Week 6 Interlude - Roselyn's Bad Day pt2
"Alright, this should give us some time for a breather," Alice explained as she breathed heavily. While her repertoire of spells wasn't particularly impressive, Alice's Sanctuary spell was one of the best amongst her age and a good number above it as well. Most mages would have trouble creating a safe zone hidden from enemy eyes big enough to fit more than two people as well as maintain it for more than a few minutes. Alice didn't have those kinds of problems.
"Thank god!" Roselyn cried out in relief. Blindly running around without a plan could only end in tears after all. With this, they could finally get their bearings and figure out a plan. But before that, there was a very important question that needed to be addressed. "Alright, so what's the deal with you, that book and that mage?"
At that, Alice proceeded to recount the events that occurred up before Roselyn had gotten wrapped up in all this. It all started with Yoshirou having found what looked like a tokusatsu-style hero transformation belt for sale at a yard sale one day. As a fan of Kamen rider shows and the likes, Yoshirou had bought it to add to his own large collection of Kamen Rider merchandise. However, as it turned out, the belt was no children play thing.
When he tried playing around with it, he accidentally activated its powers and found himself clad in a black bodysuit that granted him greater speed and strength than an ordinary person. He had become a real life Kamen rider. However, the transformation was incomplete for the transformation belt was missing something. Driven to found the missing piece, Yoshirou searched for a clue to the belt's origins.
Luck had brought him to Atticus Antiques where the belt had responded to something in the store. With some help from Alice, Yoshirou was able to discover that the belt had been responding to a book that had been in the shop for as long as Alice could remember. While Alice and Yoshirou were figuring out what was the book's relation with Yoshirou's belt, that was when the mage appeared. The mage had introduced themselves as Lazarus Talbot and he claimed to have ownership of the book which he called the Grimoire Grimm. After Alice refused to hand Lazarus the book as per her grandfather's instructions, Lazarus began threatening her and Yoshirou.
It was at that point that Roselyn and Jacob entered the shop and ruined whatever Lazarus was planning. No-one expected to be beaten over the head with a hat stand after all.
"And now we're here." Alice finished, showing signs of fatigue due to maintaining the Sanctuary Spell. It wouldn't long before she reached her limits.
"So let me get this straight? Shikoto here found some magical belt that lets him turn into a superhero in some yard sale. That led to him coming to your shop, Alice where he found that book. Then this Lazarus guy, the guy that I shot with magic arrows earlier, came and tried to make you give him that book for some reason and then I happened to stumble into things. Is that right?" Roselyn summarized.
"Um, yep. I think that's about right." Alice nodded as did Yoshirou. Jacob had been standing to the side, messing around on his phone and staying out of the discussion.
"Goddamn it all to hell." Roselyn groaned as she closed her eyes to let the information sink in. Taking a deep breath and counting slowly to ten, Roselyn opened her eyes and gestured Alice to pass her the book. "Come on, let's figure out what's so special about the damn book before we do anything else."
"Eh? S-sure I guess but Yoshirou and I have already tried opening it but none of us have any idea how to open up the lock. Even though it's been in my family for a long time, no-one has ever figured out how to open it." Alice explained as she handed over the book. Giving the book a look over, Roselyn quickly confirmed a few facts: -
1. The book was most definitely a magical grimoire, a fairly powerful one at that judging by how powerful the suppression glyphs on the lock was. Roselyn was quick familiar with such things so it was surprising to see a suppression glyph of such high quality on a lock. Someone obviously wanted to hide this book from magical senses.
2. The lock appeared to require several keys in order to open it, as well as something slotted into the indentation in the lock.
3. The book was unnaturally warm to touch. Disturbingly it seemed to pulse like a heartbeat.
"Okay, I don't know how to open this book either," Roselyn admitted as she held it out to return it to Alice.
"Here, let me try." Jacob suddenly said before taking the book without waiting for either girl to answer.
"What? Jacob! You're not a mage no matter how tough you are and - what are you doing?" Roselyn had begun to berate Jacob for his attitude when she noticed that her friend was fiddling with the lock, holding some black wire in his hand. "...Are you fucking lockpicking it?"
