Chapter 47: The Stone Muse (7)

After securing the so-called ‘Halls of the Minotaur’—the Ruined Shrine of the Stone Muse would have been a more appropriate moniker—Simon had Belzemine and Duchar study both their host and her seal while Leonard went to scout out the building.

As he feared, the Minotaur Fiend could not be removed from its host without providing it with a new one. The two were simply too intertwined, something that fascinated Duchar.

Simon himself decided against trying to personally extract the crystal. He was pretty sure that his Indomitable Crown Perk and the Overlord’s power would protect him from possession… but he couldn’t be certain until he tried, and the potential consequences could be disastrous.

Moreover, while he had hope of resisting a possession attempt, he knew that Lorimor’s son or Cassandra would not be so lucky. He had to ensure nobody with a Minotaur birth sign came anywhere near the shrine.

Simon doubted Whispermire would survive the night should the Zodiac Fiend escape.

“Magnificent,” Duchar commented, his voice brimming with almost childlike fascination. By contrast, Belzemine’s haunted look wouldn’t leave her face. “I have never seen a miasma crystal of this purity, nor one possessing a dryad… the archdemon inside must be powerful indeed, even though the merger appears incomplete.”

“What have you found?” Simon inquired before the necromancer could lose himself in his research.

“Lady Firewand and I have confirmed that the seal binding the dryad is of elvish origin,” Duchar explained once they had finished casting analysis spells on the Stone Muse. “Expertly crafted, too. Truly a work of art. It does not inflict the Petrification Ailment, but instead encases the target in a near-indestructible prison of stone in which they spend eternity in stasis.”

“I assume the ‘near’ part is the most important detail,” Simon guessed, having already escaped a similar situation. He had the sneaking suspicion that the seal placed on the Stone Muse was the exact same spell Frea’s allies cast on him in his previous reign.

“A ritual I know, to escape this prison!” the Stone Muse eagerly replied through telepathy. “A follower who has failed me; a priest who does not believe me; a descendant of an enemy; a believer willingly martyred. All slain on my altar on each turn of the season.”

“Sacrifices?” Simon suppressed a shudder so as not to appear weak. “Will their blood alone not suffice?”

“Die they must, so their lives may shatter these granite shackles!” She seemed to sense his reluctance and tried to sweeten the deal. “Reward you I shall for each of them, my love. Many secrets and forbidden truths I can teach you, and great wealth to unveil! All a taste of the bliss I offer once we are wed!”

“And then?” Simon asked out loud. “If I free you and take you as my consort, what shall you do?”

“By your side, I shall rule this forest and beyond!” He could almost taste her mad glee. “Once all sung my praise and clamored for my glory, bestowing gifts upon those I favored! Forgotten I have been, and remembered I shall be! The goddess of these woods I am, now and forever, a queen most worthy of the Lord of Dark!”

In short, she would become a bane on the region and likely the rest of the world. Hardly an appealing proposition.

Nonetheless, he relayed the information to his spellcasters in case they could glean something from it.

“Oh, I know this ritual,” Duchar said. Of course he knew how to unseal an ancient evil. “Grimoires call it the Seasonal Key. The sacrifices must be provided on the equinoxes and solstices, with the targeted seal shattering on the fourth and final one. Any missed victim resets the ritual.”

The Vernal Equinox was a little less than three months away if he recalled, so completing all four sacrifices would take an entire year. As if the whole human sacrifice part wasn’t already a big repellent on its own.

“What spellcasting Tier is this Seasonal Key?” Simon inquired. For all he knew, none of them could even cast the damn thing.

“It would be the equivalent of a Tier IX spell, but that hardly matters here,” Duchar replied.

“Rituals are spells that do not require Tiers or Classes to cast because the power is in the act itself rather than its participants, Your Majesty,” Belzemine explained, her voice quieter than usual. Seeing the Muse’s horrific state had rattled the elf to her core. “Anybody can use them so long as they understand the procedure.”

