dangerous if they heard them.
Ti seed to stretch as Sofia stood immobile, one foot through the door, with Pareth right behind her.
And finally the voice started to sing again, it was sharper, slightly tense, singing at a higher, wilder tempo. With it, out of nowhere, ca the blanketing sounds of wind and rain as the weather suddenly changed outside. It was more than enough to cover the noise of re footsteps, yet both Pareth and Sofia were still immobile, in shock.
The music sharpened their senses, allowing Sofia’s mana vision to spread much further and be a lot clearer so much so that she could perceive the city all the way to the doors of the palace.
They knew that lody all too well.
Remia’s sixth symphony, second movent… A Tense mystery of Autumn.
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