Krish and Marie exited the Raynor Family's mansion without any commotion; their detour through it made less of a ripple than a speck of dust falling upon a still-water surface.
While they walked past the entrance gate and turned the corner, Marie could barely take her eyes off of the pristine new ceramic canister in her hands - which she learned was called a Contract Seal - and her Master. As her eyes darted periodically between the static seal in her grasp and Krish's hobbling form, her expression started to become unreadable.
At this point, Krish could easily ascertain that his precious Disciple's mind was probably working in overdrive trying to come up with outrageous theories and explanations of everything she had observed back in the Raynor Mansion. Rather than leaving the girl to her devices, Krish decided that it was best to intervene and entertain her queries.
"What's with the face?" Krish inquired and slowed his movement to a steady walking pace.
"This!" She immediately shot back, pushing the canister in her hands forward. "What- Why- No! Just explain this."
"Where do you want me to start?" Krish said with a weak smile, he could already predict where this was going, and right on queue-
"From the beginning!"
"It's a really long story," Krish sighed. "Narrow it down for me."
Marie grunted in distress and scratched her head in frustration. "Fine! This Contract Seal - what is it really?"
"By that do you mean, 'What is a Contract Seal?' or 'What is the purpose of this Contract Seal?' or-" Krish's words halted in their tracks as he received a pointed glare from his Disciple.
He coughed to erase his hesitation and restarted. "The Contract Seal, as its name implies, is a soul-binding contract between two entities that runs on Dwarven magic. Although the seal is verbal, it only works if the spoken and unspoken intentions of the two contractees match perfectly."
"That seems kind of finicky, doesn't it? Why can't it be written?" Marie commented.
"Because Dwarves don't have a written script of any kind," Krish dropped a bombshell that nearly caused Marie's eyeballs to pop off their sockets.
"What about these, then?" Marie questioned while pointing at the intricately embedded symbols along the sides of the canister.
"Similar, but not entirely so. They don't read those symbols, they feel them, hear them, smell them... experience them," Krish explained, although it did not fully satisfy Marie's curiosity.
"Exploring Dwarven culture and tradition is another rabbit hole that I don't wish to go down at this moment-"
Marie waved her hand and shot out, "Fine! Fine! Let's get back to what you were saying before."
"Anyways, not many Contract Seals exist in circulation on Gaea, for obvious reasons. Many years past, though, these were the most preferred method of forming a vow between two parties. After all, it is easy to overlook something in text intentionally or otherwise. But you can't pull a fast one using this method. Everything said, including what is left unspoken or implied, is taken into consideration when the contract is sealed. If neither party is entering the contract with the same foot forward, the seal fails immediately."
"That's convenient," Marie lauded. "So about the contract..."
Krish deciphered Marie's questioning gaze to mean suspicion and immediately scoffed in disbelief, "Girl, I'm not some conman who would take advantage of a mere fisherman."
"I mean, we are in a position where we can literally see the future. It's really easy to just hitch our wagons to the winning horse and call it a day," Marie expounded.
"I am aware of that. I will not deny that I scried the future of the fisherman before investing in him. BUT, the scrying was to only see if there were any Constants in his trajectory inhibiting me from acting," Krish clarified. "I was surprised to find just how little interference fate had in play for that fisherman, that is Shyn's great-grandfather. Expanding my range further, I found that even his descendants were largely free from fate's machinations - with regards to their business' and family's stability, that is. Which is why I even bothered to get into this contractual agreement. I'll have you know that I never took advantage of anyone unfairly. If I was being duplicitous I could not have successfully formed the Contract Seal with Shyn's ancestor. I've been actively managing any and all threats that may affect the Raynors and their business - how else do you think they've managed to sustain themselves for four generations?!"
"That IS a huge accomplishment," Marie muttered.
Krish clicked his tongue in disappointment and grumbled loudly, "Can't believe you'd accuse me of something like that, even after I urged the man to form a new contract in your favour..."
"I did no such thing!" Marie denied it with a scandalous gasp. "You're reading into it too much." With a jocular intonation, she skipped forward. However, following two spry leaps Marie halted in place. She was in front of an entrance to an alley. Marie directed her gaze into the darkness that extended outwards from the inevitable dead-end inside. Her cause for stopping before it - a lingering ferrous odour emanating from within - grew in intensity and assaulted her senses, which she had extended into the alleyway.
