Chapter 164 Part D

  “Name please,” The clergyman asked again. He’s pretty firm about wanting to test Sunghee first. He even made a move with his hand to want to do the test by touching her chest but she took his hand before he could say anything.

  When he tried to go around her to grab her chest instead the city guard stepped on his toe. “Get on with it or I’ll cancel the test. None of that sexual bullshit or we’ll arrest you instead. This is your st warning,” the guard said.

  “Fine.” He didn’t seem cowed though even though there’s now like sixty dwarven city guards and his small team.

  He chants some kind of spell sequence and is emitting mana like crazy. Then there’s a glow in the area between where Sunghee and he are conducting the test.

  When he pulls his hand away he only gets a white light. His face scrunches up but looks puzzled. Then it changed again. He’s shocked and disappointed. “Weird. I thought for sure it was this one?” he whispered more to himself than others. He’s really thoughtful and wondering as he scratches his head.

  “…was sure she’s the one. Party paperwork registered with Sunghee as leader, adventurer job css.”

  The clergy’s ckey men look on in silence, their faces turning to ash. They look sort of wounded in their pride somehow. They really wanted to take Sunghee of somewhere, probably to some alley somewhere.

  “I need to retest her. I think she faked her way through the test,” the clergyman said finally.

  “What? But you just tested her!” the dwarven guard argued.

  “I figured out how she faked the test! I’ll prove it! This time she’ll fail for sure,” he said a bit too confidently. He seems really fixated on Sunghee and her perfect boobs.

  If Sunghee didn’t look like a porn diva then he’d have tested me instead I realized. So maybe I should only have super hotties in my party as additional camoufge?

  “Can’t you see there’s something shady about this guy?” Gyle said to the city guard.

  One of the clergyman’s ckeys kicked Gyle in the stomach with his booted foot. Oops, I don’t have shielding up on Gyle yet do i?

  Gyle is on the ground groaning in pain. The guy had metal boots. What an asshole.

  The city guard stopped the clergy ckeys but the clergy ckeys outnumber them 20 to 6 still.

  “No violence unless they are guilty; may I remind his lordship that your group may be charged for disturbing the peace, assault and battery, and attempted murder if the charges you apprehend are found to be beaten and test to be true humans or dwarves,” the city guard leader said firmly.

  Despite trying to uphold the w, this guy sounds like he doesn’t really want to help us at all. I worry he might just cave in because it’s so much pressure on one guy.

  The clergy’s ckeys hesitate, but the clergy leader doesn’t.

  He appears to be thinking.

  The dwarven guards have sent runners for reinforcements but it doesn’t look like they’ll get here in time. They look a bit angry also.

  “I’m going to test her again,” he said.

  “Fine. Get on with it. But this is the st time,” the city guard spokesman said.

  “Can’t we request another mage be present? What if he fakes the spell sequence just to carry her off? He’s had his lecherous eyes on us this whole time. He might fake it and use something that produces the same color as a demon test just so he can cart off women,” Rina said before anyone could shut her up. She managed to sound teary eyed and innocent and some people actually listened to her.

  Now people are stirred up angry again. It takes a couple minutes to get them to shut up this time. And the dwarven city guards look like they might join them.

  “Fine we’ll just make it really quick. This is the st straw, no more bullshit,” the city guard guy said again.

  “So how does this work? White is human and some other color tests as demon? We should have the test rules expined fairly so you can’t just swing it to whatever you want right?” I asked politely.

  “That’s correct,” the city guard leader said quickly. “Now get on with it,” he is looking at the clergy like they are prison inmates.

  So is he going to manipute the test color just so he has an excuse to kidnap Sunghee?

  The clergyman starts the sequence on Sunghee again. With their hands joined. Sunghee looks terrified and I can understand why.

  Then I noticed something is wrong with the spell sequence. I don’t know this spell. But I did recognize the sounds and pitch of whatever he chanted were different from the spell he’d cast before.

  “He’s faking the spell! That spell sequence is wrong. The code was changed from before,” I blurted out.

  The others looked at him suddenly and are wondering what’s going on. But probably not many can analyze magic could. Even I wasn’t that great at it, but I’d recognized the spell glyphs didn’t match the previous time even though I didn’t know each spell glyph in the sequence personally.

  The spell sequence ended and the clergyman stopped. He smiled triumphantly holding Sunghee’s hand up. Her hand is covered in bck tar.

  “What the fuck?” Gyle excimed.

  “Yuck, this is so gross. I’ll never get this stuff off!” Sunghee excimed. “And I am innocent!” she procimed looking to the dwarven guards to help.

  The dwarven city guards look conflicted.

