Chapter 26: Lost Child Scry

The next week went by fast, and slow, depending on how Arthur looked at it. Until that point, every day had brought something vastly different, some new test, struggle, or triumph. It had all been novel, new, and changing.

People had warned him, again and again, that eventually things would slow down. The levels would still flow in, but as drops rather than a big torrent. The progress would come, but only with painstaking work. Eventually, they said, it would all calm down.

He had heard them, understood them, and believed them. He just hadn’t expected it to happen so soon.

And so it was slow. Every moment was a lot like the last, but it wasn’t boring. He was getting better and better at his job, learning a bit more about the customers, getting to a point where he understood what the regulars wanted and could prepare it for them before they even asked for it. He knew what a lot of them did for a living too. It was fun.

In an unexpected way, it was even more fun now that he wasn’t alone working the stand. The owl-girl wasn’t talkative, really. If anything, she actively resisted conversation. But she was there.

He had learned, finally, that her name was Lily. That was 100% of what he had learned about her, excepting what a few other people had filled him in on. But she was there, hanging out, making things slightly more fun just by being another person on his side of the counter.

She worked hard, too. By the time they finished out the second day, she was handling anything he threw at her and anticipating things before they came up. His rinse-buckets were not only always full, but were now always clean. The cups were restocked as soon as she had them washed, fully dried.

Once, he even found that she had stolen from the till and disappeared, only to have her return a half-hour later with more ice, his change, and the credit for saving the day by keeping the larger-than-average order of drinks cold during the lunchtime rush.

“It’s always that way on church days,” she said. “Nobody wants to sit through a whole sermon dry.”

It was also fast, or at least felt that way. At the end of the week, all the days that came before blended together. It felt like one long day, and nowhere near a week. It did come with benefits, though. However slow his progress was, it was still progress.

Level 11 Teamaster

Stats:

STR 5

VIT 8

DEX 8

PER 14

WIS 10

INT 5

Primary Skills: Teashop Brewmaster (Level 8) Food Scientist (Level 8)

Achievements: Shop Owner, Employer (Rolling into shop owner)

Another level and a couple of points in perspective made a difference in plenty of ways, and not always in ways that made sense.

Somehow, Milo’s machine began producing boba pearls that were a little rounder. And with no improvements to his formula, Arthur started getting tea with flavors that were a little better balanced, pearl textures became a little chewier, and an aftertaste that was just a little more satisfying.

Even that got boring after a few days. His customers were satisfied, business was going well, and he started praying for something different to happen. Anything, really.

“Where is she?” Arthur said to himself. He hadn’t realized how much he had come to rely on Lily’s help until one day she suddenly wasn’t there. “Damn. Folks, I’m sorry, I need just a minute to do a bit of catching up.”

He managed to make it through the day with only a few hangups, but still had a bad feeling about it the entire day. It wasn’t just that the owl girl needed the money. She did, and he doubted she’d make more elsewhere, or risk the steady work even if she could. Despite all her prickly demeanor, she seemed to like the work. She never shirked and had only been improving. He thought he had even caught her smiling once or twice. She wouldn’t stop, just like that.

“Milo!” Arthur yelled, just after the lunch rush, as he saw his friend in the distance.

“Oh, hey!” Milo walked over, smiling. “I feel like I hardly see you now. When you come home, you’re always either tired or walking on the Mizu-cloud.”

“You know how it is for us professional adults. It’s a go, go, go world.”

“Yeah, yeah. Give me one of those green ones you made, okay? I’ll hang out for a bit.”

Arthur had recently sourced a kind of powdered tea that was very close to what he knew as Matcha back on Earth, except a little earthier in flavor and made out of peas, if the word of the shop keep was to be believed. He loved it not only because it let him offer another flavor, but because it could be made cup-by-cup without steeping a giant batch of tea. He whipped one up and handed it over.

“So what’s up? You look worried.”

“I am. Lily’s missing. Well, maybe. She’s not here. And she should be.”

“You think she’s hurt, or something?”

“I have no idea. She didn’t seem any different when she left yesterday.” The worst was, it was a big city with lots of buildings, alleys, and other places the kid might be holed up in. “How do you even find a kid like that?”

“A lost child scry, probably.”

“A what?”

“A lost child scry. You mean you never got lost in the market, or anything? Oh, right, Earthling. I do sometimes forget.”

A lost child scry, it turned out, was a citywide spell, legitimized by the government, and cast by the church. It was used for quickly finding lost children. It was a sort of magic version of the PA system at a grocery store in that sense. Little kids would go missing, parents would panic, and a two-way link would be established between them, letting each know the location of the other.

