Ryoko Mishala arrived in the city early that day, the 21st of Fire. The preparations for the festival had been going on for days already, and it was exciting to see all of it coming to fruition. The young mistress—well, not so young now, really, considering that she was of age in the truest sense—didn't like exploring Virtalla. It was strange since Yuriko enjoyed going through practically every street, nook and cranny of Nirlith City but barely went past the arterial boulevards of Virtalla.
Ryoko found exploring a city's hidden spaces showed its true character as opposed to the intentionally built-up places for tourists. It was how the lessers lived that truly showed how those on the other side thought and felt.
She hummed as she arrived in the wet market. While the food in the Abad family estate was wonderful, owing to the fact that they had been guests for nearly three weeks now, Ryoko had been presenting gifts to reciprocate. Most of the time she brought groceries. Meat, sweets, and delicacies, mostly. She controlled the expedition's purse strings for now since Lady Sharine wasn't around.
Ryoko smirked at the budding relationship between the two. Her senses tingled whenever Yuriko and Gwendith were near each other, sparkles and lingering threads danced in her mind's eye. They erupted into glorious displays of golden thread and flame whenever they sequestered themselves in their rooms. Oh, everything was in the mind, but Ryoko's senses, and her purpose, were titillated and fulfilled.
Her Facets all involved service. Knowing what the mistress needs and wants by being able to read more than what was said, and the capability to put it all together in a flash of brilliance…
She had lingered in the Journeyman realm for so long, but her path to Knight was still obscure. Ryoko was not a full-blooded Mishala and her Heritage was too thin for that easy path. The only thing it contributed was the fact that the Mishala Mien had an easier time binding her, and in the same vein, she had an easier time reading and influencing the other side.
Mistress Yuriko needed relief, that was more than clear. Her body had grown to fullness, her Mien was maturing at a prodigious rate and, even if the lady thought she had control of it, as someone on the other side of the threads, Ryoko could tell. Mishalas were half ruled by their lusts, instincts, and the Mien, and it took a great Will to take full control of themselves. Not that they wanted to, as the path of going with the flow was so easy, pleasurable, and gave them great power. But only one person truly had control of that aspect of themselves, and that was the Progenitor. Perhaps Lady Yuriko could be the second.
Ryoko chuckled as she felt for the threads, the filigree chains that bound her. Yuriko's Mien expressed itself in a different way. Where a normal Mishala heir would have already controlled the rulers of this city by making them fall in lust, Yuriko held back. The only times she used the Mien for its intended purpose was…well, nearly never. It was coiled within her, growing ever more potent while it was the leakage that was affecting everyone else. And oh, how affected they were!
Clicking her tongue, she focused on the vendors around her. The wet market had a section of specialty foods and delicacies and it was there that she found herself today. She sniffed at proffered spices, a Virtallla blend ham, some tasty-looking sausages, and sweet candied plums…
Lady Yuriko would appreciate it all, especially the sweets.
"How much for a Jin of the candied plums?" Ryoko asked.
"Ten silver an IJin, so two golds for a Jin," the vendor said.
"One and a half. That's a Jin," Ryoko said firmly.
"Sure, here," the woman said affably with a large grin.
"Hmmm," Ryoko grunted. She might have overpaid. Oh well. She handed over seventy-five silvers and got a bag full of the candies. She plopped them into her backpack and moved on to the next.
She collected little cubes of fruit-flavoured sugar cubes, meat jerky smoked in a certain way to improve the taste, custard pastries that Ryoko loved—not everything was for the mistress after all—and a few odds and ends. There was a one-inch square of aromatic wood that was etched with a maze pattern. It was a cute piece and when Ryoko pressed her fingers against the ridges, she found she could solve the maze even without looking at it.
Several more trinkets, treats, and oddities found their way into her hip satchel. The sun was already midway up to its zenith by the time she wandered into another marketplace. This one was narrow and filled with long streamers hanging from lines that crisscrossed the street a couple of storeys above. The houses had balconies for each window, and the lines went from window to window. Ryoko imagined that if this day had not been the festival day, those lines would be filled with drying laundry. Hmmm, she was sure that wasn't far from the truth, she was quite far from the main thoroughfares by now.
Pedestrians wore masks that covered the upper half of their faces, decorated in such a way that it all expressed happiness in one form or another, all without involving the lips.
'I should get some for myself. Oh, and the others too!' Mistress Yuriko would probably have one given to her by her disciples or their elders, but some of the servants would not have time to go to the city in preparation for the feast that night.
She found a mask vendor a couple of streets away. Each one was only ten coppers, quite a steal, but they were flimsy enough that they might not last more than a day. She got a bundle of ten, each mask had a different design, but each bundle had the same repeating pattern. This vendor didn't have a varied selection…
She stuffed the masks into her backpack and was about to walk away when a chill ran down her spine. Her eyes darted around, noting that the pedestrians around her had stopped and were facing her. The vendor stepped away from the display shelf and had his arms folded over his chest. His mask…didn't look joyful.