  The clergyman look really happy and smug somehow with all the ckeys there. The city guard is confused.

  “Guilty! Guilty!” the clergyman shouted. He’s trying to get the others riled up.

  “Treason! I caught you!” suddenly a new voice shouted out. It was someone different from all the others. But it’s loud, confident, and has authority. It sounds like someone feminine but strong.

  We turn.

  It’s some unknown young looking teenage mage girl standing there covered head to toe in eborate but richly made robes. She’s pointing at the clergyman instead of me? Whew. I was afraid I’d be caught for being part demon. But she’s pointing at the clergyman.

  Weird, her voice didn’t match her appearance at all.

  The clergymans’ ckeys tried to shut her up and grab her but she instead levitates in her red robes over fifteen feet in the air. “The Church of Gaia rep casted a summon bck tar spell instead of the detect demon spell. I know both spells and have it recorded in my sight recording gem!” she shouted.

  There’s turmoil.

  Now everyone’s arguing. The crowd is more mad. People are picking up rocks now too...

  They still won’t let us go.

  There’s another half hour of arguing different points of view before two of the adventurer’s guild representatives show up.

  “I can prove the Church of Gaia faked the result on the test,” the mage girl said. I think she doesn’t actually care about us. But she’s a half way decent looking woman, and knows if Church of Gaia people can run around kidnapping women accused of being ‘demons’ then she’ll probably be next.

  The city guard leader listens to her expnation quietly with others. Around us there’s like a hundred dwarves gathered around now. They all look very angry. Whether it’s a demon or a Church of Gaia person that’s the real demon, they will have blood from one of them.

  Mobs are freaking scary.

  The girl makes the Church of Gaia clergyman write the spell sequence for detect demons on the concrete ground of the pza.

  “Can I have to mage volunteers come forward to verify that the clergyman has indeed written the sequence for the demon detection spell?” she asked, not wavering despite several clergy thugs looking like they wanted to gut her.

  Wow, she has courage.

  It takes some time but eventually two guys come forward. She has them read it aloud. It’s a different set of symbols that I’m not used to, so it sounds like jibberish to me. She’s also pying the recording to match each set and show the differences between them.

  “@#*#(< NOKt*@(@ Sev@*@,” the first said. Despite using and having magic, it doesn’t mean I know every glyph system out there. It can look like jibberish to me if it’s also a different sub-css too, since I’m still learning.

  But close enough. I didn’t get it but I did listen to the clergyman. I can still listen to the pattern and compare it.

  “@#*#(< NOKt*@(@ Sev@*@,” the second said.

  It sounded simir to one another, though I still didn’t get it.

  Am I not compatible to learn this? Or maybe I just need to learn more coding.

  Is it some church or divine magic or something else? Is it a different system or the same as the Egyptian magic? I don’t know because both systems are so big that I don’t know every word pattern particle and ligature avaible to use.

  “Now please over here write the spell sequence for summon bck tar,” the mage girl said.

  Summoning bck tar? Is that…huh…

  The clergyman refused. He obviously is now in the hot seat and doesn’t want to give it up. It takes several minutes of arguing. Finally he gives in after a few dozen dwarves are ready to skin him alive. Even then he only does it because of the threat of violence.

  “Ok please read the pattern,” the mage girl in red robes said to the other two volunteers.

  “TRIW&@ @&*@wak &WDW#@**** *** ***,” the first volunteer said.

  I still had no idea what they said but it’s very clear when you listen to two sentences of sounds if they are simir or not if you have a half a brain. If I were to say ‘como esta amigo?’, and then ‘quiero un tamale’, even if I don’t understand them both they both sound different from one another.

  “OK, now the second volunteer please cast Summon bck tar,” the girl said.

  “TRIW&@ @&*@wak &WDW#@**** *** ***,” the second volunteer said.

  “Do you agree they don’t sound like each other?” the girl asked the city guard leader.

  He nodded briefly but very carefully since he’s afraid of being maniputed. But he’s scared and avoiding looking at the clergyman, so even if the plot is in the open I’m not sure what will happen.

  “I’m a clergyman of the Church of Gaia! You have no authority over me!” he screeched.

  “Shut up,” the girl said. Somehow she had amazing presence and aura.

  The clergyman made a sound like, “eep,” and shrank back. But it was partly the city guard gaining confidence as four more city guard personnel arrived to back up their other leader.

  Weird…how did she make him so afraid with just a gnce into his eyes?

  “OK, so mages now I want you to use the summon bck tar sequence and make the actual spell,” the mage girl said.

