Vestiges of a Lost World, Part 4

THE GROUP RELOCATED to an outdoors clearing, the remains of a garden next to a ruined warehouse. The food in the Irilithan was preserved within specially enchanted sacks made by the Temple of Respite, so even after all these years, it was still perfectly edible.

“Lalala, lalalala~” sang the angel, skipping and hopping like if she were in a field trip.

Milla followed behind her, still pouting, with Gromni, Betty and Alaiel in tow. Galardos was at the front of the group, ensuring them safe passage through the treacherous terrain of his Astral Sanctuary.

“This is a good spot,” said the demigod, putting down the bags he’d brought with him.

The clearing was fairly stable, without spatial rifts in the general area. They’d be able to unwind for a moment, without fear of dying from a wrong step.

“Maaan, I needed this!” said the Seraph, kicking off her boots.

It was rich coming from her, given she hadn’t even done anything. That said, she did get killed earlier and just came to life, so Galardos figured she could be forgiven.

“Oi missy, I’d keep those shoes on if I were you,” warned the dwarf. “This goat here’s a real bastard, he’s gonna eat those right away the moment you stop looking.”

Thus he said, patting Betty’s back.

“Pfft, what are you talking about?” rebutted the angel. “Betty here’s a good boy! He’d never do that to me. Right, Betty?”

She smiled at the goat, sweet and confident. The goat bleated loudly in return.

“You see? I told ya!” she exclaimed. “Muack!” then she planted a smooch on the goat’s forehead. The animal merely blinked.

“Don't say I didn’t warn ya,” said Gromni with a shrug.

“Hold on,” asked Milla, sensing a glaring discrepancy. She tilted over and snuck a peek below Betty, and lo and behold, there hung the goat’s testicles — heavy and proud.

“Betty’s a boy!” she exclaimed. “Why the hell is he named like that?”

“Oh, I lost a bet to this moron,” explained Gromni, thumbing at Galardos. “We were playing dice and I gambled who’d get to name him. Turns out, the smart-ass won.”

The demigod scoffed at his friend.

“Gromni, I let you off easy,” he declared. “I haven’t gotten back at you for that tattoo you gave me.”

“Oh, you have a tattoo?” asked Milla.

Galardos begged to the heavens he could’ve swallowed his words.

“Uh… I had,” he said. “The terms were to keep it for one year, so I got rid of it.”

“Aw, really? What was it about?” Milla pressed, innocently.

The demigod paused, looking away nervously.

“Man, I’m starving,” he deflected. “I’m sure glad we found some food, huh?”

Milla looked confused for a moment, while the Seraph scratched her chin, picking at her memories. Then, she started hollering uncontrollably.

“BWAHAHAHAHA!! GROMNI, YOU’RE A MONSTER!! A MENACE, I TELL YOU!!”

She was bawling her eyes out, crumbling to the ground.

“Hehehe—” Gromni laughed, gravelly. “It was a good one, wasn’t it?”

“You’re terrible!” the angel eked out, barely able to breathe. “Maaaan, what a freak!”

“Wasn’t my skin,” the dwarf said, shrugging.

Galardos was tempted to toss him off the Irilithan.

“Whoa, wait, wait!” asked Milla. “What was the tattoo about?”

“Girl, you should’ve seen it!” started the angel, struggling to collect herself.

“Imagine a—”

She was about to describe the thing in vivid detail, but she felt the stare of Death itself bearing down on her. An ominous aura was radiating from the demigod and the wolf.

“I’ll uh… keep it to myself, I think,” said the Seraph, smiling awkwardly. “I like my head where it is.”

Milla pouted for a moment, but after seeing Galardos and Alaiel’s faces, she put no blame whatsoever on the Seraph. It was only natural not wanting to die.

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A FEW MINUTES LATER, Galardos’ stew was turning out nicely. The pleasant aroma wafted in the air, rivaling the late dinner they’d had at Milla’s place the night prior.

“Man, that smells good!” said the angel.

“One doesn’t survive this long without learning how to cook,” the demigod said. More often than not, other people cooked for him, but he’d had several lifetimes’ worth of chances to learn.

“Got some hell of a wine here, too” added Gromni. As if driven by a sixth sense, the very first thing he did after starting their supply run was to find a bottle of liquor.

“Of course we do,” bragged Alaiel. “The Irilithan may be in ruins, but it used to be one of the shining jewels of the Empire. And in time, we shall restore it.”

She had no doubts about it. Galardos yet faced many great and terrible challenges ahead, but they had all the time in the world, and Alaiel would never give up on it.

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As the stew boiled, the group caught up with each other, bringing Alaiel and the angel up to speed about the events that had brought them all together.

“So I’m a Seraph?” the angel said, cheerfully. “Man, what a curve ball. You’d expect me to be all-mighty and all-knowing, but I can’t even use magic like this,” she continued, looking back where her wings used to be.

“So you don’t remember anything at all?” asked Galardos, hoping her mind would’ve stabilized after waiting for some time.

“Nope, not a lick of it,” she replied, without a care in the world. “As I said, I do have many memories of yours and some of Milla’s. But about me? Nothing.”

It remained a huge problem.

The Seraph was alive, but she had become a completely different person. In practice, the actual angel was still dead.

“We need to give you a name, at least,” said Milla.

They’d been referring to her as “the Seraph”, but it made her difficult to address, and they couldn’t call her that in public.

“You’re right,” agreed the angel before clamping tightly to Milla, making her almost drop her food. “I’ll let you pick it for me! Come one, make it a good one!”

“Whoa, wait,” said Milla, nervously. “Are you sure?”

She’d been put on the spot.

“Of course I am!” said the angel. “Would you seriously trust these two to name me?” she continued, glancing over at the demigod and the dwarf.