Marie didn't know what was inside, but her gut was yelling at her and warning her with an ominous grumble. Right as she anxiously swallowed a large gulp of saliva, a reassuring yet firm hand descended on her right shoulder - it was her Master.
"I should have expected this to happen," he mumbled.
"W-What?"
"Let's go in. What lays within is for you to see and understand," Krish responded, while slowly hobbling in. Marie took a second to centre herself and followed her Master.
With each new step, the morbid smell of blood grew more potent and rankled at Marie's senses. After a point, she had to pull in her mana sense to not overwhelm herself with an overlap of odours. Within a few seconds, Marie arrived at the source of this disgusting scent and nearly shrieked and collapsed in shock.
"It's Yumi!" Marie screamed as she finally connected the face adorned over a horribly collapsed skull to that of the lively girl playing with her just this morning. Blood leaked out from the little girl's cracked skull, pooling into a small pond and drenching a fifth of her form in the viscous liquid.
Turning her head away from the unpalatable scene, Marie's eyes accidentally landed on an even more gruesome and violent display a few feet towards the back of the alley.
"Lea..." Marie muttered for she could no longer muster up the energy to evoke a feral scream. The woman's body was ragged and filled with scuff marks - obvious signs of an intense struggle. Her face was warped in a state of fear, pain and rage with bruises and bleeding wounds on her lips and eye. Her clothes were torn, no- ripped forcefully, revealing more of the woman's bruised and battered skin. The woman's open eyes were lifeless, listless, and broken. Marie forcefully held back her gaze from descending below the woman's abdomen, but the blood oozing out of the woman's vaginal region was enough to solidify Marie's assumptions.
"W-What happened?" Marie breathed out in shock.
"Three people: Lea, Yumi and Liam. They were destined to die today, that was a Constant," Krish said from behind her.
Marie balled her hands into a shaking fist and demanded through gritted teeth, "Why didn't you tell me? You know I can't see them safely, why couldn't you tell me?!"
"And then what?" Krish shot back with a stern crack in his voice. "What would- no what COULD you have done to stop this from happening? Let me remind you, if you hadn't interfered, the three would have died a more... dignified death, albeit gored and trampled by boars."
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!" Marie bellowed. "It's the lives of people we're talking about here. How can you be so blasé about all of this?"
"People die all the time. I've said it once, and I will say it again, it isn't your responsibility to save everyone," Krish explained calmly.
Marie ignored her Master's words and snapped her fingers, "That's right! Liam. We must save Liam. Where could he be?"
Krish sighed and prepared to say something, only to get interrupted by a sobbing moan, "Liam... did... this..."
"Huh?" Marie followed the voice and saw Lea's lips moving. The woman's eyes were still lifeless, but tears had started to gush out and flowed down the side of her face.
"Liam... killed... Yumi... Liam... he-... he-"
At that instant, all Marie saw was red. A rage rivalling the burning of a thousand suns grasped her rationality; her expression turned resolute and murderous. Marie's mana surged outwards with unbridled fury, undulating with every breath. With a burst of wind, the girl leapt out of the alley and disappeared around the corner. Her feet were taking her somewhere, she did not know where. But she was confident that it would lead her where she needed to be.
Krish, though, left alone in the alley, simply sighed and crouched next to the wrecked form of the mother.
"I should have stopped the girl from meddling with your lives earlier," he said out loud. "It is truly unfortunate that you had to die today. Though understand that there was little we could do to stop it from happening. To save a life destined to die requires an equivalent exchange, which oftentimes is another life. I could have taken that perverse man's life to save one of you. You would have chosen your daughter and would have left her an orphan in the process. She would have survived, but at what cost?"
Krish sighed once again and said, "I apologise that you had to die this way. A mother should never have to see their children die before their eyes."
With those final words of apology, Krish waved his hands and pulled the little girl's corpse towards the mother. He gently placed her into the woman's open arms. Lea released a whimper before gently kissing her dead daughter's forehead.
Krish slammed his staff into the ground, causing the earth to rumble. A fissure revealed itself, pulling the woman and daughter into it before a superhot inferno leapt out from the crack. Then, just as it came, the fissure closed and took with it everything that remained in the alley. The area looked spick and span, as though no child murder and rape had taken place at all.
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