  “TRIW&@ @&*@wak &WDW#@**** *** ***,” the first volunteer said. He’s holding his hand out, and sure enough a puddle of bck tar appears in his hand identical to the clergyman. His tar continues to flow out of his hand and spill over the ground.

  The second guy casted it too, but his spell manifested with only a small palm of barely anything. I don’t know if it was because he was weak or because he was trying to minimize the volume manifesting.

  “Notice both tars look exactly like the Church of Gaia’s tar that he’d summoned on the girl’s hand. That’s not what the demon detection spell does,” she continued to argue. My heart skipped a beat when I could have sworn her gnce was eye on me when she said that st part. But she makes no move to talk to me.

  We need to get out of here fast. There’s no way I can control anything about what’s going on with this many people here and with all of them riled up. But there’s no chance to move yet.

  The city guardsmen and the clergy people then argued back and forth for another fifteen minutes of threatening people and each other with violence. Then two more city guard people showed up and now the Church of Gaia people are looking more penitent.

  “Well you know actually I think I may have made a mistake,” The old clergyman said. He’s bowing apologetically at everyone. “I’m really sorry. Sorry, sorry!” he kept putting up an attitude of being humble.

  But he wasn’t like that until the other city guard people arrived and the mob was ready to go after people.

  “No, sorry isn’t good enough. We demand the test to be finished,” the red robed mage girl said.

  Fuck. I thought I was going to go home soon. I don’t want them to finish the test.

  The red robed mage girl continued. “IF there are were demons here, it wouldn’t be right to just apologize our way out of it. We need to know.”

  And what does this red robed teenage girl want really?

  “But I made a mistake!” the clergyman said.

  “But we want to know if you are just carting off women under the guise of demons. So we retest the girl and if she tests human then we cut off your hands,” the City Guard leader finally stated.

  The mob of people is suddenly very quiet. The clergy’s thugs look suddenly really afraid.

  The mob wants to know if he’ll really harm a clergyman in his fancy white robes.

  Mobs are terrifying actually. I want to leave. Now.

  “OK, you volunteers hold Sunghee’s clean hand and cast the demon detection spell,” the mage girl said again.

  “But I’m sorry!” the clergyman said.

  “Too te. I’ve had reports of you guys carting off women for some time now. I doubt that 99% of the people you walk with can all be demons and none of them happen to be males,” the red robed mage girl said.

  “Shit no way!”

  “Is that for real?!”

  “So he’s like that huh?”

  “Pervert!’

  “Perverts must die!”

  “Let’s have a hanging!”

  “We should do to them what they did to others,” someone said.

  “Yeah!”

  “Let’s get ‘em!”

  “Lynch them!” more dwarves cry out.

  Its getting loud.

  Shit, this whole pza feels dangerous. There’s too many angry people everywhere. I want to get out of here.

  “Hang the clergyman!” someone screamed.

  “Burn him! Burn him!” the new chant started to take off like a wave. The dwarves want to burn someone it seems. I don’t understand why that would be fun to them but their eyes are shining like a gambling addiction right now.

  “Now wait guys, let’s give him a chance,” the red robed mage girl said again while smiling.

  What’s her angle anyway? She seems to really want to burn that church guy.

  “@#*#(< NOKt*@(@ Sev@*@,” the first said while holding Sunghee’s hand. While he’s chanting it everyone is so quiet you could hear a mouse crawl.

  A white light shines on Sunghee’s hand where their hands are adjoined. The volunteer is puzzled. “Um did it work?” he asked.

  The red robed mage girl nodded. “OK, next volunteer please,” she said.

  “@#*#(< NOKt*@(@ Sev@*@,” the second chanted and the energy takes off. Then a small pin prick of light shines. It’s simir in the spell effect but just much, much lower in power. It seems the second mage is a lot weaker than the other one which is why his effect is the same but on a much smaller level, now that you see them both doing two spells. Both of them confirmed together that Sunghee was in fact human.

  Although they still didn’t know she was a high human but just that she’s not demonic.

  Then they repeated the test at the clergyman’s request on Rina too, except Rina told them her name was Asakura which is kind of funny. Luckily Gyle didn’t get it. He’s never met Asakura so he might think that one of the name’s is a nick or a family name, and dwarves do that often. Both of them looking the same might actually be useful for people suspecting us of having demon blood. Unexpectedly Rina’s ruse of using the gene changer to look like Asakura has paid off big time. If they had used the detect demon spell on Asakura it would have done something I think because of the ghoul race. And also if Rina still looked very young then they might have tested me right after Sunghee instead of Rina.

  Then ‘Asakura’s demon detection test comes back negative, though it’s really Rina.

  But that just made everyone even madder.