“It’s mostly for toddlers, and it doesn’t wear off until you get your system class. She doesn’t have hers yet, so it should still be active.”

“So how do I do that, then?”

“You? I don’t know if you can. It’s mostly for parents and guardians. That kind of thing.”

“I don’t think she even has that.” Arthur drummed his hands on the counter of his stand for a bit before suddenly making a decision and flipping his sign to closed. “Where does this thing get cast from? Like, who do I talk to?”

—

“I’m afraid I can’t just ‘fiddle with the spell’ like you asked, Arthur. It’s not like that.”

The person to talk to about the lost child scry, it turned out, was Itela. And while she seemed actively pained at the thought of a lost child, she was proving very bad at delivering easy, convenient answers.

“It’s a spell. I have to think you can like… tweak it?” Arthur said, keenly aware he knew nothing about how majicka worked. “Like just cast it at an angle, or something.”

“This isn’t the kind of thing where you are going to put some spin on it and hope you get lucky, Arthur. It’s a clerical spell.”

“Oh, shit,” Milo said. He had tagged along. “I didn’t know that it was clerical.”

“Clerical spells,” Itela explained, “Are spells cast by clerics. Only by clerics. And the reason they are only cast by clerics is that the spells draw their powers from the gods. The god of the right, in this specific case.”

“I’m don’t think I’m following.”

“She’s…” Milo said, before glancing at the expert, who gave him a go-ahead type of gesture. “She’s like the god of putting things right. All of her spells have to do with correcting wrongness.”

“And this isn’t wrong enough? Tell me her name. I’ll pray to her. I’ll explain how it’s wrong.”

“It’s not like that. The gods aren’t people.”

“Well, they might be.” Itela broke in. “It’s an open theological question.”

“Just…” Arthur slumped his shoulders, defeated. “Just start from the beginning, I guess.”

“The gods, as we call them, are always represented as individual entities.” Itela gestured towards a statue, one that was perfectly symmetrical in all respects, and clearly sculpted to enhance that impression. “But we don’t actually know if they are people, in the sense we understand things to be individual thinking entities. What we do know, what we are sure of, is that they operate as forces.”

“Like physical forces?”

“Similar, but different. The particular god we are talking about acts as a force for a return to acceptable normalcy. Of, as Milo put it, setting things right. And a child away from its mother, afraid and alone, is a pure wrong. Something that is wrong on a cosmic, spiritual scale.”

“And thus the god is willing to step in and fix it?”

“Exactly. But you aren’t this child’s parent. Or guardian. Or relative. Would you even call yourself her friend?”

“I don’t know if she thinks of me that way. I’d like to be.”

Itela patted him warmly on the shoulder. “I know you would. But the spell isn’t cheap to cast, Arthur. And in all but a very few situations, it would reject you as a valid target. The only way I can see this working is if, first, you really genuinely feel responsible for this child. Not that you are worried, or that you think you might be responsible, but that you feel it’s wrong that you can’t find her.”

“And second?”

“She’d have to think the same thing. And I think I know the child you are talking about. She’s an owl, yes? Prickly? Defensive?”

“That’s the one.”

“I thought so. That child, who trusts no-one, would have to feel, on some level, that it was wrong that you couldn’t find her. Whether she admits to it or not. And these two things are harder than you think. They can’t be faked. And I can only cast so many spells per day, Arthur. If someone comes to me sick, or in a dangerous mental state, or any number of different things, they might find me tapped. And it’s just too large of a risk to take casually.”

Arthur understood. Some days there were outlier amounts of emergencies to deal with. And so long as there was a limit to what she could do, it made sense to be careful with her magical resources.

“I mean, I have a food stand. I make snacks, in liquid form. It’s not that important,” Arthur said, lamely. “But… it just seems like she’s supposed to be there. It feels wrong that she’s not. And I don’t know that she’s in trouble. Maybe she just ditched the job. But I don’t see it.”

“Why?”

Arthur thought about that for a second.

“When I met her, she wasn’t anything, besides suspicious. She was just pissed, I guess. Angry. And I think if that’s all she was, if it wasn’t something that could have been helped. And she wouldn’t have been very good at the job.” He was babbling now, aware that he wasn’t making much sense. “But she was good. Not because she had the system, but because she was trying really hard. And I have to think… I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem like she would have tried hard if it didn’t feel right.”

Itela tapped her fingers on the desk.

“I know it’s silly. And I’m not her parents, or her guardian, or whatever,” Arthur said. “I guess I’m sorry for taking your time. I’ll find her another way.”

Arthur had wheeled around and made it through the door with an alarmed Milo in tow before he heard Itela’s voice behind him.

“You know what? Screw it. Let’s give it a shot.”