New cover! By SlothBeing!
Chapter XXIX
Iris wasn’t sure if this was a good idea, but... well, she needed to do something, and the time she had where doing things would be possible was quickly reaching a middle.
School was such a pain. She couldn’t wait to be done with it. But then her extended family likely expected her to get a job or at least go to college. She just wanted some time for herself, to perfect her art. Was that too much to ask?
Well, whatever. Today would be an opportunity, maybe. She opened the door, her free hand grasping a pair of beads that were dangling off of a rosary-like bracelet. Each one was imbued with some magic. Not the best Ulvent-made artefice, but it would certainly be a surprise if the person on the other side of the door was here to cause trouble.
“Hi hi and good morning!” Carrot Cuddlesworth (yes, that really was her name, Iris had checked) was standing on her front step, a stupid grin plastered on her face and her hat all askew. She looked like she had dressed herself after raiding a second-rate thrift store. No one needed to wear two mismatching scarves, and skirts that went down to one’s ankles were very... well, old.
“Hello, Carrot,” Iris said. She glanced past the girl’s shoulder, then extended her senses as best she could. As an Ulvent, that wasn’t too impressive of a feat, but it was better than nothing.
Of course, it amounted to nothing anyway. Carrot was like a small, contained bonfire, Though her magic felt a little off from what Iris remembered.
Maybe she was misremembering.
Maybe it was something nefarious.
“If you come with no ill intent, you may enter,” Iris said.
“Okay! Also, that’s a weird way of saying ‘come in,’ do you say it like that for a reason?” Carrot asked as she frumped into the foyer and started to look around with undisguised curiosity.
“Fae. Or vampires,” Iris said.
Carrot blinked. “Fairies are real?”
“I... don’t know, but they might be. Likewise for vampires. I’m just not taking any chances,” she admitted, though it was a little reluctant. If she was wrong, then it might be a little embarassing. If she wasn’t, then the precaution was warranted.
“Neat! I’ll ask Mister Silas. I wonder if elves are real. I’ve always wanted to touch their ears.”
Why was she even spending time with this girl? Iris sighed, then gestured further into her home, towards the main living room. “Come and sit?”
The space was more or less clean. She had run around and picked up anything that was laying about, and the cleaning lady had visited just a few days ago, but Iris did have the bad habit of putting things on any flat surface and forgetting about them.
“Your house is so pretty,” Carrot said.
“Thank you,” Iris said with a dismissive shrug. It was just a house, and not one of the family’s nicer ones, though it was more than good enough for her purposes. “So... you may be wondering why I invited you here today?”
“Nope!”
“Obviously, it’s to... what do you mean, no?”
Carrot blinked. “But I said ‘nope’ that’s different. And obviously you just wanted girl time and were lonely.”
Iris didn’t sputter, she was classier than that, she still found herself wanting to disagree immediately and with some force. “How about you sit down, I’ll fetch refreshments, then explain why you’re actually here. Perhaps I'll get some markers and a whiteboard so that I can explain things with little drawings for you?”
Carrot clapped and grinned and Iris found herself entirely annoyed by the redhead. Couldn’t she at least have the grace to understand that she was being insulted?
Well, whatever. She stomped over to the kitchen and fetched a few things she had had delivered this morning. It wasn’t anything special, sparkling pear juice and a small pre-made charcuterie board that she transferred onto a more appropriate plate. She grabbed a few glass cups, then a pitcher of water, then brought it all back to the living room.
Carrot was sitting on the couch, knees together and hands folded on her lap. At least she could be demure.
“We need to make progress tracking the Master down,” Iris said with no preamble as she set things on the coffee table in the centre of the room.
“Yeah, I agree,” Carrot said. “Mister Silas and I fought one of the Master’s lieutenants two days ago.”
“You did?” Iris asked. She wasn’t that surprised. The wizards discovering another daemon was impressive, but it seemed more and more like the city was crawling with them. “Was it a challenge?”
“Yeah, it was. He was an American fisher. Have you seen those before? They’re kinda rare in the city.”
“No, but I’m familiar with the animal,” she replied. “You called it a lieutenant?”
Carrot bobbed her head in a nod, then leaned forwards when Iris gestured to the table. She grabbed a small cracker with a little wedge of brie on it and tossed it into her mouth. She ate with a hand before her mouth, to keep the crumbs in, though she still spoke while chewing. “The Master has three lieutenants and maybe one other daemon that he keeps with him that’s strong. I’m not sure about that last part.”
“Where did you learn this?” Iris asked.