  Fuck….that means they test me next huh?

  I can see them walking towards me looking very determined.

  And there are too many people around here to run because everyone is packed in here so closely.

  !

  Then suddenly the mob just lost it.

  They just want blood and had caught the guy running a scam. And dwarves live by this honor of if it’s evil, it means you kill it before it can breed code of ethics.

  All hell broke loose.

  Street stands, groceries, baskets, tables, and pretty much you name it suddenly are being tossed and destroyed while people are grabbing any kind of weapon avaible. Some of those table legs are now clubs in the hands of the mob.

  But with others, people spilled their groceries trying to get away while trying to save themselves and their kids. The civilian dwarves are now mobbing the Church of Gaia people.

  While we try to swim against the crowd…which is in a full scale riot.

  Rina and Sunghee both cry out to try to stay close to me but they are fighting like crazy to get through people to even stay within a few feet of me.

  “Corrupt! Corrupt fucker! Burn him!” the mob is going mad like crazy now. A sea of angry little dwarves is charging the Church of Gaia people while we try to get the hell out of the way. If we fall or lose bance even for a bit, we will surely be trampled to death by several hundred angry dwarves.

  “Get your women and get out of here fast!” the city guard leader said to me with a terrified expression before trying to push back the mob of dwarves. The mob was so bad I could barely hear him as we struggled to get away with a dazed look. And the mob is so worked up that the dwarven city guards can’t stop it either.

  The city guard is now caught between a riot and total unrest out of control as the rioters are trying to go after the Church of Gaia people.

  I was saved by a hateful mob? I can’t believe it.

  “Holy shit!” Sunghee said as we’re ducking down an alley.

  Sunghee and I somehow managed to get hold of and grabbed Rina, while Gyle is following us. The two mage volunteers try to follow too but are getting swept through the crowd. I lost sight of them and that other mage girl.

  Who was she?

  At some point we find ourselves several blocks away, alive, but all scratched up from nearly drowning in a mob.

  “Holy fuck that was scary!” Gyle excimed.

  “I know right! I’m never going to do that again! Mobs are scary!” the red robed mage girl said.

  Eh?

  She’s with us still. When did she catch up? I hadn’t seen her this whole time. She seems mysterious somehow.

  “So that guy was just going to kidnap us?” Rina asked again trying to piece it together.

  “He’s done it many times. The dwarves knew something is off about him for some time and a lot of pretty girls have turned up missing after being arrested for being demons, but no one has caught him yet. He was going to take both of you and with those other twenty idiots have a rape party in the church basement. And just so you know, he has a high arrest rate for demons but the funny part is that he only arrests pretty young women,” the red robed girl said.

  “But if they’ll mob him so easily and he’s human, then we better be careful here too. We’re also a minority,” Sunghee said.

  “Eh?!” both Rina and I excimed.

  Sunghee gives me a pitiful look.

  “That’s awful!” Gyle said.

  “Are you sure all of the ckeys were in on it too?” I asked.

  The mage girl nodded, “right. Did you notice how none of them were female? Isn’t that weird by itself? I mean the dwarven city guard and in the human kingdoms they have plenty of female guards and female clergy even in some pces and some religious orders. And all of them except the main mage guy had white bandannas over their mouths and noses? It’s totally suspicious right? People didn’t see that just because all of them were in white robes with those funny pointed hats.”

  …

  White robes with pointed hats? Huh?

  “Why did you save us?” I wondered at the girl after we finally caught our breath back from running hard to get away.

  “Because that guy took my sister st year; I’ve been trying to get him caught every since then and track her down to find a location for her. I’ve even checked the church basement but the problem is she’s not there anymore. I’ve found out that they sell the women they take as sves on the mage net,” she said.

  Wow, she knows about that secret mage net thing?

  “But why did the crowd get all riled up too?” I asked in follow up.

  “That’s guys done that to over forty dwarven girls. There’s ironically a big market for cute little dwarven girls somehow through the underground. This fortress isn’t so big that people don’t notice that sort of thing,” she said with cold looking eyes.

  Holy shit…that’s probably the same mage net that Cid had given me access too…things are starting to fit. Why there were more girl sves on the mage net than male sves by far. Through various means people were hunting people using different schemes.

  But I hadn’t expected the Church of Gaia to be at the heart of it.

  And that guy had gotten too bold.

  But we had come that close to being roped into a mass kidnapping scam. And it was really, really good since they were posing as real authority figures.

  ed to, so it sounds like jibberish to me.

  rd. hat the clergyman has indeed written the sequence for the demon detection

  ...

  Note to readers; please don’t think churches are bad. Church is good.

  Its just a story.