Glimpsing the Shroud - Part 4

"-ow will I even know when he-"

Aria let out an ear-piercing squeal as she appeared beside John, just outside the little garden shack. She jumped a good three inches into the air, and when she came down, she gave a quick whirl around in all directions, her eyes wild and unfocused. She didn't stop until the third full rotation, well after she'd had plenty of opportunities to inspect her surroundings and see that they were alone. Even then, she kept her arms up and her elbows tucked in tight.

"You can relax, Aria." John tried not to smile too widely at her state of alarm, afraid of making her mood even worse. Even if he hadn't known she was worried, one glance would have told him; Aria was missing her horns, her tail, and even her skin was shifted to a slightly less pale tone, though still a few shades lighter than anything shy of Halloween makeup was likely to achieve. "Deep breaths, it's okay."

"Easy for you to say. I can feel the holy magic in this place. It's unpleasant." Aria kept her voice low the whole time, her eyes roving around the manor grounds, seemingly unsatisfied with her first three inspections of their surroundings. "Like a cough drop, or something, but for your whole body. Just kind of bitter, and unpleasant, and it makes me kind of numb."

"Well, discomfort aside, you don't have to worry about anything. You can keep the human disguise on, though," John added. "Makes things less complicated, and it's not a bad habit to get into when coming to the old world so that you don't freak anyone out. But you're safe here, I promise. I already talked to Moira, and she's not upset. Not about what I thought, anyway."

"What was she upset about, then?" Aria asked, lifting a brow. "Because it definitely happened when she looked right at me. She wasn't exactly subtle."

"It's a bit complicated. Remember when I said there aren't demons in our world?" Aria gave a jerky nod. "Well, there are, they just... aren't like you. From what I've heard, they're more like monsters. They're creatures created from magic bonded with human souls, and from what I've been told, they're mostly feral and attack anything they come near. They don't turn other humans, they don't feed on mortals, they just... kill."

"Bummer. You sure those aren't just rumors and legends, though?" Aria asked. "Where I'm from, demons are pretty misunderstood too."

"I've never met one myself, but yeah, I'm pretty sure." Moira might have been a biased source, but he'd read a lot of books in the last few weeks. Between the tomes he'd borrowed and the long hours spent in the manor's library, he'd read enough to know that any time demons came up in a section of text, they were always regarded the same way. "I'm not going to say it's impossible, but there probably aren't any demons you'd view as anything like you, Aria. Sorry."

"Eh, don't be," Aria said dismissively, giving a shrug. "Wouldn't really matter if there were. Other demons are competition at best, enemies at worst."

"Well, glad to hear that, I guess. And it's not my story to share the full details, but... suffice to say that Moira lost someone to one of those very creatures." Aria was still quite wary, but what little of her usual bright-eyed happiness had begun to slip through was quickly dashed at the mention. "We don't have demons like you in the Abyss, but in the non-magical world, we do have folklore and legends that tell of demons very similar to what you are. And they're called the same thing. So when Moira saw you…"

"Oh gosh. Her brain thought 'demon', and even if we're not the same…"

"Nailed it in one," John confirmed, nodding solemnly.

"Shoot. No wonder she looked like she was ready to smite me." Aria made a grim face, eyes scanning around again. "Soooo, what did you have to do to get me a pass? I can try to make it up to you, somehow."

"Nothing. She trusts me, and she knows you're not the same as those things."

"Wha- really?" Aria blinked, her features screwing up slightly. "Your world is so weird. Demons are all monstrous killers, instead of just the bloody ones, and now paladins that think some kinds of demons are okay?"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," John cautioned. "I can't say she would have been as understanding a year ago. And it's still not easy on her, either."

"Rough conversation?" Aria asked.

"A very unusual one, at least," John admitted, smiling sheepishly as he remembered some of the colorful language Moira had used when she'd been nearly delirious with relief. "She's waiting for me inside, probably keeping Kim in check. We both thought it would be easier for her to wait inside while you helped me check things out. Easier for everyone."

"You know what? That's... probably fair. And right," Aria admitted with a nervous laugh. "Sooo... what exactly am I 'checking out', anyway?"

"That's the hard part. We're not exactly sure." John frowned, though he didn't regret giving Farrah her space in the slightest. "Everything right now is guesswork. I seem to remember that Kim mentioned having a limited ability to sense auras, Moira and her Order are great at detecting corruption magic, and I can passively see magic with my Observe ability, but none of us have detected anything, today or any time before."

"'Kay, well, that's kinda vague. Anything more specific you can tell me about what I'm supposed to find, exactly?"

"Farrah said that it was everywhere. On everything, not just the people, but the objects around us, the air. She was terrified from the very first second after we arrived, and she acted like the only way to escape it was to go back. Before she went upstairs with Aclysia, she mentioned that it was like nothing that she’d ever felt before, from any of us. It could be something completely new, but Farrah is the only one who has felt anything off, so it's probably tied to emotions in some way—that's why we were hoping you could tell us what's going on."

