Blood Magus Chapter 80

AN: Another long chapter. Hope you enjoy!

The first thing Zeth did when he got back into town was get something decent to eat.

During the days he was stuck down in his lair, he’d been forced to sustain himself off of the food he’d stockpiled from Astrys’s raid on the bandit camp, which had all just been whatever seemed most able to be preserved long-term out of everything she’d brought. And, since it seemed like the bandits had gotten all of their resources from theft, they probably ate everything good the moment they got it, meaning Zeth had been eating leftovers of leftovers—nothing that was even remotely selected for taste.

So when he got into town and saw that everything seemed to be going fine at least on a surface level, he headed to a tavern and bought himself a nice bowl of stew to eat as he relaxed, relishing the time spent out of that claustrophobic underground base.

Once he was done with that, he headed straight for the Inquisitors’ prison, where they held their witnesses. He wanted to check on everyone, considering how much time had passed now, and to ensure the Inquisitors had been acting with basic human dignity—or, at least, what amount of dignity they retained after needlessly imprisoning a group of innocent people.

However, as he walked up to the familiar stone building, he found that it didn’t have anyone crowded in front of it trying to get in like it did before. Maybe they were letting people in for visitation more quickly now, so nobody had to wait?

He walked up to the front door, finding nobody around to even ask what was going on, and tentatively knocked.

When he rapped his knuckles on the hard surface, it suddenly swung open, and he found himself face-to-face with the shining porcelain mask staring at him. It’d been a bit of time since he’d seen one of these people, and the false face still creeped him out, staring soullessly into his eyes.

The Inquisitor stepped forward, plate armor clanking with the movement. “What is it, citizen?”

“Uh, I was just wondering if I could be let in to visit my—”

“No outsiders are allowed in on this day. Leave now.”

Before he could even attempt to respond, the Inquisitor unceremoniously shut the door in his face, leaving Zeth staring at a blank wall.

He frowned. Seemed like that was why nobody was around. But why weren’t they letting anyone in? It certainly hadn’t sounded like they planned on refusing entry after that first day, or anything. Had something happened?

Zeth felt a sense of unease, being refused in his request to see his own family, and he resolved himself to find answers—answers which likely wouldn’t come from those statuesque officers. So he turned and headed back toward the main town, hoping he could ask around for some answers. If nobody else was there, everybody was probably already informed on what was going on.

Back on the cobblestone streets, Zeth wandered up to the first guard he saw, a woman who was standing idly by a building. He wondered if their jobs had been made easier or harder now that the Inquisitors were here. Technically they didn’t have to worry about the Blood Mages anymore, but he imagined their arrival caused plenty of other issues to deal with.

“Excuse me,” he said.

“Hm?” She looked over at him.

“What’s up with the Inquisitors right now? Why can’t I visit their prisoners like we were allowed to earlier? They didn’t explain.”

“Oh, they don’t have the manpower at the complex to let people in right now.”

“Really?”

“Yeah; they’ve only got a couple dozen soldiers.”

“Well, sure, but where are the rest of them?”

“Hm? You didn’t know already? They’re doing a big push to explore the guild mines.”

“Oh, huh. I hadn’t heard.”

“You really must’ve been living under a rock these past few days, then. Everyone’s been talking about it. You didn’t even hear that they were shutting down guild operations to ensure nobody tampered with anything while they searched? Everyone’s been out of a job these past couple days because nobody’s allowed near any guild building.”

“Wait, really? So nobody’s getting paid?”

“That was what the guild originally said when the Inquisitors said they were shutting them down. One of the leaders, I don’t know his name, made a whole big announcement in the town square about how the Inquisitors were forcing them to suspend activity and how it was their fault nobody would be getting paid, and everyone started getting pissed. I was on duty that day, and so I was on standby watching the crowd, and it started getting bad enough with the protests and shouts against the Inquisitors that I started preparing to intervene. But then, in the middle of everything, one of those masked weirdos walked right up on the stage, over to the leader where he stood, and ordered him to pay every single person the normal wages they’d be paid if they worked those days.”