"Uh-huh," Jacob answered, focused on his attempt at lock picking.
"Dude. You know how to lockpick? Neat." Yoshirou seemed impressed that Jacob knew such as skill.
"Um, I don't think you can pick a lock like that." Alice looked on with doubt. Her family did have the book for a long time so it would stand to reason that they'd already tried something as mundane as lock picking.
"Yeah, Jacob. Not getting into how and why the hell you know how to lockpick, it is clearly a powerful magical lock meant to keep whatever power magic in the book seal tight and out of the wrong - "
Click.
"Done." Jacob declared as the lock on the book suddenly dropped to the ground.
"Sweet!"
"What."
"EH!?"
"Here you go." Jacob ignoring everyone stares as he handed the now unlocked book back to Alice.
"How!? You can't just unlock a magical lock just like that! Things don't work that way!" Roselyn had seen locks like that before. To see someone with no magic within them simply unlock such a powerful lock using nothing more than a piece of metal was almost like an insult to all mages who took pride in magical security.
"Reality seems to say otherwise." Jacob simply replied in his usual unconcerned tone.
"Um, Roselyn! Something's happening!" Alice cried out in worry. The book had forcibly flipped itself open while it was in the blonde girl's hands and suddenly pages were turning as if there was a powerful wind blowing. "Ah!"
Then without warning, pages started flying out from the book. Roselyn's eyes widen at the pages that were suddenly flying all around them. Without the lock suppressing the book, she could now feel the power held within each and every page. This was very bad. Before anyone could do anything, the pages flying around them suddenly shot off in all directions, smashing through the barriers that made up Alice's Sanctuary spell.
"Oh, that's not good," Roselyn said, stating the obvious. All the pages that had come out of the book had already gone beyond her sight and for whatever reason, she could no longer sense them.
"Yes, I'll have to agree with you on that, Miss Summers." Said a familiar grandfatherly voice. Turning around, everyone watched as an old man in a robe and wizard's hat materialized, holding onto an ornate wooden staff.
"Grandpa!" Alice cried out in relief as ran up to her grandfather, catching him in an embrace. "You're alright!"
"Yes yes, children. I'm fine. Thank god for small miracles that all of you are alright as well." Christoph said, hugging his granddaughter back. Carefully pushing Alice off him a few seconds later, the elderly archmage turned to the others with a grave expression. "However, I fear that things have taken a turn for the worse. Come, I shall explain some more back at the shop."
"Eh? But what about Lazarus?" Alice asked, still worried about the enemy mage.
"Oh him? No clue. I believe he retreated shortly after you all managed to escape him. Now hang on." Christoph instructed before slamming down his staff on the ground. A bright flash filled Roselyn's vision along with a sense of vertigo before she found herself seated in a chair back inside Atticus Antiques with the mess she and Jacob caused earlier in their escape now cleaned up. Everyone else was seated as well except there was someone missing. "Now then, please explain to me how on earth did you all manage to unlock the Book of the Radiant?"
Everyone looked at each other before Roselyn, Yoshirou, and Alice pointed to Jacob.
"He did it!"
"Traitors," Jacob muttered sarcastically before raising his hand. "Picked the lock."
"...Goddamn, of course, it would be something like that." Christoph muttered under his breath after getting over his shock. "Right, well regardless, you're now all involved. Alice, I would like you to look at the content page and tell me how many blank lines there are."
"Um, okay. Give me a second." Alice did as Christoph instructed with Roselyn leaning over to take a look as well. The content pages spanned over several pages but as Christoph had said, there were a number of blank spaces between the list of page titles that all seemed out of place. It takes a minute but eventually Alice gave her grandfather a number. "There are thirty blank spots in the content pages, grandpa."
"Tch, thirty pages are missing then. Now then, I'm sure you're all wondering what all this is all about. Well listen carefully and try to keep up."
