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313. Brightbriar Arrives
🕑 Added 2025-02-23 15:00:05 +0000 UTCIke froze. His heart raced. He stared up at Brightbriar as if his life depended on it, body still while his mind churned at top speed. He couldn’t fight the man here. He wasn’t strong enough. Attacking would only be suicide. But if he didn’t, if Brightbriar came down here, then he was dead.
It was too late to flee. Anything he did now would only draw more attention to him. Worst case, if the man saw one of his puppets split and run, Brightbriar would descend from the stairs directly and apprehend Ike himself. Despite Ike’s speed, he was under no illusions that he’d be able to escape someone at least one Rank higher, who not only held the high ground and could fly, but who also was currently standing on the only exit route Ike was aware of in the city. Running and hiding would only stall things, and he didn’t have a good feeling about that, either. If he could sense mana signatures through walls, surely someone more powerful than him could sense them even further. He had no confidence that pulling in his mana signature would do much. Without any skills or particular techniques for it, he had nothing to defeat a higher-Rank mage’s determined effort to find him.
If he couldn’t fight, and he couldn’t hide, that only left one route left—playing along.
Beside him, Wisp tensed as well as she realized the same thing as him. Mag blithely gazed up at the man, completely unaware of Brightbriar’s face, mana signature, or anything else related to the man. Ike was about to curse his bird brain, but realized it wasn’t fair. Unlike Wisp, who’d lived in the Abyss, Mag had lived far, far from Brightbriar. He had no reason to know anything about the man.
Wisp glanced at Ike. Ike shook his head. Play along. We’re puppets. As subtly as he could, he scanned the puppet next to him, and tried to match his mana signature to its. He expected to fail spectacularly, only to find it rather familiar. Oh, that’s right. I did study Rosamund, after all. Speaking of, good thing her head is in my storage ring, or else she might try to cause trouble with her father so close. Ike smoothed his mana into one flat signal, with no fluctuations. Wisp watched him, then nodded, and a moment later, he felt her do the same. She nudged Mag, who blinked at her and tilted his head. A quiet exchange of expressions and a few subtle blows later, a bewildered Mag joined them in copying the mana signature of a puppet to his best ability.
Of the three of them, Mag was the least likely to be picked up on by Brightbriar, since, as he didn’t know Brightbriar, Brightbriar also didn’t know him. Wisp, too, was likely to get overlooked. Ike swallowed. I’m just an ordinary citizen. He has no reason to know me. But on the other hand, he’d fought Llewyn. If the man mentioned his face…
No, no. At that point, Wisp would be in just as much danger as me. I’m fine. I’m no one. Unless Llewyn was a standout artist or had some way of transferring memories to Brightbriar, he has no reason to know what any of us look like. Ike’s mana signature had started to fluctuate a bit from his speeding heart and short breathing. With force, he smoothed it over again. Calm. Collected. He was nothing but another puppet. No one had any reason to take notice of him. He was even dressed like the other puppets, thanks to Wisp’s quick fingers up in the automaton room. And besides, he’d always been a kind of average looking guy, with tan skin and brown hair. Generic. Nothing to stand out at all. Just another puppet.
The two figures descended the stairs. As they got closer, Ike focused on the second person. She was a beautiful figure, ornamented in the most delicate of finery, and her mana signature wasn’t a beat below Brightbriar’s. If anything, she might have been the stronger of the two of them. Ike didn’t recognize her face at all. Whoever she was, she was someone a slum rat had no reason to ever meet. A dignitary far beyond his standing. He didn’t need to fool her… but on the other hand, he was a bit curious. Who was she? He’d never heard of a Lady Brightbriar. In fact, it had been something of a topic of conversation amongst the people in the city, from pretty girls dreaming of becoming the next Lady, to grizzled old hunters postulating he must have lost her in some ancient, tragic incident. Not everyone knew about Rosamund, so some people had even suspected that Brightbriar was single, or had other proclivities. Then again, others simply claimed Lady Brightbriar existed, but was off on some long journey or some other magely activity. Generations of mortal lives were the blink of an eye to mages, and Brightbriar, consequently, might not have even thought her absence was worth addressing, while the mortals down below shared rumors and myths, eager for any crack at humanizing their distant ruler.
Was this lady, then, Lady Brightbriar? Or perhaps, a candidate to become her?
Ike watched the two converse. Instinctively, he opposed the idea—though Rosamund clearly proved that Brightbriar was capable of love and child-rearing. It didn’t feel right. The manipulative puppet master, so feared, was a husband? A father? No. In fact, the things Ike knew, such as Rosamund being a puppet and infinitely replaceable, clicked much easier into his image of Brightbriar. Despite Brightbriar having a child, the man could easily have created her alone, on a whim, without any sort of Lady Brightbriar.
After a few moments of watching them speak as they walked the stairs, Ike rejected the idea that this woman was Brightbriar’s romantic partner of any sort. She kept him at a distance, laughing along with his jokes, but politely. They didn’t touch, and in fact, Brightbriar treated her with a kind of distant, formal respect. If he had to choose a relationship, it looked much more like Brightbriar were a salesman, and the mysterious woman, his client.
Ike’s eyes widened. Is that what this is? A sales pitch? But… what? Doesn’t he infiltrate areas? Who would willingly bring this puppet plague down upon themselves? Mystified, he watched the two descend, desperate to hear their conversation. Was this really a sales pitch? Surely not. And yet…
Fear forgotten, Ike stared at them, almost challenging them to approach. Let me hear it. What is this all about? I need to know. Is there really someone so mad that they would not only indulge Brightbriar’s madness, but visit it upon themselves?
