The Effaced: Chapter Thirty-Five (Patreon)

Rhys’ apartment was in an actual apartment building, not a room inside an airship. That surprised me a little bit – coming from a politician’s family, he had the money and connections to live in an airship, so he must have chosen to not flaunt the wealth. 

Oh, sure, he was still high up, given that he’d punched the button for the thirty-first floor, but even that showed some restraint, considering his building had eighty-four stories. 

As the pneumatic lift puffed to a stop and the brass doors slid open, a guard was posted outside. I felt myself tense when I saw her, but she just smiled and tipped her hat to Rhys. 

“Morning, Mister Ermonte. So sorry to hear ‘bout your father. Who’s your guest?”

“Thank you, Noor. This is Eric Doggan, he’s my guest and a fellow researcher. I just needed to pick up some materials, then I’m off again.”

“Course,” Noor said, looking me up and down. With the way she held herself, I knew she’d at least seen some bar fights, and her eyes fell to the sword and guns at my hips, as well as the thick plating of my coat, then to Hadiya’s anti-divination device floating over one shoulder. 

She pursed her lips, clearly not buying Rhys’ story about me being a researcher like him, but she didn’t argue. She just jotted down a note, then opened the second grate in front of the lift to let us out. I followed Rhys through the halls until we arrived at a normal looking door. He fished out his keys and opened the door, and there was a slight flash of red light as the wards disengaged. 

“Wait here, let me light the guest section,” Rhys said, heading in. A moment later, there were two more quick pulses of red light, and I headed in. 

Glancing around, the apartment was… Normal. Bigger than mine, but not the kind of unending opulence that some of the wealthy might have indulged in. 

That shouldn’t have surprised me, but a part of me had still expected him to have an oaken countertop, maplewood furniture, and carved ebonwood statuettes. 

But no. A plain stone countertop, metal and upholstered furniture, and mediocre views that looked out across the city but were largely blocked by the neighboring building. There were three bedrooms, one of which had been converted into an office, where Rhys had a typewriter and piles upon piles of paper. I didn’t peep into the other rooms intentionally, but I could still see that there was a bed in each one. 

Rhys puttered around his office for a bit while I leaned against the wall, keeping an ear out for anyone who might be on their way. A part of me was absolutely convinced that someone was going to burst in through the windows and start shooting, or that the Saxum private military company that the Arenamaster had hired would burst through the halls, or something else would happen. 

But no, there was nothing of the sort. Rhys packed everything away in his briefcase and then slipped it under his arm with a huff. 

“Alright, let’s go,” he said, and I nodded. We said our farewells to the floor guard, then went back out to the automobile, where Rhys started driving us towards the direction of the hotel. I tried to not let the pre-fight anxiety rush over me. After all, the odds of the Arenamaster attacking this one specific hotel was low. Very low. There were dozens of hotels in various buildings throughout the city. There was no reason for the Arenamaster to attack this hotel. 

Except for the fact that a powerful group was using it as either a front or a shell for some of their operations. But it wasn’t like Zone – No, it wasn’t like Jessica knew anything about Nexus. 

The White Rooms definitely would have, though. Was Jessica’s grocery just a red herring? Just trying to eliminate the loose ends of her children? 

I shook my head and let out a frustrated sigh, and Rhys glanced at me. 

“Nervous?” 

“I am,” I admitted. “And annoyed. I can’t figure out the pattern of the attacks.” 

“Does there have to be one? Maybe she’s just lost it.” 

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I knew her for my entire childhood. She was manipulative and absolutely willing to kill, but she wasn’t the kind of person who just killed needlessly. She always had a reason. I just… don’t know what it is.” 

“We’ve been treating the Arenamaster like a politician, or someone who just wants power for the sake of power, but what if we didn’t? What if we treated her like a spellcaster instead? There’s a lot of power in killing someone that you’re deeply connected to, like family, friends, or even people who take the same office as you,” Rhys said after a few seconds. “It’s a powerful sympathetic component, and often produces more powerful aura sparks or fueled rituals. Sometimes it’s needed to kickstart a bigger ritual. I know that the royal title of Ulacto has to be passed on by each new emperor killing their predecessor. Could she be doing something with that? She was collecting aura sparks, so she clearly needs power.”

I thought about that. The Arenamaster had a lot of connections to demonic powers like the Contractor, the Throne of the Gambler, and some of the other ones. She’d arranged for each of us who survived to have powerful humanoid demons. 

But she was still a witch and a human – well, an elf, but that was close enough. She didn’t have any demonic magic except for the power that her contract with Alyphize gave her.

“When she ran the arena,” I said. “She had the entire place covered in a series of spells.” 

“I read about that,” Rhys said, snapping with one hand, before looking guilty and putting both hands back on the wheel again. “She had an entire network of magic. Mostly mortal witchcraft, but also plenty of demonic magic, and a lot of where the Dreamscape and Fallen Void intersected.” 

