Chapter 25 — A Minor Incident

She had been careless. Ria berated herself as she activated a shadow-smoke scroll and had Ranger split off to act as a decoy. Suppressing her energy, she hopped a low stone wall and made for the door at the end of the covered walkway.

Once inside the building, Ria was already wrapping herself in camouflage spell before the door was finished closing.

A quick glance around her surroundings showed a long corridor running the length of whatever Order’s hall she was in and an empty side hallway with shadowed corners and a closed door along one side.

Excited voices were already approaching from behind, and Ria made her decision. Running to one of the side hallway’s dark corners, she made herself as inconspicuous as possible.

Normally a simple camouflage spell wouldn’t be enough to deceive mages with energy-sensing, but Tina had gone to a fair bit of effort to teach Ria a version that not only masked the caster from normal senses but also used energy absorption and emission to hide the caster and simulate the environmental energies obstructed by the caster’s presence.

Using magic to hide magic was an odd concept and a feat that required a fair amount of skill. Whether Ria’s skill would be up to the task was an open question.

A cloaked girl stormed into the building together with three of the other similarly-attired girls that had ambushed her. “Judging by the stench, that entitled foreign bitch definitely fled this way.”

“Maybe she went into one of the classrooms to get an instructor?” a girl with a wand held at the ready suggested, sounding a little nervous at the idea.

“No. It’s too quiet for that,” the leader girl decided after a few seconds. Her eyes drifted over Ria’s hiding place before turning back to the longer main corridor. “One of you, stay here in case she tries to slip out if we pass the spot where she’s hiding. The rest, with me.”

“I’ll stay,” the tallest of the girls volunteered, and with nods, the remaining minions hurried to catch up with the leader who had gone ahead.

The girl who stayed behind leaned against the wall and settled in to wait, cloaked and hooded features shadowed by some sort of identity-obscuring enchantment—just like all the dozen or so other girls that had ambushed Ria on her way to her anatomy class.

Ria thought back over the events of the morning. The meeting with Shadwich had gone well, and they decided that the best course until he finished arranging for the needed spiritually-imbued ingredients was for Ranger to also learn the soul-cultivation manual and perform it alongside her. She was encouraged to continue feeding Ranger energy rich foods and treats.

Her elemental magic class with Master Genwald had also gone well. Or so she thought, after having convinced Ellen, the Culinary Order girl, to sit with her and Jax.

Ria sighed. Her mistake clearly was heading to her anatomy class alone. Whether the girls had found out her class schedule, managed a lucky divination, or coordinated with a lookout from her class, Ria had no idea. Considering the resources brought to bear, the truth was likely a combination of all three.

Judging by their sizes and voices—and the fact that she escaped—all were likely first or second-years.

At least they weren’t trying to directly harm her… unless death by stench and embarrassment counted. Ugh. Her favorite frilly shirt and stylish pants were, without a doubt, ruined. Her expensive boots, too. Thankfully, her enchanted cloak and robe had resisted the foul conjured sludge they had wanded her with.

Ria could only sigh at the pettiness. Though she supposed it could have been worse. No doubt they had other sensory tortures prepared for her if Ranger hadn’t stunned them with a magic-empowered bark and floored the leader long enough for Ria to jump past the encirclement.

Ranger had also managed to yank off the leader-girl’s hood, revealing one of the girls that had been sitting with the two purple-haired Vesali cousins during the other day’s abjuration class.

When one of the ambushers snapped off an arc of lightning at Ranger, Ria almost made them all eat fire, but she couldn’t afford another strike on her record and, instead, settled for emitting a blinding flash of light to buy some time.

The tall girl cleared her throat. “They should be far enough away by now. You can come out.”

Ria’s heart skipped, and she froze.

A chuckle followed, and the girl pulled off the enchanted cloak that was obscuring her features. The boyish face with dark hair cut in a boyish style wasn’t what Ria was expecting. Her voice was deeper than expected as well, even so Ria was still pretty sure it was a girl’s voice.

But that wasn’t the most worrisome thing; the girl’s insignia caught the light and was third-year yellow.

“An admirable attempt, but you’re hardly a member of the Gray Tower.” The dark-clad girl tossed the bundled obscuring cloak in Ria’s direction then motioned with her hand. “Come. Let’s talk.”

Though not really sure what was going on, Ria wasn’t about to slap away what appeared to be a helping hand. Scooping up the enchanted cloak and putting it on over her own, she hurried over to the older student and followed her back through the door to the covered walkway, careful to maintain the camouflage spell and not let the gag-inducing smell leak out.

There was one worry that needed to be addressed though. “Um… my next class starts soon.”

“You can’t exactly go smelling like that, can you?” the older girl pointed out.

It was true enough.

A bird-shaped shadow passed along the sunlit grass between the buildings, probably from one of her persuer’s familiars circling above.

“Desi’s my name, by the way,” the third year told Ria as she ushered her into the adjacent building and toward a nearby set of stairs leading to the second floor.