“Seriously? They just told the guild to pay everyone and they did?”

‘Well, at first the guy refused, obviously, and started explaining why—how it was unrealistic for them to take such a loss and doing something like that would cripple them and so on. But the Inquisitor just drew their sword and said that the town was under Inquisitor control at that moment, and so any disobedience to an officer’s orders would be met with ‘immediate, unceremonious execution.’ The guy looked pretty freaked out, so he just said everyone would be getting paid after all, and ran off.”

Zeth chuckled. “I wish I could’ve seen something like that. Maybe the Inquisitors aren’t so bad, after all.”

She shrugged. “That’s what the people in town are thinking. But if you ask me, I wouldn’t get too comfortable with them. Sure, they’ve been doing some good around here, letting people visit their families and ensuring people get paid and whatnot, but the way I see it, they’re not really doing that for the sake of helping people as much as they are for the sake of ensuring nobody gets in their way. It’d be real inconvenient to have a protest, so they’re just exercising their power to make sure the people are content. I’d be willing to bet that if the crowd looked more sad and depressed about the news instead of loud and angry, they wouldn’t have done anything. But that’s just my opinion—don’t go spreading it around like it’s fact.”

“Right,” Zeth said with a nod. Considering what he’d heard from Alfon, they seemed like they only really cared about accomplishing their goal of catching the Blood Mages. So if it was easiest to do that when the people were happy, then they’d make sure the people were happy. But his mind couldn’t help but wonder what might happen if that stopped being the case.

“Anyway,” the woman said, “was that all?”

“Oh, uh, I guess so. So the Inquisitors are all at the guild searching the mines?”

“Seems like it. They did a cursory exploration a couple days back, and it doesn’t look like they found any direct evidence, but they at least found something that got them curious enough to redouble their efforts and send in pretty much everyone for a more proper expedition. And those tunnels are pretty expansive, so who knows how long they’ll be down there.”

Zeth frowned. What could they have found to make them want to continue searching?

“Well, I’m supposed to be on break, so if you don’t have anything else to ask…”

“Oh, yeah, sorry. I’ll get out of your hair. Thanks for the information.”

After that, Zeth started heading for the guild’s offices and mines. His curiosity had been spurred by the guard he’d spoken to when she talked about the Inquisitors sending all these officers down into the mines. What had they found? He couldn’t think of anything that would be enough evidence to warrant further exploration but not enough evidence to damn the guild right there. Maybe an entrance to a secret lair? But surely, if they found something like that, they wouldn’t be so lackadaisical waiting several days before organizing an all-out raid.

Of course, Zeth wasn’t about to go into the mines himself, with how it seemed like nobody was allowed in there, but he at least wanted to see for himself what was going on from the outside. Plus, there was another reason he wanted to check the place out.

He’d been curious, while he was stuck in his lair, of how the cabal had managed to spare so much manpower to send all of those people after him. Surely, they all had jobs to do in town, right? But it seemed like that whole search party business had been a result of the Inquisitors’ actions. The entire guild had been shut down; that meant the citizens in town were out of a job, and the cabal members. All the people who normally spent their time in the offices had nowhere to go, and so Zeth had to imagine they just went out to search in the forest based on a hunch since they had nothing else to do.

But if nobody was in the offices anymore, that meant Zeth could freely prowl around without being interrupted. It seemed like the Inquisitors didn’t find anything in there, meaning the cabal had likely erased any ritual circles they had lying around, but that didn’t mean there was nothing in there. Zeth knew what to look for, so he felt like there was at least a chance he may be able to find something in the offices that he could point the Inquisitors toward as evidence that the guild was involved with the Blood Mages.

When his destination came into sight, Zeth looked over at the nearby mine entrance, the two doors leading into it shut tight with a pair of Inquisitors guarding the entrance, looking straight ahead like a couple of statues. Zeth was once again hit with a pang of curiosity as he wondered what may be going on in there, but he shook the thought from his mind, turning to face his goal—the guild offices.