The next five minutes are filled with Christoph explaining the history and nature of the Grimoire Grimm or as its true title was, the Book of the Radiant. The book was the spellbook of a powerful sorceress known as the Radiant Witch who came from the realms of magic. Much about the Radiant Witch was lost to history but there were several things that were known about the Radiant Witch - The Radiant was protected by a powerful knight known as Grimm Knight, Alice's family was descended from the original Radiant Witch, and the power of the Radiant had been sealed into the Book after her death as did the spirit of the Grimm Knight in order to protect future generations of Radiant Witches.
However, in order for someone to become the new Radiant Witch, a ritual needed to be performed when a new candidate opened the book. Without this ritual, the power within the book would run wild and scatter. Fortunately, since Alice had been the one holding the book at the time, it had partially acknowledged her as a Radiant Witch Candidate. Thus only part of the book's content had been scattered. It was now Alice's duty to reclaim the pages of the book and prove herself worthy as the new Radiant Witch.
According to Christoph, it must have been fate that led Yoshirou to find the Grimm Driver which had been separated from the book a long time ago. The Grimm Driver supposedly allowed one to take up the mantle of the Grimm Knight and protect the Radiant Witch. Christoph then tapped the Book of the Radiant, causing a strange large marble to emerge from the cover which then floated over to Yoshirou. It was apparently a Grimm core which was what Yoshirou's belt had been missing.
"So wait, where do Jacob and I come into this!?" Roselyn asked after Christoph finished explaining. It was a valid question after all. It was Yoshirou and Alice who had to go find these pages, not her plus Jacob was just a non-magical person who had gotten involved because of her.
"Well, the pages will seek out those with strong desires and when they do, they will attach themselves to such a person and cause that person's desires to go out of control. After a period of time has passed, that person will turn into a monster. Now as a mage, you are obligated to help my Granddaughter defeat these monsters and bring the pages back into the book."
Roselyn frowned but couldn't exactly refuse. She was a proper mage after all. If these pages turned people into monsters than it was her duty to stop them.
"As for Jacob….Hang on a second." With that, Christoph snapped his finger in front of Jacob causing him to slump down unconscious. "And memories erased. While lucky, Jacob here is still a normal person and therefore shouldn't be involved in this kind of stuff. He'll wake up with perhaps a small headache and no recollection of today's events."
"....Damn it." Roselyn sighed and look over Jacob's sleeping form. It was for the best, she supposed. Her world was one that even someone of Jacob's monstrous strength shouldn't be a part of, she told herself. The moonlit world was one fraught with perils for the uninitiated and unprepared. No normal human would be able to survive long. "Can I at least get a discount on my order then?"
"Of course! I'm not sending you out there without compensation after all."
"Okay. Now help me figure out a good excuse to give Jacob once he wakes up."
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
"Man, what an asshole. Well, I suppose it can't be helped. Though I have to wonder if Jacob memories can be erased just like that." Ebon had been watching everything that was happening in the shop through the eyes of a Seeker. Christoph's history lesson was quite interesting, to say the least. He'd have to confirm with Evetta later about this Radiant Witch and Grimm Knight. They sounded like folks that the Black Kingdom must have fought with in the past. It didn't help that Jacob got the Heebie Jeebies from the damn book.
"...Kill me…" Groaned a pained voice.
"Oh lighten up, Lazarus. I can't kill you just yet. There are so many things I have to ask you like who are you working for and where you got your cool toys as well as what mages are really made out of. Plus you know, revenge for defenestrating the other me earlier." Ebon said, patting the broken body of the human mage next to him. It had been all too easy to swoop in, beat up the mage and remove him after Roselyn and the others had left the shop. "Oh! And thank you very much for your contribution to the Book of Ebon. I really appreciate it!"
All he got was more pained moaning in response to that.
"Kekekeke, now then...What to do with you?"
In one of his hands was a page that had escaped the confines of the Book of the Radiant.
…
Rewards: 50 Pages filled in the Book of Ebon. 1 Mage captive (Lazarus Talbot)(Good quality). Research options unlocked. Martial Actions Unlocked.
AN: Not really happy about this but I wanted to get the story moving along. Rumour Mill coming up next.