"I mean, I can try," Aria offered, "but I'm going in blind here. I've never even been to this world before, and the whole place is practically baking in holy magic. I'm not sure how I'd notice if something was different."

"From the way Farrah reacted, it should be hard to miss," John muttered, brows furrowing as her terrified wails played again in his mind.

"Hey, hey, you are entirely too down about all of this." Aria had stepped over to John without him noticing, his attention turned inward and his eyes cast to the ground. She leaned into his field of view and smiled up at him, one palm gently soothing his cheek. "Farrah's feeling better now, and she's not actually hurt, just shaken up a little bit. And even your meeting seems to have gone well! One less secret, one less worry. I'll do my best to figure this out, okay?"

"Thanks, Aria." John gave her his best smile, but it didn't seem to move the incubus' worried expression much. "One other thing: Farrah said that I was the only thing that didn't feel 'like that'. I don't know if that helps."

"Not yet... but maybe. Give me a minute. Can I walk the grounds?"

"Probably. One second." John peeked his head outside to see if anyone else was around, but silence still draped itself over the manor's lawn, and there was no sign of anyone emerging from the manor's solemn entrance. "Yeah, you're good. Like I said, you might wanna-"

"Ohhhh, trust me, the extra-demony bits aren't showing up until we get the fuck out of here," Aria said with a tense enthusiasm, accompanied by a vigorous shake of her head. "You're gonna be the only horny one for a little bit, Master!"

Aria booped him on the nose as she strolled past and headed for the perimeter, not very subtly heading away from the manor itself. John trailed behind her, his own eyes occasionally following her line of sight, but for the most part simply waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

She never spoke as she patrolled the grounds, offering no explanation for her seemingly random twists and turns over the grass and concrete beneath their feet. Her eyes traveled over every little nook and cranny, tracing the lines of the manor's outer wall, the few bends and turns in the pathways, and even the various features that those pathways circled, as if expecting to find some magical secret in the depths of the fountain. John remained silent for as long as he could, but after they'd finished a full loop of the manor's front yard and were beginning their second, he found himself growing too anxious and impatient to continue on.

"Well? Anything?" John prodded lightly. "It doesn't have to be anything big. Even a little clue could point us in the right direction."

"No, nothing. Not yet, anyway," Aria said dismissively, taking a few more steps before she finally came to a stop. She whirled on the heel of one shoe, facing John with an inquisitive look on her face. "Can you summon someone here? One of the others, any of them will work fine."

"I could. That would put the spell back on cooldown, though. You'd be stuck here another five minutes." That had been true when he brought her, of course, but John didn't want to take the chance that Aria had missed that little detail and panicked when she was stuck on "holy ground".

"That's... well, maybe it's not exactly okay, I'd like to get out of here as quickly as possible, actually." Aria muttered the last part with a grimace on her face. "But it's fine, given the circumstances. Farrah said you were different, so I need someone else here if I'm gonna be thorough, and it needs to be someone I'm used to being around. Besides, I'd rather be stuck here another five minutes than have you go drag someone out of the manor anyway…"

John gave a nod of understanding and set to work, twisting the ring on his index finger. A few quick words were all it took for Sophia to be ready, and then Summoner's Warp transported her to the Brighton Manor's yard in a blink.

"You wish to inspect me?" Sophia asked, turning to Aria and stretching her arms out a little.

"Huh? Oh, not like that," Aria hastily explained, already circling the amazonian woman, her far skinnier frame threading its way around Sophia's muscular figure. "Nice bod, though. You sure you don't want me to change up my figure a little more for you, Master? Between her and the bunny-girl, I'm thinking you might have a type."

"Focus, Aria."

"Right, right." Aria continued her examination nonetheless, leaning around Sophia so energetically that John started to doubt her words about it not being a physical inspection. She spent a couple of minutes just walking around her, occasionally humming to herself, closing her eyes and re-opening them on two separate locations. "Well, I can't feel other people's emotions quite as well as I can yours, but I'm not getting anything significant from her."

"What about insignificant?"

"Well, that would be, y'know, insignificant?" Aria said questioningly, looking over in John's direction to offer him a dubious shrug. "I mean, I can sense lots of changes in people even moment-to-moment. You mortals especially. You're always going through mood swings, and half the time, you don't even notice it yourselves."

"Generalize as best as you can," John encouraged, filtering through the slight exasperation he felt at trying to get a proper answer on this nebulous thing he wasn't even sure existed. "How does she compare to what you normally feel from her, on any given day, any given minute, when she's just standing around?"

"Um... well, I guess if I had to pick one thing, a little more frightened?"

"I am not frightened," Sophia scoffed immediately.

"Not like, actually terrified, 'jump out of your pa-' uh, 'your armor' type scared," Aria elaborated as her eyes wandered down to Sophia's thighs. "This is quiet fear. You're just kind of more on guard."

"I am alert," Sophia corrected.

