Chapter XIX
Silas Art!
First by Zara, second by Mingrix!
***
This was a terrible idea, but Iris went through with it anyway.
She was entirely aware that this could be an ambush. An invitation, via text, to go meet someone in some seedy park in one of the less prosperous parts of town? If the text wasn’t sixty percent emoji by character count she might have suspected that it was something crooked.
As it was... well, it kind of fit that Carrot girl to wake her up at eight-thirty in the morning with ten texts in a row.
She looked down at her phone and shuddered.
Carrot: 🌸 hey iris! 💕🌈✨ it’s carrot 🥕😊💖
Carrot: sooo 👉👈😇 i was thinking… wanna meet up tomorrow? 🌞🌳✨
Carrot: like, actual face-to-face 😳✨ no explosions (probably) 💥❌😅
Carrot: 🌳 there’s that park on MLK 🦆🌼 you know the one 💖
Carrot: 9AM ⏰☀️ sharp-ish 😌💅✨
Carrot: bring your cute rival attitude 😤💖🌸
Carrot: no fighting!! 🙅♀️⚔️✨ just talking 💬🌈💖
Carrot: unless you really want to spar a little 😇💥😄
Carrot: text me back when you can 📱💞✨
Carrot: 🥕💖✨ Carrot ✨💖🥕
Iris had been tempted to reply via a voice recording that contained a few swears, but instead had just sent a single “Okay.” With a period.
She’d dressed up in a nice jacket over her combat gear, slipped her brass knuckles into a pocket, and made sure her items were fully charged and ready. If this was an ambush, then she’d make sure that red-headed idiot regretted it.
It was with her face set in a scowl that she stomped over to the park. It was one of the few parks in the city, and the only one where she hadn’t fought a daemon in. Weird, that.
Unsurprisingly, and perhaps unfortunately, Carrot was there already.
The girl was hunched over, hat’s brim pulled low as she stared at a phone that was at least five generations old. Iris looked her up and down from afar, trying to get a good feel for the girl.
She had been... nice, the last time, helpful, too. Clearly Carrot had no pressing love for daemon-kind, and Iris could sympathize with that, at least.
Right now, Carrot was in a thick woolen coat two sizes too large, with a burnt-orange ankle-length skirt on and with bright green galoshes on her feet.
She looked like an upside-down carrot. It would be rude to tell her that, wouldn’t it?
“You look like an upside-down carrot,” she said as she approached.
Carrot dragged her attention away from her phone, then her face lit up. “Iris!” she said before clamping a hand over her mouth. “Wait, are you hiding your real identity? I didn’t ask last time, but when you’re out of custom it’s okay to call you Iris, right?”
“I’m never in costume because I don’t have a costume,” Iris replied.
“But the magical girl costume?”
“It’s a combat uniform.”
“It has bows.”
Iris felt her cheeks warming up. “They’re... magic.”
“Magic bows.”
“Nevermind. This was a waste of time. I could have slept in,” Iris said as she began to turn around.
“No!” Carrot said before bouncing... no, flouncing around her. “Sorry, sorry! Tell you what, I’ll pay for your coffee! Or hot chocolate, if you prefer that? I do, my mom says that caffeine can be bad for you. It’s addictive, you know, and can lead to heart palpitations.”
Iris stared, then sighed. “Fine.”
She didn’t want to admit it, and wouldn’t actually ever admit it, even on threat of death, but she had been a little lonely lately. Pappy was the only person she could talk magic with, and now he was gone. There were forums and such online, but they weren’t the best, and the people there were weird.
Iris took off walking, and Carrot hurried to keep up. “So, I’ve been learning a new spell,” Carrot said by way of starting small talk.
“That’s nice,” Iris said.
“How do you learn new spells? I know that the... Ulvent? That’s what your kind of magic is called, right? Ulvents put spells into stuff, yeah?”
“Yes,” Iris replied, a little guarded. Did this girl want to turn her into a glorified crafter?
“Can I learn to do that?”
“What?”
Carrot blinked. “It sounds neat? I mean, so do spells, but I only know... I guess five spells now? I’ve been working on this one spell for like, a while, and it doesn’t work. It’s meant to make me move faster and be stronger, like that you did, but instead it mostly makes my clothes explode, and I really can’t afford to test it too much.” She pinched her jacket. “I don’t have that big of a wardrobe.”
Iris felt as if her head was spinning for a moment, then she shook it and refocused. “No. You can’t learn Ulvent spellwork. It’s inherent to us. Though... I suppose a wizard can learn to copy the form and function of some of our spells. It won’t be as efficient or effective.”
“Oh, cool.”
“But that requires a deep understanding of the arcane.”
“Shoot,” Carrot said. “My understanding isn’t deep. Well, I guess that depends. How accurate are most anime when it comes to magic?” Iris stared at her. “Yeah, didn’t think so.”
“I won’t tutor you in using magic,” Iris said. “The only reason I came here was to have someone to discuss the Master issue in our city,” she lied.
“Oh. Yeah, that is an issue. And I guess I don’t need a tutor. Mister Silas, the wizard that’s also been working on fighting that Master person, has been showing me a few tricks! He taught me a spell yesterday.”