Ria offered her name in return and followed up with the obligatory: “Why are you helping me?”

“The Order of Twilight’s Cloak got wind of this little operation going down, probably when your attackers purchased the identity-obscuring cloaks, and sent me to gather information for our daily news sheet,” Desi readily answered with a sly smirk and directed Ria through a doorway near the stairway landing.

“A daily news sheet?”

The room they had entered was a washroom.

“Yep. It’s mostly useless gossip since we have to scare up interesting and embarrassing information to share each day, but to prove our skills at information gathering we do try to have at least one juicy report in each issue. Today, you’re my ticket to a nice bonus.” Desi laughed.

Ah, so that’s what it was… like in a story she'd read about a merchant’s wife who would pay people for information of interest and published a weekly ‘gossip sheet’ to influence the townspeople and expose the local lord’s corruption, but maybe here it was to make coin and impress prospective employers?

Desi motioned toward the sinks. “Go on. Get cleaned up and changed. I’ll guard the door.”

“So, you managed to infiltrate them? The ones that attacked me?” Ria asked as she set the obscuring cloak aside, shook out and stored her protective cloak and enchanted robe, and cast Create Water to douse herself and hopefully wash off as much of the remaining sludge that hadn’t magically affixed itself to her clothes. Her hair was particularly gross.

“Sure did! Wafted a bit of sleep draught under the girl’s nose and stole her cloak,” Desi proudly admitted. “Once they had the cloaks on, they couldn’t tell who was who.”

Ria felt a surge of annoyance that Desi had been there and hadn’t done anything to stop them, though the rational part of her mind grudgingly recognized that even a third-year would probably have a tough time against that number of first and second-year Vesali followers—and it wasn’t like the older girl had any reason to risk the sludge wands and whatever else for her.

With a sigh, Ria let the camouflage spell dissipate so she could see what condition her clothes were in. The smell hit her again, thankfully less than before. Dreading what she would see, Ria looked down and what she saw caused annoyance to twist into fear. In addition to the expected stained clothing, her hands were stained a sickly greenish brown even after washing.

“Oh, that’s not good,” Desi mumbled and suggested, “Do you have any soap to try?”

Ria didn’t think her hands were in view for Desi to see, but what the older girl saw was readily apparent when Ria raised her gaze to the mirror. Not just her hands, but half her face…

Setting her jaw, Ria made a scented bar of soap appear and attempted scrubbing away the magical stain. It wasn’t coming off.

“I was afraid of that,” Desi said with resignation. “It’s Oberford’s Stenchtastic Sludge of Permanent Staining.”

The rubbing motion became more violent as her fear turned to anger. Permanent. Who would do that to another girl?

Ria’s anger turned to fury. She could feel the detestable magic still worming it’s way into her skin.

Molten chains. Ria reached for that dark place that Ranger had called her back from just the night prior and filled her body with its power, pushing out the foreign magic and annihilating it with her own. A smell of molten metal filled the room.

Still the soap couldn’t remove the stain. Ria threw the soap at the wall with a roar of frustration, cracking the wall tile as the expensive bar of soap pulped into little more than paste.

There was one sure way to remove the stain. But she would have to act quickly before it was too late and the world accepted her current state as her true and whole state. She had managed it before when the light-based magic of her healing scroll had accessed the akashic memory to restore her throat and face from the acid of the quickslime—it had even restored her suntan, allowing her to avoid trouble with Grandma Fana.

The flaw with that spell was that it required an injury to work.

Ria let her fury simmer as she removed her ruined clothes, and tossed them to the stoneshaped floor of the washroom, setting them alight with but a thought.

Even her underclothes had been ruined.

Mentally girding herself for pain, she formed the fire above her palm and moved through the steps of the serpentine fire exercise.

“Ria!”

She would not bear their mark of shame. If she had to be scarred, the scars would be of her own making.

She would start with her hand and then spread the fire over her body. That her hair would need to be regrown was just another reason to make them pay.

With the fire ready, Ria reached for the stained part of her hand... and a hand grabbed her arm. The sudden contact distracted her from her purpose and the fire to roiled, unstable.

“Ria! What are you doing?!” a terrified Desi screamed at her then jerked back and took some distance as if burned by the contact and proximity.

“I’m going to burn it off.” It was obvious, wasn’t it?

“Are you crazy?!”

Ria looked at the older girl. “You said it’s permanent.”

“That’s just its name! The Alchemy Guild sells an ointment that will remove it!”

“Oh.” Ria let the fire dissipate, feeling rather stupid.

“Some stories contend that the wand and ointment were created by rivals, others suggest it was the same person looking to profit off both ends of the prank,” Desi told her and was rubbing a reddened hand. “So, you’re a wild talent, huh.”

Ria’s eyes narrowed. Of all the people to find out…

“What’s going on in here?” a stern older woman’s voice came from the washroom’s entrance.