“Why doesn’t everyone use them then?” Simon asked, sensing a catch.

“Because rituals are highly complex and require extensive preparation, special circumstances, or rare ingredients,” Duchar replied. “Your Majesty can strengthen themselves with a word and a pulse of mana, but a ritual allowing you to do the same would probably require something like slaughtering an auroch and bathing in its fresh blood. Not very practical, I’m sure you’ll agree.”

Simon didn’t like that. If the Stone Muse only needed four sacrifices on specific days rather than a dedicated spellcaster, then all she had to do was contact some fool like Lorimor to act on her behalf. Her orders could already reach beyond the Darkwood.

Simon glanced at the Scholar, who was currently too busy praying to the Stone Muse for forgiveness—which she wouldn’t give—to do anything productive. It might have been a blessing in disguise that he and the other would-be cultists had been too focused on the comparatively easier task of finding a compatible host for the Minotaur Fiend rather than abducting and murdering people to break the seal.

How long until the Muse found someone willing to try the other approach? Simon had the suspicion the answer would be ‘not long’ with the Cobweb in town.

“Stone Muse, do you hear me?” Simon telepathically asked both Belzemine and Duchar. The two spellcasters frowned, but the Stone Muse failed to answer or react. “She cannot hear us through the brands.”

“Fascinating… this would suggest the brands create a direct connection between our souls rather than simply carry telepathic messages,” Duchar mused. “I assume Your Majesty wishes to discuss things you do not want our prisoner to overhear?”

“Yes.” Though the brands did not allow Belzemine and Duchar to communicate with each other, only with their Overlord master, Simon still asked them the same question. “Can she be cured?”

“I… I am not sure,” Belzemine admitted with a grim look. “She is… twisted, even without the crystal. Death might be mercy. What was done to her… was awful.”

“If by ‘curing’ Your Majesty means turning this unique and wonderful creature back into a common and uninteresting dryad, then this cannot be done without removing the fiend possessing her,” Duchar replied with a rare display of annoyance. “Which would require either finding the demon a new host or breaking the seal. Even then, I am not sure if the former method would even work, considering how intertwined they have become, unless we test it first. Perhaps if we attempted the fusion in a controlled environment–”

“No,” Simon decided immediately. No way he would take that risk. “The dryad seems to be under the delusion that she will possess the new host too.”

“She is mad,” Belzemine replied with deep sorrow. “Only the demon will escape. The scission… the scission might even kill her.”

“She is probably mistaken, but again, this is a unique situation that warrants further investigation,” Duchar replied. He didn’t bother hiding his immense curiosity for the unique creature. “I would suggest Your Majesty should go along with the ritual option for the reward it offers.”

Simon raised an eyebrow behind his helmet. “Surely you do not believe a mad dryad will keep her word?”

“Not at all. Your Majesty will understand that wise wizards do not design rituals to break nefarious demonic entities free for the sake of arcane solidarity. This kind of magic also creates a contract between the fiend and its liberators. Freedom against service.”

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Simon’s eyes widened with interest. “What kind of service?”

“In this particular ritual’s case, the freed entity will be magically compelled to fulfill a single wish for whoever completed the ritual to the best of its ability.”

“For whoever completes the ritual?” Simon could immediately see the catch. “So one could complete the first three sacrifices and be robbed by whoever completes the fourth?”

“Your Majesty is perceptive. Yes indeed, only the person who completes the fourth sacrifice may command the beast. Moreover, the fiend will be bound to the wording of the wish, so they are free to interpret it. I would suggest His Majesty ask a talented lawyer to review their wish before they utter it.”

“But she won’t be able to disobey?”

“No. The ritual will permanently banish the fiend back to the Abyss if they refuse or fail to complete the task.”

Now that changed everything. If the Minotaur Fiend was bound to fulfill any command, then Simon could use the ritual to order it to leave this plane of existence and never return, or force it to do good for the rest of its immortal life. This would remove it as a threat to the world.

All for the price of four sacrifices.

Quite the dangerous way of thinking.