The Greatest Sin

Alice watched the sunset with Leona. They had travelled to the New Continent and were hiking through one of the UNN’s great national parks, a forest with trees twice as wide as Leona was tall. The Goddess suddenly fell to her knees and threw up. “Are you alright?” Alice grabbed at the woman’s shoulders. This was the fifth time this hour.

“Yes.” Alice said, her dress dirtied with pine needles. There was a difference in her voice this time, the four times before, Leona was simply suffering. Now, her voice was steady as if she had set her mind. “Contact Allasaria, I’ve worked it out.”

Sara Daganhoff, Duchess Daganhoff as she was known back in the headquarters, got off the train at Arcadia. On one hand, there was some pride in the fact she was entrusted with this task, on the other, how exactly was she supposed to find four sorcerers here? If there ever was a magician worth a grain of salt, there would be some way to tie him back to Arcadia, the place had a population of almost four million. It wasn’t so much a capital city for the magical world, as it was the entire nation, a school that had grown into a compound, then into a microstate and now a recognised authority over its own piece of clay.

Sara checked her notes once last time as the final passengers disembarked from the blue and yellow Epan Community train. She had everything publicly accessible on Arcadia and everything privately accessible on Anassa; Arascus had even told her what sort of wine the woman liked to drink with her meals. Sara shook her head and marched from the grand train station.

It was an odd building, the original was obviously old. It had the tall walls of cleanly carved stone, the pillars and the statues that were in fashion a century ago, and then the other half of the building was a sheet of glass, held up by dark steel beams. Sara took a few minutes to look it, she was here a touring journalist, she might as well look the part.

Eventually, the fusion of tradition and modernity started to grate on her. One, she could take, this ungodly mix was simply awful to the eyes. Ancient pillars held up modern walkways of glass, statues of heroes from the Great War wore capes of flags that didn’t even exist back then. A circular portion that once would have held a circular clock was replaced with a modern rectangular timetable. She scanned her ticket and went past the gates.

Why did she even buy tickets? There wasn’t a guard in sight. She chuckled at that stupid thought. Of course there wouldn’t be guards about, what sort of criminal would be stupid enough to try and pull anything in the nation of mages?

Sara saw her own reflection in one of the glass panels and cleaned the creases from her clothes. White shirt, brown jacket over it, a skirt, tall boots, dark hair tied back into a tail. She even wore the hat of an airheaded journalist, the notebook in her hands, trio of pens in her chest pocket and backpack only added to the image. Sara took a breath and set off towards the various guilds that resided in Arcadia.

How difficult would the four students be to find? All Sara had was sketches drawn by Iliyal, of course an elf like him would turn to out to be artist, and a name: Eliza. The idiot did not even ask them for full names, he was so damn honourable he didn’t even ask Fer for them.

What a cretin.

Sara took a breath and thought for a moment how easy it would be if Leona was on her side. She would most likely stumble across the four in her first five minutes here. Now… Now though, where was she supposed to go? Eliza wasn’t a rare name in the slightest, every country in Epa had some form of Eliza about…

She took a few long looks around and decided to start scouting. Journalist… journalist… maybe investigator was better? No… That would attract attention, investigators followed trouble, journalists followed their whims.

Sara came across a group of students almost immediately, they were everywhere here. In plain uniforms with capes bearing their various school insignia. The colours were supposedly what kind of magic they specialized in, red for fire, blue for water, the usual. “Hello!” Sara said cheerfully. If there was one thing working under Iliyal had done for her, it was killed whatever sort of natural cheer she had. Arascus had only reinforced that idea.

“Hello.” The students said oddly. It was a trio of young boys. Boys were good, these ones could not be any older than sixteen. Even better, that meant they were inexperienced when it came to women and Sara had always considered herself a charmer. “I…” The lead student, a tall boy with long hair. Sara batted her eyelashes.

“I’m here on a story.” Sara said. “I’m from the Norjesk Rikkast.” Norje was one of the lesser known countries in Epa, not like the giants of Rancais and Doschia, it only had five million people across the whole country.

“Oh.” The boy said awkwardly, a blush rising into his cheeks as Sara brushed her arm past him. A touch here, a giggle there and men would melt.

“We’re doing a report on Arcadia, it’s all very hush-hush, you know.” Sara said with another giggle. “So I’d rather my story not get leaked out.”

“No worries whatsoever!” One of the boys said.