They’d been mostly reconstructed ever since the fire during the fleshtaker attack, when one of those terrifying Sixth Realm beasts escaped from the cave and rampaged through the town. The guild offices had taken a brunt of the fire damage—likely because they’d used one of their Fire Rituals or a summoned demon to fight the fleshtaker off—and it still showed some of the superficial scorch marks, but there at least weren’t massive holes in the walls anymore. Of course, structural issues like that would’ve made it way easier to get in, so Zeth was a little disappointed that they’d already patched it up. He’d just have to break in another way.

Though, he didn’t want to get in trouble for sneaking around, and he didn’t know whether these offices would be guarded on the inside or if they were completely abandoned, so he decided it would be best to take his time here and thoroughly examine them from the outside before trying to get in. He eyed the Inquisitors standing at the mine entrance as he approached the offices, wondering if they were watching him, but the mine entrance was a bit far off, only barely in view from the office building, so he doubted they’d be watching that specific place too intently from where they stood. They were likely more concerned with people close-by trying to sneak into the mines.

Zeth walked around the guild offices, circling it a few times as he casually glanced through windows to try and see if he could spot anyone in there, but didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. It seemed like a perfectly normal office building. But, of course, he knew it was anything but that. Even if they removed the most obvious evidence of their existence, Zeth knew the cabal must’ve made at least one or two sloppy mistakes cleaning the place up before the Inquisitors examined it. And he’d find those mistakes.

After spending a while examining the offices from the outside, Zeth decided it was time to try and get inside. He’d already tested the front door and found it locked, but with Ephemeral Bloodforge, he was excited to see if he could find a way to shape his blood in the exact right shape to mimic the key to unlock the front door. Of course, doing such a thing would look mighty suspicious, so, standing in front of the building, he glanced around to see if anyone was watching him.

However, as he did that, Zeth saw something strange. Over at the mine entrance, where the two Inquisitors stood, the doors leading into the mineshaft burst open and a third Inquisitor ran out. Their mask concealed their face, but from their posture, they looked panicked and exhausted—something Zeth had never seen in these people before.

They quickly turned to the guarding officers, saying something that Zeth was too far away to make out. But whatever they said, it spurred the other two Inquisitors to action. They drew their swords, turning to…face the mine entrance? It looked like they were trying to fight something that would be coming out of the mineshaft. But wasn’t the job of the guards to keep people from getting in?

All three of them stood there, weapons drawn, cautiously facing the dark tunnel that the wide-open doors led into, but Zeth couldn’t see anything that might be coming through. He felt on-edge, though. Something was wrong.

Soon enough, he spotted more Inquisitors sprinting through the tunnel out of the mineshaft, coming through the doors and arranging themselves in a semicircle around the entrance, weapons at the ready like they were preparing for an all-out assault. Soldier after soldier came running through, until there were a total of twenty Inquisitors all standing with their weapons at the ready, facing the dark tunnel.

People walking through town had noticed what was going on at this point. Some saw the clear warning signs that something bad was about to happen and began retreating from the area, while others drew closer with curious eyes to try and see what was going on. Zeth heard murmurs from passers-by—people asking ‘what are they doing?” and “what’s going on?”

However, Zeth had a theory. A bad one. His mind came up with a series of events that he felt was unfortunately very likely to be what had happened.

According to the guard he’d spoken to earlier, the Inquisitors had apparently found some piece of evidence down in the mineshaft to make them want to investigate further. For a bit, he’d been confused, wondering what that evidence could have been. But then his mind went back to when he’d first been practicing with his Class, working out of the shed, and that mage woman had come and investigated, using some sort of Skill to show all the mana that had passed through the area in recent days, which had been what forced him out of the shed and into the forest. If the Inquisitors had a similar ability—one that was more powerful than the mage’s—what if they’d used it down in the mineshaft?