A quick sweep across the people surrounding her told her everything she needed to know. Ryoko sighed and said loudly, "I will not resist, but know that my mistress will be displeased."
There was an even stiffer silence, then one of the masked abductors walked close to her and held out a collar.
Ryoko sniffed. "You think restricting my core will prevent my mistress from finding me?"
The masked woman's lips twitched into a smile. "We're actually counting on it."
Ryoko shook her head. "Very well, but do not regret your actions."
She held up her chin so that she was looking down her nose at them. The masked woman warily stared at her for a long moment, then snapped the collar around Ryoko's neck. She felt a wave of Elemental energy course down into her body, seeking her Elemental Heart—something she didn't have—but it circled around her Animus core anyway, and seemed to lock down on it. She experimentally pulled at her Animus and was slightly relieved to find that it still responded to her call, though it grew a bit sluggish as it passed around the barrier. Still, it was nothing like what her abductors expected…probably.
She pretended to be docile, but then again, she was. It wasn't as if she could fight and overpower all dozen of them. That was not the Mishala way. Instead, she proudly walked down the streets, as though she were being escorted by honour guards. She half expected to be brought down into those sewers and cellars that her mistress had detected, but no, they brought her inside a carriage that had its windows covered by heavy drapes.
They relieved her of her backpack and her hip satchel, but not her safepouch hanging off her neck. At least they weren't too savage. She felt a little thrill of excitement, actually. Mistress Yuriko could easily follow the threads of their connection no matter how they tried to obscure them and honestly, the only reason she didn't put up any sort of fuss was that none of their body language indicated that they would harm her then and there. If she tried to fight, maybe, so there was no reason to.
'Oh, mistress, come save me…' Ryoko thought as she fingered the collar. She was alone in the carriage, and it hadn't even moved yet. Strange. Were they going to keep her here until Lady Yuriko hunted them down?
Ah, since they hadn't really done anything, the mistress might be lenient. The masked woman had not pressed anything other than the restriction collar, and from the brief touch, Ryoko could probably pick the lock with one of her hairpins. The shape of the tumblers and the runescript reinforcement revealed their secrets easily with her cognition-based Facet.
Curious, she tried to cast a spell. Cleanse was her new favourite even if the affected area wasn't too big at first. Chain casting the spell increased the area exponentially rather than linearly, so it took her roughly ten minutes or so of casting Cleanse to clean all the surfaces of a room back in Niria. She could just as easily sweep, scrub, and swipe, but the novelty of casting spells had not worn away yet.
Anyway, the spell would not form. The collar repulsed the elemental energy attracted by the spell nodes making the rest of the components useless.
Hmm, should she pick the lock? She was getting bored. She scooted over towards the windows and pressed her ear against the black curtains. They were nailed tight, but she could barely make out sounds from the outside. She enhanced her senses and those tiny sounds magnified. But alas, it was only the sounds of breathing and footsteps.
Oh, the footsteps were getting louder. She could make a run for it. The restriction collar made it a bit harder to move as if a weight was pressing down on her back, but only a few Jins. It would slow her down, but she expected the weak-bodied Magi would feel much worse with this thing also restricting their Elemental Heart.
Who were these people anyway and why did they want her, or far more likely, her mistress? She suspected the Scions of Virtalla as well as the Ishodir Empire. Probably the latter, come to think of it. They invited the mistress to their lair, after all.
Her thoughts were interrupted when the carriage's door was yanked open and a couple of people were tossed inside. They landed in a heap, looking a bit worse for wear. The door slammed shut and left them in oppressive darkness again.
Whimpering and sobs came from the captives as they struggled to their feet. Ryoko's Enhanced Senses still allowed her to see in the darkness as she harnessed every bit of light that entered. Her Animus core slowly depleted and she stopped once she got a good look.
The two were young men, maybe fifteen or sixteen years old. They wore the festival masks, and the cut of their clothing was of fine quality, clearly from affluent families.
"Are you alright? Huh, no, you're probably not. More importantly, are either of you hurt?" Ryoko asked.
"Who…who's there?" the younger-looking boy said, though by now, she could no longer see very well. There was some scrambling as they pushed away from her position and bumped their heads on the bench.
"A humble servant," Ryoko said, "of a distinguished Magus."
".... Oh… I can barely breathe," the other lad said.
"I'm short of breath…. Help…" the first one said.
"Calm down. Take deeper breaths," Ryoko said soothingly. "Now, do you mind telling me your names?"
"Arturo…Sanchez."
"Cesar Sanchez."
Ryoko frowned. The Sanchez family? They were prominent landowners, too, weren't they?
Before she could discover more, the door opened again and several more kids were tossed in. Then the carriage began to move.
Ryoko clicked her tongue. So it wasn't just about her mistress. Oh well.