“Could I take for you an interview? I’ve not…” Sara gave them a stupid smile. Iliyal and Arascus would have seen through it immediately but they weren’t men, one was an ancient elf, the other a God. If she ever managed to bend Iliyal, she would consider herself equal to the Goddess of Love. “Well, to be honest with you, they just sort of sent me off here to see the sites and write about, we want to get into the history of Arcadia.”

“I know a café nearby!” The shortest of the three boys said with far too much enthusiasm. Sara had caught them hook, line and sinker.

“That would be great!”

Leona fell over again. “Are you hurt?” Alice burst out. They were camping in the solace of nature.

“Here.” The Goddess brought out her own phone as she rolled onto her side through heavy breathes. “Ring Elassa, tell her to go to Anassa right now. And to stay there.”

Sara finished her coffee and blew the three boys a kiss. They turned crimson and almost ran out of the café. Some things that only she could do: They had told her all about Arcadia, the locations of the various schools and even knew some of the best in the school. There was some Fleur Ambelee who was apparently the school beauty, although she was untouchable by the likes of them. Another youth called Lyca Myklos who she was to avoid. The boy was unbeatable in the arena and he frequently liked to bring fights out of it too.

More importantly, one of the boys had given her his map. His phone number was written down on the back, then scratched out, then written again. How bold of him. She sipped the rest of her coffee. Coffee was always good, especially when someone else paid for it, and stared at the map. What a find! It had everything!

The various administrative buildings, the schools, the arenas, the live-magic exercise areas. She might visit them later if she had the time. And it had the hidden gem of them all, Elassa’s Gardens and the building that lay within it: The Divine Library.

Iliyal had mentioned it before, and if Iliyal had mentioned it, that meant it could be a lead. Sara stood up, pulled out her notepad, scrawled some miscellaneous information as a cover, and set off.

“What do you want?” Anassa said to Elassa.

“I can’t visit my sister?”

“You’re the sibling who sold the family name.”

“It’s a pleasure as always Ana.”

Sara sat in Elassa’s Divine Gardens and swung her feet off a bench. Apparently it had been blessed by Goddess Elassa, of Magic, four hundred years ago. How very interesting. Sara scratched it down on her notepad as she watched the Divine Library.

It was an old building, completely of a different style than everything else she had seen. High peaked towers and countless windows, all dark stone and without anyone entering it. Sara wondered why no one entered or left the building, if it was a Divine Library, shouldn’t it be getting used all the time? What sort of knowledge did it hold? Sara sighed as the sun started to go down. The park cleared, there were no guards, not a soul as Arcadia quietened down for the night.

For all the talk of mages, Sara was not impressed with them whatsoever. She had seen the situation at other places of education with students partying day and night, with music blaring from every window, with every substance on Erda being taken out in the open. She had frequently recruited members there too, there was no one more susceptible to the cause than a student with a life aimless, a mind intelligent and a heart passionate.

And then Sara had visited Arcadia. Here, the girls quietly talked about the lectures, the boys blushed and turned away when Sara so much as glanced at them. All talk was of theory and philosophy and morality and the thing they all most enjoyed doing was sitting in their sad little dorms and reading their sad little books. She had visited one of the live-magic grounds and watched from a distance, even that, once the awe of seeing magic in real life had passed, was a sad display.

It had merely been a lesson were a bunch of hydromancy students were learning on how to make water rise from the ground and then lowering it again. Sara sighed and decided that for all the talk of power, of swallowing cities into the earth, reforging mountains and turning deserts into jungles, mages were very boring.

And so she sat and waited. She looked around as the sky turned purple in the brilliant sunset. She sat and waited as a gardener came, waved his finger and a bush sprouted flowers. He didn’t so much as cast a look at her. She sat and waited as the gardener left. She sat, she waited, and she decided she was done sitting and waiting.

Sara sat up and marched to the door of the Divine Library. If it was locked, that would answer her question but she simply would not believe that these bookworms would not venture here. She looked around, there was no one around, and tested the door. It swung open.

Sara stepped in, she knew she had a foolish grin but why hide it? It was this easy? Were these mages stupid? Did all the books make their minds slow? Why would they…

Sara’s grin fell of her face immediately.

Standing past the countless bookshelves, on the top of a wide, red-carpeted staircase that could have been lifted from a palace, where two women. They were obviously unhappy with each other and they were tall. The only other person Sara had seen of a similar height was Arascus. The thought entered her mind immediately as the two women turned and cast freezing glares at Sara.

Divines.