"Right, well, it feels like fear to demons, okay?" Aria said, rolling her crimson eyes at Sophia's defensiveness. "And that's probably just because of where we are. Or, uh, it would be if it were me. I know I'm feeling pretty 'alert' right now…"

"I am aware that this world is more dangerous than our home," Sophia acknowledged despite her earlier objections. "Father frequently finds his way into trouble during his visits here."

"Exactly. And that's kind of what I'm talking about," Aria said. "You might not notice them yourselves, but I feel every little twitch of emotion. Well, at least I do when I'm paying this much attention to them. You can feel differently based on what you're looking at, what you're thinking about, if you have any good or bad memories in the place you are, all sorts of stuff. Maybe there could be something affecting her, something little, anyway. But it's hard to filter out all the background noise of life to be sure."

"Well, what happened to Farrah wasn't exactly 'little'," John noted. "Sophia, while you're here, do you feel anything different? Has anything changed from the last time I brought you to the manor?"

Sophia didn't answer at first. She stayed quiet and craned her head around, eyes scanning the environment before finally returning to John. "No, Father. It is somewhat unsettling to see this place so deserted, but there is nothing else that feels off from any other visit."

"Didn't think so. Well, thanks for coming out, anyway," John said, shaking his head. "Cooldown hasn't quite finished yet, but there's not long left on it now. Once it finishes I'll send you both back."

"Actually, could we do one more test?" Aria asked, glancing over at Sophia. "Sophia, would you mind closing your eyes?"

"If it is to aid our Father, I suppose, though I do not enjoy lowering my guard so..." Sophia closed her eyes all the same, crossing her arms and widening her stance a bit, as if to compensate for the lost sensory awareness with physical readiness. "How long must I keep them closed?"

"Just until I say to open them." Aria leaned in once more, checking Sophia's closed eyes briefly before she darted over to John, lowering her voice to a whisper as her lips tickled his ear. "Send us back without saying anything!"

"What? Oh, I-"

"Shh!"

John nodded, thinking he had an idea of where this was going. Aria hastily dashed back over to join Sophia, whose lips were tightening little by little as the seconds ticked by. Fortunately, she didn't have to remain statuesque for much longer. By the time Aria and John strode over, there were only a few seconds left on the cooldown for Summoner's Warp, and with the simplest of thoughts, Aria and Sophia were both whisked away from the old world.

"Well, hope she learned something." John gave the yard a final look before striding toward the manor, eager to put all of this in the past for a little while and focus on the training. He'd made it nearly to the top of the entry stairs when a faint voice tickled at the back of his mind.

"Father? Aria has requested that I deliver a message to you, as her attempts to seize the ring herself were unsuccessful." Sophia's voice blended amusement with annoyance reasonably well, even through a mental link. "I am not sure of its use to you, though. She says that she was able to feel something during our shift between worlds, but was unable to pinpoint it as anything other than..."

There was a pause, a silence with no way for John to know the cause.

"She is certain the correct word is 'tranquility', Father."

"Tranquility?" John repeated, tilting his head thoughtfully. "And she felt it at the moment you went back to our new world?"

"Yes. Only for a moment, however. She insists that the moment I felt the grass of our home beneath my feet again, it became lost in a sea of other changes."

"Right, thanks, Sophia. I'll leave this ring active; you can disable it on your end instead if my thoughts come through clearly enough to start bothering you. If Aria or Farrah have anything new to say, use yours to contact me right away. Don't push Farrah, though. We can ask her more questions after she's had a night's rest."

"As you wish, Father."

There wasn't any indication that the connection had been severed, but when John's thoughts were the only ones bouncing around in his head for a few moments, he turned his attention back to the manor. He could see a few knights and servants through the windows already, peering out at him, either eager to return to their work or too curious about what had been going on outside to stay inconspicuous.

"Glad Aria decided to lose the extra pointy bits after all..."

The training room was in sight in no time, and anticipating Kim and Etriyya's impatience, John had already retrieved his sword and donned the armor he'd stowed through it all. He pushed the door open and strode inside with a sense of urgency.

"John Newman. It's about time you arrived," Kim greeted without wasting a moment, her arms crossed and body tense.

"I know, I know. I don't think we learned much," John admitted, turning his eyes to Moira. "Moira, I can give you the details during the warm-up dungeon, since I've already cost us-"

"There's something more important we need to address, John." Moira interrupted him gently, with a voice made unyielding despite its softness. "We've just received an emergency call."

"Call?" John had only just gotten the word out when Moira stepped to the side, exposing the full projection screen of a drone that was hovering in front of her. John's eyes widened as he saw what was being displayed. The video feed jumpstarted a chill coursing through his veins while the blood drained from his face.

Adantia was grimacing into the camera, her face bloodied and battered, her head wobbling from side to side as if unable to maintain her focus. She bore a frustrated, furious snarl half-formed on her lips between the winces and twisted grunts of pain. Her clothes were torn, singed, and she was covered in smears of dirt and worse...