“That owl daemon we fought,” she started, then paused to swallow. “Mentioned lieutenants, remember? And the rest I got from... interrogating someone. Ah, the lieutenant was really strong, by the way! And I think the remaining two will be even stronger! We’re going to have to work hard to be better.”
Iris frowned at that, then took a canape for herself. She thought as she chewed. “Growing stronger in such a short time is no easy feat. Though I suppose there’s something to say about having no choice but to grow stronger. How powerful was this lieutenant?”
The owl they had fought had been strong for a wild daemon. That much could be explained by the influence of a dark wizard empowering them, but it was still concerning.
“He was Avowed,” Carrot said.
Iris didn’t choke on her food but it was a near thing. “I see,” she said. “Are you certain?”
“Yeah, I am!” Carrot said with absolute confidence. “He was tough, like I said. I don’t think he had a strong vow? But I don’t know about that. It was the first time I fought a daemon like that. I had to use my own Vow to do it.”
Iris paused in the act of reaching for her cup. “You... are Vowed?” she asked.
Carrot made a peace sigh with two fingers. “For the past two days! I haven’t really pushed myself since, but I think my magic is stronger now!”
“I... see. During the fight?” Iris asked. She’d heard stories of such things happening. A magic user could obtain a Vow in a calm, discreet manner, but often a life or death situation would put them in a place where they had the choice to make a Vow or die trying. Not ideal, but not unheard of.
“Yeah, during the fight,” Carrot confirmed. “It was scary. Ah, but it worked out. Do you have Vows?”
“No,” Iris said. It genuinely irked her to think that Carrot of all people was pushing ahead in the magical arts, even if she was just a wizard instead of a Ulvent. “It’s more complicated for me.”
“Oh? Can Ulvent do Vows?” Carrot asked. She seemed genuinely curious, so Iris took no offence at the question.
“It’s not that it’s impossible, it’s just that it’s more complicated. And probably not worthwhile. Keep in mind that we use magic through intermediaries. Objects imbued with our own sort of magic. So our personal link to magic is... well, there is an additional degree of separation. In many ways that can be good. When fighting daemons, it keeps us safe from the corrupted magic that they wield, for example.”
“That’s clever,” Carrot said with a nod. “I really would love to see you make stuff one day! My Vow gave me a super cool magical girl dress! Oh, I’ll have to show you one day... but not here, because I don’t think I can. Too bad you can’t make a Vow easily.”
Her Vow gave her a what? She decided to ignore that. “We can make a Vow. I’ve seen mentions of it in the family records. The thing is, that most of the Vows simply give us access to magic the way a wizard would have it innately, but only for a limited time, and without the decades of training and learnt spellcraft that a wizard of comparable strength would have.”
“Oh,” Carrot said. “It’s like multi-classing.”
“Multi-classing?”
Carrot nodded. “Like... if you only have so much time to learn a class, like Wizard or Arcanist, then you can either be a level ten Wizard, or a level Five Wizard and level Five Arcanist. But even though two fives make ten, it’s not as strong as a ten alone.”
Iris very slowly nodded. “I suppose that makes some amount of sense. If we assume that these ‘levels’ are... non-linear expressions of experience and knowledge and magical strength.”
“Yea, exactly! But multi-classing is good for a few things, yeah?”
She could agree with that. “Hmm, there are two advantages. A Vow often comes with a gift, and within Magical Society being capable of using a Vow is a mark of talent and prestige. So there was some worth for some of my ancestors there. But also, a Vow unlocks potential, and often gives the vow-maker access to new, sometimes unique, expressions of power.”
“So it’s a little bit worth it, then? Like... Arcanist-Monk nine, Wizard one?”
This girl was a weirdo, Iris decided not for the first time. “The real question is more... why create a Vow ourselves when we can have an item that has a Vow instead?”
Carrot’s eyes lit up. “You can do that?”
“I’m... several levels short of that,” she said with an airy wave. “Anyway. These remaining lieutenants. Do we know where they are?”
“Not a clue,” Carrot said. “But I visited Mister Silas, and he’s walking around the city, looking for signs of them. If he finds them, we’ll know. And in the meantime, we can try to grow stronger!”
Iris hummed. “Let’s finish this meal so that I don’t need to refrigerate it, and then we’ll see about growing stronger. I do have some items I’d like to test and I’m certain we may be able to work together.”
Carrot lit up.
“Temporarily. As a measure only implemented because our city is in danger and--get your hands off me!”
But it was too late, Carrot was up and dragging her onto her feet, then the idiot wizard was flouncing around her, singing about friendship and other idiot things.
***