“What spell?” Iris asked, wary.
“It’s called Shield. It’s kind... of lame? I’m not good with it yet, either, so I need to do the whole incantation and wave the magic around, and while you can totally just overpower it, it’s really not made for that? I’ll need to adjust the spell in a bunch of ways, but I’m not really good at that, so it’s mostly trial-and-error for now. Oh, do you want to go there?”
Iris was so caught up in Carrot’s explanation that she almost missed it as she pointed to a place across the street. It was a cheap little coffee shop. She shrugged, then they crossed the road. Iris very pointedly ignored the way Carrot extended a hand to her and looked both ways. What was she, six?
They slipped into the shop, and Iris was thankful to find it much warmer and rather uncrowded despite the hour. They got to the front of the line and eventually got to order. She grabbed a large hot chocolate with all of the trimmings and a pastry, since she’d skipped breakfast, and Carrot ordered the smallest size of hot chocolate they had. When it came time to pay, she felt a small tug of guilt. Carrot had a small broccoli-shaped coinpurse, clicked it open, then fished out some crumpled notes and loose change, then counted it out on the counter.
The girl wasn’t dressed rich. It might’ve been a fashion statement... maybe? One in the vein of showing just how little Carrot cared, but Iris was starting to suspect that it was mostly a monetary issue.
“I’ll cover the next one,” Iris muttered.
Carrot’s eyes widened and her smile was beatific. “That's nice of you!”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Iris said. She grabbed her drink and food and made her way to the cover of the cafe where they wouldn’t be overhead, then she reached into a pocket and pulled out a totem.
“Is that a popsicle stick?
“No, it’s not,” Iris replied before snapping the totem which was definitely not just a popsicle stick with magical words carved into it. “It’s a notice-me-not spell. The only way for a proper Ulvent to cast most magics is through an object, but we can do so without using our own energy if we just prepare things well in advance. It’s why, despite the schism with the magical society, they never truly managed to harm us. We had arsenals prepared over centuries.”
“So cool!” Carrot said. “So, uh, the Master?”
Iris sat up straighter. “What do you know?”
“Not very much,” Carrot admitted. She went on to talk about some bat daemons that she had encountered, then a doe daemon as well. That last actually confirmed something for Iris.
“Did you have images of the seal the doe used?” Iris asked.
“No? I didn’t think to take one. Mister Silas might. We did find a notebook with that kind of spell in it, I think? I don’t know how to read spells.”
“Hm.” She was more like a musician that could only play by ear or with instructions? Pity, that. “When... when certain things happened, this Master stole some documentation from my family. It had some notes about certain spells. I think that was why we were attacked in the first place. It felt targeted, at least.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Carrot said.
“It’s nothing,” Iris replied, dismissing the concern. “In any case, I don’t think I know much more about this Master than you do, except that they’re located in this city somewhere. I’m going to try to track them down.”
Carrot nodded quickly. “I can help!”
“Can you? I saw you fight, you’re not so impressive that I’d want you by my side.”
“Oh... well, I guess not? You were super fast, and punched hard, and looked cool doing it too!” Carrot said.
Iris flushed again, then disguised it with a sip of scalding hot chocolate. The truth was that she had been holding back a little. Some resources were difficult to replace, and she had maybe hesitated too long before using them.
“Having a wizard on my side could maybe help... a little,” she admitted.
“Really?” Carrot asked. “Okay then, I’ll help... for one spell.”
“Pardon?”
“I don’t help for free, you know! Unless I feel like it!”
***
Silas frowned at the letter.
He wasn’t a fool. Things had escalated far beyond the remit of his mission here. A rogue wizard training up daemons and teaching them magic while organizing them like an army? That wasn’t the task for a Rank IV wizard on their first solo operation.
So he did the sensible thing, and sent a letter.
It was a little... old-school, admittedly, but with the right spell squeezed into the stamp his letter was able to bypass any scrutiny and had been shipped off with great haste to the magical society.
Today, he told Carrot that he would be busy today and to stay out of trouble, then he camped by the entrance and waited. It wasn’t long before he received a reply.
To Wizard-at-Arms Silas Switchbranch
Ordo Venator
Your submitted report has been formally acknowledged and entered into review. Verification will proceed in accordance with established protocol. Until such time as this process is concluded, you are to remain on standby and available for further instruction.
Your assigned directive, namely the identification and elimination of all daemonic presences within the city of Julberwood, remains active and unchanged. Failure to discharge this duty in full will be duly noted and may result in adverse consequences to your professional standing.
By authority,
Report Department
Ordo Logistica
Silas rubbed at his stubble-covered cheek. He knew that the ordos were all a little busy lately, it was probably one of the reasons he had been given such a hard mission, but... still, he had expected a little more than this?
Or maybe he had been simply hoping for more. A slap on the wrist at this point would be worth it to get out of a situation that was growing this complicated.
But alas...
He sighed, then flicked his wrist and cast a wordless, rather magically wasteful, cantrip that lit the page on fire. The burning remains were tossed in the sink.
He had to figure this one out on his own, then. Great... he could probably do that.
***