[ ] Quest

[Certis Baliano]

Thanks for enjoying the story so far.

i think the best plan is to disguise ourself as a woman and go to save anna, listen for plot details on the way and try not to get caught

There are two separate nr. 5 buses, both driving the same route, except the opposite way. Hannes and Erik are on the bus which is driving away from the address Arvi got. I should've made that more clear.

[Yato]

ignore them and save our waifu

[Certis Baliano]

ignore them and save our waifu

Onwards!


blank 5

---

Twenty minutes later, I stood in front of an old apartment building. Helping Anna-Liisa was a priority to me, meaning that everything else came second. I wanted to check on Hannes and see if he was alright, but I knew that would have to wait; just seeing him alive was enough for now. However, the fact that he was with Erik, worried me. I sighed and rang the buzzer.

“Who are you?” asked a voice which had yet to reach puberty.

“My name’s Arvi and I’d like to talk to your father,” I replied.

“Daddy, Aavi wants to talk to ye!” yelled the voice.

“You better have a damn good reason for making us wake up this early, Mr. Aavi,” said a gruff voice.

“It’s Arvi, and I need your help. Or rather, Anna-Liisa needs it, fast,” I replied.

“Hold on, we’ll get dressed,” said the voice and hung up.

A few minutes later, the front door opened and two figures stepped outside; one was a skinny and sickly-looking man, the other was a red-haired kid - probably around 10 or 11 years old - beaming with energy. The man looked at me disapprovingly and asked, “You sure you don’t need any help yourself, fella? Or perhaps should I call you a lass?”

I had completely forgotten that I was wearing Anna-Liisa's clothes.

“You can call me the person who wants to prevent Anna-Liisa’s death! Honestly, I’m surprised she managed to crawl back to the ninth floor in the condition she was in. Let’s get moving!” I said, raising my voice.

"He seems serious," said the boy.

The man looked both of us, then put his hands into his pockets and looked up at the clouds. He closed his eyes, then said, “We’ll meet you there. I’m sorry.”

Hearing that, the little kid suddenly hugged his father tightly. I blinked. After opening my eyes again, I realized that I was now the only living soul on the street. After cursing slightly due to them leaving me behind, I made my way towards the bus stop.

‘Damn, that’s useful. I need to learn to do that myself.’

✙

I ran up the final flight of stairs, fumbled with the keys, then slammed open the door, rushing inside. The three people inside were all sitting on the bed and staring at me nonchalantly. All three of them, including Anna-Liisa, who looked to be in full health. In fact, she looked even prettier than when I first met her.

“Yes, that’s him,” said the sickly-looking man.

Anna-Liisa looked at me with a puzzled expression, then said, “Mmm, somehow I expected him to be less… feminine.”

The boy snickered and started swinging his legs back and forth on the bed. I closed the door and walked in. “Look,” I said. “You threw all of my possessions away. Did you expect me to go out naked?”

“I wonder why I did that,” she said thoughtfully.

"What do you mean by that?” I asked.

The man glanced at the kid, then back at me and said, “She was in a horrible state when we arrived. Apparently, she had lost her healing sword.”

“Yeah, I call it ‘Slice of Life’,” said Anna-Liisa with a soft smile and stood up. “Did I… Did I tell you what happened to it?”

“Well, you said that ‘a fucking piece of shit got his hands on it’, but hold on,” I replied. “What happened to your memory?”

“It’s like this,” the man explained. “I’m no Holy mage. As such, I possess no traditional healing abilities. If her head had not been harmed, this would have been easier to fix. As it was, we realized that the only way for us to help Liisa, was to rewind everything about her, memories included.”

Gears turned inside my brain. “You turned back the time? I did not realize that Temporal magic was so powerful.”

“Anything's possible with enough imagination, Aavi,” quipped the kid.

“It’s Arvi, and speaking of which,” I said. “I know Anna-Liisa and Ragnar, but what’s your name?”

Anna-Liisa shot me a glare and said, “First of all, don’t you ever call me that again; call me Liisa. Second of all, you said you know Ragnar, but then you go and ask his name. Start making sense, Arvi!”

‘Hold on.’

The kid gave me the biggest grin he could manage, then pointed at the man and said, “I’m Ragnar. This here's my son, Taavi."

“I understand how you could come to such a conclusion,” Taavi said. “Father has a twisted sense of humor."

“Nu-uh," Ragnar said.

“Both of you calm down and help me think,” Liisa interruped. “I can’t decide between pizza or burgers.”

