Raking a hand through her hair, she regarded the king and queen, who turned pale as paper. “What I’m saying is, anything known by those who’ve been taken, the mesmer should know too. That’s how they knew I was a traveler.” She paused, her voice choking. “Frank...knew I was the traveler. My guess is they also know about the mesmer traps now, so those probably won’t work anymore…”
“I...see. We’ll pass the information on. Thank you for letting us know…” Derrick paused, seeming to realize he could see the moon behind her. “Where exactly are you right now?”
She pulled the mirror back from her, turning it so he could see the sea of trees in front of her. “I’m currently flying above the treetops.”
“Oh. I see.” Derrick’s voice was slightly strained, before he shook his head. “Be safe. However, I think it’s best that we deal with this new information as quickly as possible. Was there anything else?”
Shaking her head, she smiled wearily at them. “No, that’s all. Take care.” She closed the connection, staring out at the starlit trees. Was this the truth? Could she handle the truth?
The truth of the matter was that she was basically dealing with the zombie virus of this world. The truth was that she’d killed at least twenty-five creatures that had once been human. The truth was that she didn’t know what to do now.
Was Frank already becoming a mesmer? Could she reverse the process if it was fresh enough? Could she reverse it if it wasn’t? Should she keep killing the ‘monsters,’ or should she be trying to ‘save’ them? Was she already too late? The questions churned in her brain, her confusion and anxiety skyrocketing before she forced herself to take a deep breath in and out, regulating it.
She attempted to clear her mind, focusing on the relevant information. The nine prisoners from last night had most likely not been turned, since it seemed to be a drawn-out process, given that the guards she’d healed from mesmer attacks before hadn’t turned while the virus was incubating in their blood. Frank...she wasn’t sure of. She was sure that the faster she found him and rid him of the virus, the better off he would be.
As for those who’d already been turned...until she could capture one and attempt a healing, they were trying to kill or capture her. She couldn’t put the safety of those who could be saved at risk for those who might not be able to be redeemed. Still, her goal to completely eradicate them would be put on hold until she’d at least tried.
The thing that worried her was the varied results. What if she couldn’t turn them back on her own, but she would be able to if she had the team of healers with her? They weren’t exactly readily available, and she doubted it would be cleared to have the best healers in the city head to the woods. That meant she’d have to capture and drag a mesmer back to the city. Several, if possible. There was also the concern of how she’d get them there, as they were resistant to her compulsion. She couldn’t exactly put everyone at risk with her scheme.
She sighed, coming to her decision. She would rescue the captives and try to capture one of the mesmer, but she wouldn’t hesitate to kill any of them that got in her way. After all, they were still monsters.
Why in the world did they have to be intelligent zombie monsters? She could’ve lived happily without ever knowing this truth.
Chapter Nine – Misdirection
“I wonder if that’s long enough for them to come…” Looking down at the trees below, she imagined the mesmer forces making their way to this spot. Had it been a bad idea to use light magic on the mesmer in the fight before? Probably. Would it draw more mesmer to this area? Almost certainly. Was that her goal? Absolutely. The more mesmer that were here, the less there would theoretically be at her target.
Pulling a rock from her ring, she pulled a single drop of blood from her finger, smearing it over the stone. She then proceeded to treat it like a baseball, sending it flying through the air to the south towards one of the nests she had yet to hit. The slight noise and the smell of her blood would hopefully lead them in that direction, since she was currently high above them, and the winds here would be very unlikely to carry her scent below.
She pulled out a second rock and did the same thing, this time boosting it with wind magic to fly even further south before it plummeted. Satisfied that she’d hopefully cause some chaos as they searched for her below, she set her course to the west. She traveled high above the trees, drawing the meager light of the moon in to cloak her passage in darkness.
Flying high above, she kept an eye on the trees, occasionally catching glimpses of things moving among the boughs towards the east. Both of their speeds were very quick, so she only saw tiny snippets of them as they passed like two ships in the night. Still, it was rather reassuring to her that her misdirection worked at least partially, by the looks of things. She didn’t dare open an illusory window in that part of the woods at the moment, for fear they’d realize they were being watched or that something was wrong.
It took several minutes of flying through the air to reach her target, and she’d taken the time to chew on some more of her meat to refresh her energy reserves once more, happy with how little meat it took to do so. It was rather ironic to her though, and she realized why the monsters would hunt them. Just as these monsters constituted a mana-rich meal for her...humans were the same for the creatures. It was common sense.
Standing in the sky directly above the outer ring of blackened trees, she once again pulled out a rock, smearing a little blood on it before boosting it with wind and hurling it to the south. She saw several figures emerging from holes in the trees, climbing up along the branches and moving in that direction. She pulled the shadow of darkness more tightly around her, hoping that if any of them happened to look up, it would merely look like a dark cloud drifting overhead.
Now that she’d misdirected as many as she could on wild goose hunts, she moved over the deadened trees, searching for any indications of where the prisoners might be kept. Drifting through the sky like a shadow, she searched the center of the encampment for a hollow tree, according to what she’d been able to extract from the mesmer.
The tree wasn’t any bigger than the ones surrounding it. If she couldn’t stand in the sky and search for the center that way, she wasn’t sure how she’d know which tree was the right one, but the center wasn’t what gave it away. The forest floor was littered with crumbling stone, only some of it better kept than others. The stone and trees were covered in scratches, old and new, that indicated the mesmer taint and occupancy.
It was strange, actually. With how ragged the clothes were of the mesmer she’d killed, she realized they practically never took them off. She couldn’t imagine removing delicate cloth would be easy with their long claws, and that indicated the general state of things in the mesmer nests. Building was not all that possible, unless they forced some of their victims to do so. When you had long weapons permanently welded to your fingers, she could image quite a few things became difficult. Even holding a weapon would be hard without stabbing yourself.
More than anything else, she figured this might be why the city hadn’t been overrun before this. They were primarily a melee species, despite having knowledge of life before they turned. They lost what magic they had, and were given hypnotism in its stead. Their physical capabilities were boosted, but something happened to their minds to make them turn on the people they once called families and friends. Was someone under that influence even able to recover? What if their minds were well and truly lost? If she did manage to bring them back to their humanity, would they be able to live with what they’d done?