A Practical Guide to Sorcery (Book 3)

Prologue - 0.1

Beneath hundreds of meters of white stone, in a small room carved into the most secret of places and illuminated only by light crystals, stood four people. To the left side of the doorway, a human woman sidled closer to her male companion. On the right, their boots still muddy, waited two men, one with ginger-orange hair and another with a pair of furry tails. All four wore the red shield symbol of their order and held a clipboard, the paperwork already filled out and reviewed.

Atop a wheeled dolly in front of the quartet sat two large rectangular iron cases. They were coffin-like, the source of an unnamed dread.

The woman cleared her throat. "These are the ones you're here for," she said unnecessarily, breaking the ominous silence.

The ginger-haired man looked the cases over, humming thoughtfully. "Two in such a short period. It must have been quite an eventful time for you, Agent Fike."

The woman sighed. "Well, you know how it is in a big city, Selby."

Her companion placed his fists on his hips and thrust his chest out. "Some sorceress calling herself the Raven Queen has been going around making trouble. I still think we need to do something about her." His voice was loud, echoing off the smooth walls of the small room. He didn't seem to notice his mistake until the others winced and turned toward one of the iron cases. Face paling, he took a large step back and eyed it warily.

When nothing happened, the twin-tailed man asked, "Blood magic?" His soft voice carried a faint accent that hinted at faraway lands.

The loud man nodded, then shook his head. "Well, yes, but nothing egregious. No slaughter rituals. No murders at all, actually. It's the strangeness of it, the rumors, the whispers."

"Nightmare-type?" the red-headed Agent Selby asked.

Agent Fike raised a hand to stop the loud one's response, giving him a long-suffering look. "No. Agent Berg here is just a little too susceptible to rumors. She's a flashy free-casting sorcerer who likes to play games of cat-and-mouse, and a fantastical, romantic figure to the commoners. The stories have been getting wild." Fike turned to Agent Berg, crossing her arms. "Not every frightening incident in the night is caused by an Aberrant."

Agent Berg frowned down at her. "Letting a potential threat go unchecked because of negligence could lead to unnecessary deaths, or even more Aberrants. We should be investigating and suppressing every danger to the future world, as we vowed."

Agent Selby let out a single sharp laugh, raising an eyebrow as he shared a look with his fluffy-tailed companion. "A bit of a fresh-oathed newbie, huh?"

Agent Berg's frown grew darker, but Selby waved a hand before he could retort. "Look, kid, that's a noble idea, but there aren't enough of us to go patrolling around every dark alley and responding to every peasant's report of evil creatures curdling their cow's milk in the teat. We have processes in place to catch the actual threats. Even if you only focus on those, they will be more than sufficient to keep you busy. And with that said, let's make this quick. Agent Marcurio and I have to get back to our base and then to a little village outside Paneth in less than a week."

"You can't tell me she didn't have something to do with that one," Agent Berg muttered, gesturing to the iron case they'd been so wary of earlier.

Fike rolled her eyes but didn't deign to respond aloud.

Agent Selby stepped up to the more benign case, flipping through the paperwork on his clipboard. "Scourge-type with a Nightmare-type sub effect?" He shook his head, muttering, "I don't know why we bother with that old classification system. It's too vague to be useful." Louder, he added, "I heard there were multiple requests for it."