“It did a lot of things,” I said. “I don’t know the specifics, but I know it took energy from the crowd and funneled it to the Throne of the Gambler. It also let the Throne watch. And it could collect the aura spark from whoever was killed in the arena. That’s how I got mine. I killed an illusionist.” 

Rhys shot me a look full of so much sadness and pity that I actually felt a little bit uncomfortable, shifting in my seat. I was tempted to say that it wasn’t that bad, but that would be a lie, and he knew that. 

“Yeah,” I said, then lapsed into silence. 

“The only thing that I can think of is that maybe she’s doing something with the Throne of Greed, in order to launch Alyphize and herself to become higher positioned,” Rhys said with a sigh. “Harvesting power from the attacks indicates that. But there are plenty of demons who feed on fear, too, so it could be one of those Thrones. Emotions have a massive amount of overlap between the Dreamscape and Fallen Void’s magic…” 

We weren’t able to come to any world-shattering revelations before we arrived at the building where the Maddox-Jung hotel was. The hotel took up the top thirty stories of the hundred-story hotel, and as we emerged from the automobile and looked up, I let out a sigh of relief. If nothing else, the fact that the hotel wasn’t on fire or exploding was a good sign. 

We took the lift up to the lobby, and I was immediately struck in the face with the opulence of the place. Gold filigree marble pillars to hide the enchantments, a wooden entry desk, and fine hardwood flooring.

Seriously, who would import wood just to use it for flooring? 

As we strode in, I could practically feel the dirty looks that I was getting for my combat apparel. Even Rhys, who’s well tailored suit and tie meant he normally looked far nicer than me, looked underdressed as the people in here displayed their wealth. 

And it was certainly on display. While it didn’t quite cross the line into overstated, ostentatious opulence like the hotel did, everyone’s suits were made from fine imported silks, their outfits were understated in the way that drew attention rather than shed it, and their jewelry was all made of the highest quality metals – I didn’t even need to cast my metal sense for that one, just a glance was enough to tell. 

As we entered, a young girl who couldn’t be more than twenty-five, wearing a bellhop uniform approached us with a beaming smile on her face. 

There was something about her expression that set me on edge. It wasn’t just the fake smile, it was more than that. She almost seemed… Artificial. I was tempted to use one of my spells to break illusions, but that would draw more attention than would be worth it. 

“Ahhh, hello! You two must be our specialty guests. Please, come this way with me,” she said, her smile barely even twitching as she spoke. We followed her up two flights of stairs and into a conference room. 

I twitched as she opened it and gestured for us to go in, and though her smile didn’t flicker, her voice dropped down to a whisper, the words twisting to land into my ear, and my ear alone. 

“Trust me, Mist. If my employers wanted you dead, you would be dead. I wouldn’t mind that order coming through, though. It might be fun to throw the skills of the greatest duelist in the undercity’s history against my own.” 

The voice was that of a young girl, even younger than the face indicated, and it was somehow both snooty and street-tough.

“Thanks for the complement… Egress,” I muttered under my breath, certain she would be able to hear me. 

That was just a guess on my part. It was possible that this woman was someone new, an unknown factor. 

The person who’d killed Senator Ermonte had been clean and skilled. The Contractor’s three suggested assassins didn’t line up perfectly – Bloody Eyes had been working with Hadiya, Horse would have needed access to the ward schemes in order to devise the shot, and creating even a basic portal was difficult. 

But someone had killed Horse for a reason, and had bound a flesh elemental to do the job. Furthermore, the mind magic that had been the lock on Horse’s body hadn’t been mortal magic either. And now Rhys was going to take a mental compulsion that was made using non-human magic. 

Like Hadiya had said, a sufficiently competent Druid with good resources could have bound the flesh elemental. It would take a Druid with access to a good amount of resources to produce mental bindings and compulsions as well. And a Druid with a penchant for being slippery and sneaky with the resources of a powerful organization could have gotten her hands on the ward schemes for an apartment, or at least gotten enough of a look for an abjuration witch with an enchanted rifle to take the shot. And a powerful organization like that could nudge the constables to ensure that none of the constables found evidence of an abjuration ritual in the nearby buildings.

It was still rank speculation, but the pieces fit together.

The woman didn’t confirm or deny it, but her fingers twitched slightly and she leaned back, physical tells that the illusory mask that she was probably wearing wasn’t entirely able to hide. 

Rhys missed our entire conversation and strolled into the conference room without fear, which was enough to nearly get me to pull my hair out in frustration, but it also broke the standoff between Egress and myself. I stepped in, and she pulled the door shut between us.

As I took a look around the room, another whispering wind message trickled into my ear. This time, she sounded serious and a little more mature. 

“From one street-rat pulled out of the gutter by someone bigger than them to another,” Egress said. “A bit of advice. Don’t treat him like someone that you can bargain with. That will just make him angry.”