“Uh… no, I wouldn’t,” Milla conceded.

Galardos and Gromni stared at her like they were offended.

“Okay, let’s see…” Milla began, ignoring them. “How about… Angeline?”

“Really?” thought Galardos and Gromni. Even for the angel, it was too on-the-nose.

“Oh, Angie!” exclaimed the angel. “Mwahaha! A name worthy of myself! I love it! Thank you, Milla!!” she continued, pulling her friend repeatedly until Milla’s head was bobbing sideways.

And thus, Angie it was.

The group indulged in their meal for a while, until the moment came to address the dragon in the room.

“So… What do we do now?” asked Gromni.

The original problem was to protect Milla from the Imperial Inquisition, and later the Zarian Order. But now, with Angeline thrown into the mix, it became difficult to tell what the group was even trying to achieve.

“The plan stays the same. We’re going to Madame Gizelle,” replied Galardos.

Some eyebrows were raised, but he was confident in his decision.

“We have to heal Angeline. Her life is no longer in danger, but she’s missing her wings, her halo, and even her memories. Treating her is beyond me, so we’ll need the most powerful healer in the land. It has to be Gizelle, in the Temple of Respite.”

“I see…” said Gromni, rubbing his chin. “It’s true, the Madame could solve both of our problems. Take the missy under her wing and patch up Lady Angeline, all in one go.”

“Oh, hell yes!” said the Seraph with excitement. “Granny Giz makes some killer cookies, if I remember right. Boy, do I want to try some!”

“Don’t call her that or she’ll smack you,” warned the wolf.

“Hehe, I wouldn’t mind that. She may not show it, but I know — Granny Giz is a baddie,” the Seraph daydreamed in a world of her own.

“Do you think she’ll know anything about my abductors?” Milla changed the topic, having learned not to take the angel seriously.

Alas, the demigod shook his head.

“I don’t think so. Those operatives don’t belong to any faction I know of, and I doubt Gizelle is better informed.”

“Some mighty strange folks, weren’t they?” added Gromni. “The bastards blended Kathenian technology with Imperial magic, and they even conjured a Simulacrum of a demon on ye.”

“I know, right?” the angel joined in. “They even managed to kill me in my prime! The utter madmen! Boy, I wonder how they got me.”

“That I don’t understand,” said Galardos, growing grim. “The squad I fought to free you was strong, but nowhere close to match an Archangel, let alone a Seraph. Someone else must’ve helped them, or they pulled an ambush on you somehow.”

“How do ya even ambush a Seraph? They live in Heaven, don’t they?” asked Gromni.

“Don’t look at me, I don’t remember,” Angie shrugged it off.

“Did we learn anything from the corpse Lady Alaiel brought with us?” the dwarf continued.

“No. I fear the only useful thing on her was her equipment,” the wolf lamented. “Whoever they were, they were extremists. A spell activated upon their deaths, vanquishing their souls. Post-mortem interrogation was useless on them.”

In the end, Galardos and his group were completely in the dark.

“We’ll have to leave the matter of their identity for later,” the demigod conceded, though begrudgingly so. “For the time being, our priority is getting to Gizelle. We’ll adjust as necessary after that.”

The group nodded, and then Milla asked the one million gold question:

“So… how do we do that?”

That right there was the catch.

Galardos was an exile, and after the incident in the forest, their group were about to become the Empire’s most wanted fugitives. With such heat on them, they weren’t at liberty to just stroll into the Temple of Respite and call for Gizelle.

“We have the teleportation circle over at Matellor’s,” suggested Gromni. “If we’re ever going to use it, I’d say the time is now.”

Milla tilted her head, out of the loop.

“Who’s Matellor?” she asked.

“Cousin of mine,” replied Gromni. “Me an’ him owe Galardos our lives, back from years ago. As a token of gratitude, he let Galardos install a backdoor in the cellar at his smithy. You know, emergency access to the Capital if he ever needed it.”

“I’m sorry, Gromni, but I’ll have to call on that debt,” conceded the demigod. “I’ll do all I can to protect Matellor from the consequences.”

“Don’t sweat it; we’d be dead without ye,” said Gromni, brushing off his concern. “And knowing that bastard, Matellor would throw his hammer at me if we didn’t rely on him for this!”

Galardos smiled as he let out a short sigh, remembering the old adventures.

It was clear to Milla he and Gromni had a lot of history between them, but it wasn’t the right time to ask. So...

“Once we reach the city, what then?” she stuck to the mission instead.

“I’ll contact my brother and ask for his help,” replied Galardos. “We can reach Gizelle through him, without drawing attention.”

Galardos’ half-brother, Vahram Alessia. The two of them shared the same father, Cowel Alessia, but were born to different mothers, centuries apart. Galardos had been born to a regular human, whereas Vahram’s mother was the guardian dragon of the Alessia family — the legendary fire dragon, Shuur Galt.

Milla had heard some old stories about him, but didn’t know him much.

“Can we trust him?” she asked. “I mean… you were exiled, right? I don’t know in how much trouble you’ll be if you return to the capital.”

Galardos fell silent for a moment.

“It’s… complicated,” he started. “I wasn’t exiled by the Empress. I left on my own.”

Milla raised an eyebrow, confused. She’d heard time and again that Galardos had been branded a traitor and was a wanted criminal, yet the man himself claimed that wasn’t actually the case.

“I think you should tell her your story, mate. Properly,” said Gromni.

There was no telling what would happen after reaching the Imperial City, so if Galardos was ever going to reveal to Milla the truth, the time was now.

“Very well,” replied the demigod. Angeline had already leaked the overall details of it, so there wasn’t much point in hiding it anymore. “I’ll tell you what happened.”

Milla gulped nervously.

As of now, she’d come to hear the story of Galardos Alessia, the fallen heir of the Great House of the North.