Author notes: Sorry all, I kind of forgot to post on Wednesday, and today is very late! It’s almost 6:00am here and I have only just submitted an assessment due in 6 hours. I’ve been working on this for the past 18-20 hours…
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Metzger, Laurence Academy of the Gifted
10:00pm.
The private school known as Laurence Academy of the Gifted was a historic building from the late 1900s that still stood to this day. Despite countless renovations over the year to modernize the building with new materials and very expensive polished brass decor, it’s age truly showed through its heritage red bricks that had faded over centuries.
White ash and red maple trees were spread sporadically over the meticulously kept school grounds, with the red maple trees were the most common. Several months from now, when the fall arrives, the leaves on these trees will turn into beautiful shades of red, orange and yellow and change the entire atmosphere of the school.
Late at night, the school looked particularly eerie with globular lamps lining the pathways in a dim yellow glow.
Wind rustled the leaves and caused tree trunks to groan and creak. As the trees swayed, it caused shadows to dance through the night like a hidden parade of demons bumbling about just out of the light.
“Why did I have to come with you for this? Also,” Senna sniffed the air and eyed the darkness between the trees, “we are being watched.”
“It’s just little imps and mischief makers of the night, let them watch. They are only curious. ”
“Only you would call shadow devils mischief makers…”
Senna bore her pointed teeth and snarled into the darkness, resulting in the hidden presences nearby fleeing abruptly the shadows becoming much more stationary.
“Well, more significant is what is lingering in the sky…”
Thomas tilted his head and looked up at the night sky. It may appear that he was gazing into the suburban starry sky heavily diluted by light pollution, but his pupils had a faint white ring around them and what was reflected in them was very different.
The night sky appeared twisted and torn in giant, long tendrils, like some kind of eldrich monstrosity. Space would slowly repair itself, only for it to fray and split elsewhere, making these tendrils appear to move like a living creature.
Inside of the torn space was chaotic, but with the occasional glimpses to a domain of chaos and monsters that did not belong in the world of the living.
Thankfully, the tears were far too small for anything truly dangerous to come through, but it was concerning to say the least.
Senna couldn’t see this, but she did feel a level of discomfort when focusing her supernatural senses into the sky above the school.
“What is it?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. If I were to guess, space here is rubbing against and being abraded by some kind of domain of beasts and monsters. Some plane of demons, possibly Purgatory itself, I don’t know.”
“Purgatory?”
“The place where tainted or otherwise impure souls go after death. The vessels of humans, and most animals, do not affect the soul, allowing them to pass through into the afterlife upon death and eventually become a part of the cycle of reincarnation.”
“Monsters, eldrich creatures, and all manner of creatures whose souls are affected by vessels, have souls that are no longer pure, and instead fall into Purgatory where they wither and waste away. It is a festering rubbish tip of souls that cannot be recycled.”
Senna remained silent for a while before softly asking, “When I die, where will I go?”
Thomas turned and looked at the fae girl whose expression was impossible to decipher, his pupils still infused with soul force. What he saw was the essence within her vessel, one that was so big it dwarfed every other soul other than his own.
No matter how big it was, it was not pure.
It was a swirling mixture of green and yellow for the most part, an expression of the nature of her existence as a nature fae. Within that though, were long, engorged vein-like tendrils that were crimson red like blood. They were mutations of her own existence, slowly eating away at her soul like a parasite until they had fully consumed her existence.
“You will go to Purgatory.”
“…I see.”
The duo fell into an extended silence as they approached the front entrance of the school. Rather than trying to pick the lock on the front door or force their way in, they went search the ground floor windows for one that either had a broken lock or otherwise left unlocked.
For students to sneak into the school at night as a test of courage, there had to be a way in.
They also obviously knew students would occasionally sneak into the school at night, so they had several patrol bots that patrolled the campus ground at night and would report any open windows or doors they detected.
The bots were not particularly smart nor silent though, so they were easy to avoid ahead of time just by watching for the search lights they emitted and hearing the sound of the motors driving their wheels.
Thomas began testing the windows one by one and it wasn’t long before he found one with the latch left unlocked.
“It’s amazing that they don’t use automated electronic locks.”
Seeing the yellow lights of the patrol bots closing in, he chuckled to himself before calling Senna over with a whistle and the wave of a hand.
The duo slipped into the school building and silently slid the window shut behind them, ducking below the windowsill as the search lights of the patrol bot passed by.
Senna glanced around and saw that they were in an administration office, the purpose of which was unknown.
“Let’s go, I can already smell something rotten in here.”
“Oh, that’s my bad. I farted.”
Senna gave Thomas a glare so full of rage it could kill whilst the culprit mischievously grinned from ear to ear.
“Did that idiot really not think we would have a backup plan?”
Sean Brand scoffed as he sat in a car with his companion hunter, Scott Adams. The two were hidden barely 50 meters down the street from Thomas’ Private Investigator Office for the Supernatural and Mundane surveilling the agency.
“Are you sure about this? If they truly are Hazard V and Hazard VI, this is not something we can defeat with our current weapons, let alone by ourselves.”