Hearing that, the mood lightened in an instant. I preferred pizza while Ragnar demanded burgers. Taavi wanted to get something healthy, even if it meant having to wait for hours. However, he got overruled fast, seeing as all of us demanded something to eat and the only places open at 6 am were fast-food joints. I had wanted to order the food delivered to us, but it turned out that none of us carried a cell phone and there was not even a regular one in this apartment. Eventually we settled in favor of pizza and headed out.

✙

Liisa, Ragnar and I arrived at the local pizzeria. Taavi decided not to join us, saying that he would not poison his body with any kind of junk food. As expected, we found the restaurant to be completely empty. In fact, we weren’t sure if the place was even open when we first came in because while the lights were on, there were no employees in sight. Only after calling out several times, did a drowsy female attendant arrive with heavy steps. She looked as if she was on the verge of falling back to sleep with her dead eyes, slightly gaping mouth and coarse voice.

“Mmm, hello and welcome to uh… mmm” the attendant said, her eyes locking with Liisa’s. The attendant looked at her with a blank stare, then smiled slightly. “Welcome to Peetri’s Pizzeria.”

After taking our order, she wobbled to the back, saying that it’ll take some time for the food to be ready. We took our seats.

“So…” I began. “Anyone else had a change of heart? Burgers seem pretty damn appetizing right now.”

Liisa tapped her finger against the table, then said, “It’s true that she acted a bit creepy, but that’s probably just social anxiety coupled with our own paranoia. Think about it. None of us have had any sleep recently.”

“I agree with Aavi, and not just because I wanted burgers earlier.” Ragnar replied. “You were almost killed and you have no recollection of the events leading up to that point. We have every reason to be paranoid.”

It felt odd to see such words being uttered by a grade-schooler.

Liisa smiled and said, “Which makes this a win-win situation.” Both of us looked at her as if she had lost it, but the girl continued, “If she’s on drugs or just plain weird, then it’s fine. We’ll get some good pizza, at least. However, if there’s a darker meaning behind her behaviour then we’ll finally see who our enemy is.”

“So you’re thinking that someone besides Erik did that to you?”

After hearing me say that, both Liisa and Ragnar froze.

Liisa came closer and asked nervously, “Um, Arvi? Why did you bring that name up?”

“Because he’s the reason I met you. I walked in on you two duking it out in an alleyway,” I said.

Both of their faces grew paler. Ragnar was the next one to speak. “Erik’s supposed to be on the other side of the world. Perhaps this is just a coincidence. Come on, Arvi, describe this person to us.”

I thought back to the time I first met him. “He looked like a bald old man with a gigantic grey beard. You called him Erik the Babtist. Oh, and he wore a pretty snazzy suit.”

“We’re fucked,” said Liisa, almost without any emotion.

“I dare you to convince me that he’s as bad as you make it out him to be. He’s just a mage. If you count Taavi in, then we have three on our side. I remember a certain person saying that anything is possible with imagination,” I said, winking at Ragnar.

“Well,” Ragnar said. “You can count Taavi out from the get-go, seeing as he’s half-dead already. I like to consider myself as a special snowflake, even amongst other mages. That being said, Erik is a pretty special icicle. So this leaves us with you. How strong are you?”

I was taken aback by that question.

“By ‘three mages’ I meant you, Taavi and Liisa. I have only used magic two times in my life, and in both cases, I managed to royally screw up,” I said.

“First of all, if you’ve cast spells before, then you are a mage!” said Liisa. “You can’t do it without opening a connection to the Source, after all. Second of all, I am a mage, just… one without the ability to cast any spells.”

“I thought that Source was the fifth element of magic,” I said.

“No, it’s not!” replied both Liisa and Ragnar in unison. “That is what the old geezers want you to think, when actually the Infinity is just a plane of energy. Basically, it’s the Source of magic,” Liisa added. “When you’re casting a spell, the first thing you do is send your life energy to the Source and in exchange, you get power that makes the impossible possible. It’s almost as if you’ve never studied this before.”

Ragnar stretched his back, then said, “The reason why people want you to think that the Source is just another category of magic is simple, they don’t want young novices getting as powerful as they are in mere moments. And I suppose some have pure motives, wishing to prevent their students from overspecializing too soon or even worse, losing all their—“

“—powers,” Liisa finished his sentence.

“You know I didn’t mean it like that,” said Ragnar.

“Yeah, I do,” Liisa said and patted Ragnar’s small head.

“So here’s the thing,” I said. “Everything you just said, basically made zero sense to me. I haven’t studied any magic nor have I made any connections with otherwordly dimensions. The only thing I’ve done is follow the instructions of an ancient scroll I found. Most of it was in Latin, but some parts were written in weird markings, probably runes. The instructions said to activate the spell with blood, and that I did.”