Zeth could think of one place that would light up brighter than any other: the branch of the mineshaft that he’d gotten stuck in. The Blood Mage—who he had learned was Otis, of Otis and Roul’s fame—had conducted an absolutely massive ritual with hundreds of human sacrifices to give him the Blood Magus Class, which Zeth had claimed for himself. But if Zeth’s simple Empowerment Rituals had lit up the shed enough to cause the mage woman alarm all those days ago, he had to imagine that, even if it had occurred months in the past, the ritual that gave out the Blood Magus Class must’ve been several times more powerful. No way the Inquisitors would see something like that and leave it be.

And if they saw something like that, they’d want to dig through the cave-in blocking their way to investigate further. And if they dug through the cave-in, they’d generate quite a lot of noise. Noise which would echo through the mineshaft, through the opening Zeth had made in the mineshaft wall to escape, through the cave he’d wandered through, and into the ears of every single monster that resided in that cave. And when those monsters came to investigate, they’d find twenty juicy humans, ripe for the devouring. A single fleshtaker had been enough to wreak havoc across this town. But there was more than a single fleshtaker in the cave. If the Inquisitors had inadvertently gotten the attention of all of them…

As Zeth watched, down the dark tunnel the Inquisitors were circled around, he spotted the barest shine of white at the far end. Not the white of an Inquisitor’s armor, though it was still a familiar color—one he’d seen far too up-close in the past. The white of a fleshtaker’s razor-sharp teeth.

In an instant, the beast at the far end of the tunnel lunged forth. Zeth could barely keep track of its charcoal-black skin as it bounded across dozens of feet in mere seconds and barreled through the mineshaft exit. Its long, spindly body reached out, clawed hands grabbing the first Inquisitor it saw before any of them could so much as react, picked the person up, plate armor and all, opened one of its many mouths so wide it looked like its whole face was stretching to accommodate for the one massive maw, and shoved the soldier head-first into its mouth. The Inquisitor thrashed and screamed in terror, voice distorted by the mask they wore, but their entire head and upper body went down the fleshtaker’s throat in a single gulp before the beast was forced to pause, unable to get any more of the person down its gullet.

It bit down, crunching the useless plate armor with a horrific squealing echoing out across town as the rest of the soldiers took action, moving to slash at the monster with their shining swords. One blade hacked across its leg, cutting a massive gash in its skin, another stabbed straight through its torso, coming out the other side as it squirted red liquid from its chest, and a third came down and chopped its arm clean off of its body. The monster screeched with its other mouths, the one still chomping down on the snack it had acquired, and it lurched away from them, its thin legs carrying unimaginable power as it leapt far away from its attackers, the lifeless legs of the Inquisitor flopping back and forth with the sudden movement.

The rest of the soldiers looked like they were about to move to chase down the beast, but before they could, another sound came from deep within the mineshaft tunnels. Or, rather, sounds. A chorus of screeches and roars echoed out, along with the skittering footsteps of several dozen more monsters, and the Inquisitors were forced to turn and face the mineshaft again, ignoring the one that had already escaped. This time, they were ready for an attack—but Zeth had little confidence they’d be able to repel everything, considering how many monsters there sounded to be.

The escaped fleshtaker continued bounding through the city streets, away from the Inquisitors, until it eventually got far enough away that it apparently felt safe enough to stop and continue gobbling down its prey. As Zeth watched, petrified, it got on all fours, each disc of its spine poking from its back, and shook its head violently back and forth as it bit down on the torso of the Inquisitor with its deadly teeth. Metal crunched and snapped, along with bone, until the monster managed to completely sever the person’s lower half from their top half, and a pair of legs attached to a waist went flying from the fleshtaker’s mouth in an arc, soaring through the air until they thudded to the ground at Zeth’s feet, splattering blood all across his body. A shattered spine poked out of the mess of large intestine, the jagged metal of the person’s plate leggings doing nothing to contain the innards from spilling out on the cobblestone road. In the distance, the fleshtaker continued in its process of swallowing the top half of the person’s body, the rest of its mouths salivating like they were eager to get their fair share of the next person the beast slaughtered.

Zeth slowly began backing away from the monster, hoping not to get its attention as it ate as screams and shouts spread through town. He could already tell—this was going to be a bloodbath.