“I know, but that cursed gladius is my main weapon. I am greatly weakened without it.”
“I have had a worry for a while, but are you in control or has the curse taken over your mind.”
“How many times do I have to tell you, I can handle it, alright!”
“…Fine, but be more careful. Anyway, this was your plan. We just need to break in and steal the weapon back, right? That sounds a bit too easy.”
Sean nodded in agreeance with the overly cautious bald Scott.
“I created a new access into the police’s system whilst we were investigating and used it to find this yesterday.”
He pressed several buttons on the touch display in the car and opened up a file he had saved. It was a report on Thomas’ Supernatural Private Investigator Office and the items housed inside of it.
“Huh? This crazy bastard has a sealed room full of illegal cursed items? How have the police not raided him yet?”
“If you are asking me, who am I to ask? This is someone who attacked that police captain and caused significant damage to the station before simply strolling home.”
“I’m not feeling very confident about this, how are we supposed to get into the room?”
“…I also found this in the station.”
Sean pulled out a locked steel briefcase with daoist runes for preservation engraved on it that seemed to pulse with life. He ran his fingers over it before carefully unlocking it and opening the lid.
“…!!”
Inside the case was a single paper talisman, but it wasn’t to be underestimated. Just by placing one’s hand near it, they would feel as if they were being electrocuted.
This was a heaven grade seal destruction talisman made by a Gold Core cultivator. Whilst it was a single use item, its value could be considered to be immeasurable.
“You found such a thing just lying in some no name police station?! Does this not seem suspicious to you!?”
“Of course it is! But that’s not the point. That police captain simply let us go as if he didn’t care what we did, but how can someone of his strength simply let us go? This was surely left for us to take and use.”
Scott’s mouth was agape in disbelief at his partner.
“So you knew it was extremely suspicious, and you still did it anyway. I swear to god, you will be the death of us. Urgh, we clearly can’t just run and sell it. We’d surely be completely fucked if we did.”
“I need my weapon, Scott.”
“…Let’s get our stuff and go. I swear to god you better be being controlled by the curse.”
The duo exited the car and popped open the trunk. Inside were black and grey duffel bag among several other cases and exotic items. The took their equipment out that they needed along with several supplementary items.
“A pair of presence concealing charms and scent erasure satchels, moderately basic stuff. There is also a pair of defensive spiritual artifacts, a small stack of curse dispelling incense and the Burning Yang Bracelet.”
Scott carefully held up the last item, an exotic winding bracelet with what looked like a topaz embedded in it. The spiritual artifact hot to the touch and dispelled the cold air around the wearer, but its true purpose was that of a weapon.
The Burning Yang Bracelet was a spiritual artifact that could release scarlet yang flames. These flames had an extremely powerful effect on dispelling yin energies and were particularly effective against dark creatures which were otherwise immune to bullets.
Neither Scott nor Sean had qi, but most spiritual artifacts had an own storage of spiritual qi. Whilst rare among traditional cultivators, it was a common production practice by urban cultivators to produce items this way.
Whilst not as efficient or as fast in activating as an artifact bound to a cultivator which could only be operated by them and activated by a mere thought, this enabled the common people to utilize them.
A cultivator could use their own qi to recharge them, but an ordinary person or even a mage would have to visit a cultivation store. Not only did they sell these artifacts among other talismans and common spiritual herbs, but they also offered recharging services.
They were like mobile phone stores, except rather than just paying the price of the phone and taking it home, you also had to pay them to recharge it for you every time it ran out of battery.
There were certain items, such as flying swords, which only a cultivator could use as they needed to be bound to the user to function correctly, but life saving defensive artifacts or escape artifacts have always held their own storage of qi.
This was a universal feature since the epoch of cultivation as they needed to either activate automatically, when the user had no qi left, or both.
Unfortunately, these two types of items were also the most expensive due to their typically expendable nature. One’s own life has always been more important than a defensive spiritual artifact, so they would make them as powerful as possible with the resources at hand. This meant that most of these items would break after a single or several uses.
The pair of hunters each used a presence concealing charm, which sank into their skin before their entire presence became extremely thin. They then took out the scent erasure satchels and sprinkled it over themselves.
In their current state, it was likely that if someone was to stare out their window towards them, they wouldn’t realize that they were there. By no means however were they invisible. Anyone with particularly keen senses would be able to see through the minor deception.
They understood Senna Smith was a fae and held an extremely sensitive nose. The scent erasure satchels ensured that they would leave no trace of their scent behind once they leave.
With their spiritual artifacts ready, they hastily crossed the road and approached Thomas’ Private Investigator Office for the Supernatural and Mundane.
Their defensive spiritual artifacts were in the form of a small charm on a long but thin silver necklace. The artifact was the charm, and would break after blocking a fatal attack under the Foundation Establishment realm or equivalent strength.
Scott equipped the Burning Yang Bracelet on his wrist before hiding it under the cuff of his jacket sleeve and also concealed a few curse dispelling incense sticks in his clothes.
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