“That’s not a spell, you wanker,” said Liisa. “That’s a ritual.”

“What’s the difference?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“Spells literally cost you your life. Rituals cost nothng,” Liisa said.

“For the caster, at least. As I’m sure you’re aware, everything has its cost,” said Ragnar. After noticing my quizzical look, he continued to explain. “We mentioned the ability to gain great power by understanding the true nature of the Source. Rituals are but one of the many many possibilities. But to understand that, you first need to hear about specializations—“

“Ugh, stop that, Ragnar,” said Liisa. “There’s no point in telling him all this, seeing as he can’t even control his life force. You’ll just bore him.”

“Actually, that was pretty interesting,” I said.

“Fine, here’s the truth. You’ll just bore me, Ragnar.”

Just as when he was about to say something in return, we could hear the sound of rustling again. We looked around and saw the attendant walking over to us with a stiff walk, a plate of pizza in hand. She placed it on our table without saying anything, then shambled back into the staff area, behind closed doors.

“Well what do you know. We got so wrapped up in our discussion that we forgot all about her,” said Ragnar. “In any case, I guess we were paranoid over nothing. If I had to work in this place during the night shift, I would probably be on some kind of substance as well.”

I gave him an annoyed look, then took a slice. After I did so, I noticed a small white corner of something, peeking through from underneath the other slices. It looked more like paper than simply a napkin. I put my slice of pizza down and pulled the white corner.

It was a business card of some moving company. Seeing that, I was just about to throw it away when I heard Liisa ask, “Hey, what’s that written on the other side?”

I turned the card over and saw that there was indeed a message there. The handwriting was horrible, almost as if written by a child. I gulped and read the words out loud.

Dear GarageMan17,

I’m currently enjoying myself as the honored guest of your former colleague, father Hannes. Should you and Anna-Liisa make your way to the Church where you used my ritual to commit your first spree of mass-murder, then I know for a fact that my heart would leap for joy.

Looking forward to your speedy arrival,
Your Erik


end

---

Yato saved Liisa's life! If you had not hurried to Ragnar's place, she would be dead and things would've ended up quite differently.

[Aodyssey]

Apparently, this Erik person is one bad dude. Worse, he have means of locating or at least anticipating our location, so running away might not be effective. Now that he have his grubby paws on our friend, he likely have Intel on our background as well, meaning that our strength (bullshittry) would be limited. At the same time, it seems that fighting him is a dicey proposition, if what the waifu said is any indication.

I say we

[x] Go to the Church with Liisa, trying to learn more about Erik in the meanwhile.
[x] Actually, I'd rather not go into our dramatic confrontation dressed like a girl. No offense. See about acquiring new clothes in the mean while.
[x] Apparently, Ragnar do Temporal magic, while his son Taavwhathisname do Spatial magic? Could they, like, teleport around, cash in favors, ask for reinforcement in case Mr. Erik is a man of uncouth nature with untoward disposition?

Wait, no, strike all that. We know he doesn't want public attention, otherwise our threat wouldn't have worked.

[x] Find a payphone and call the Cops, maybe call in a bomb threat in the general vicinity of the church, then go meet the man. Safety net and leverage in one go.

[Certis Baliano]

Should I ignore the part about changing clothes as well?

[Aodyssey]

Hmm.

These
[x] Go to the Church with Liisa, trying to learn more about Erik in the meanwhile.
[x] Actually, I'd rather not go into our dramatic confrontation dressed like a girl. No offense. See about acquiring new clothes in the mean while.

can stay.

[Yato]

Hmm.

These
[x] Go to the Church with Liisa, trying to learn more about Erik in the meanwhile.
[x] Actually, I'd rather not go into our dramatic confrontation dressed like a girl. No offense. See about acquiring new clothes in the mean while.

can stay.

this
also we need a fedora and a weapon, we have no way to defend ourself. And fedora's are mandatory

[Certis Baliano]

And fedora's are mandatory

R-really?

[Yato]

I would never kid about fedora's

[Certis Baliano]

I would never kid about fedora's

I need an adult.

[Yato]

I need an adult.

I am an adult!

[Skwrl]

These
[x] Go to the Church with Liisa, trying to learn more about Erik in the meanwhile.
[x] Actually, I'd rather not go into our dramatic confrontation dressed like a girl. No offense. See about acquiring new clothes in the mean while.

can stay.

I agree with Yato and PBlades on these. I vote for no fedoras, but we definitely need a hat of some kind. Something suited to Arvi's tastes (if he has any). And a weapond would be nice, just in case.

Also: I really like this fic and its characters. I have visited Tallinn twice and I think your descriptions do the city justice.