Loosely Lawful | 16

They were lost. Sera hadn’t thought one could get lost in a two-story storefront, but she also hadn’t realized one could get a permit for turning your whole property into its own ever-expanding demiplane, so maybe that was on her for underestimating wizards. It seemed like a fire hazard, having so much space with only one exit. If they ever found their way out, maybe she would submit a complaint to the fire department about Azuria’s Amazing Arcanery’s adherence to building code.

“I think I found the flasks!” Benvolius called from further down the aisle, holding up two pieces of delicate glassware with long stems and spherical bottoms. “This box actually has a label on it.”

Sera jogged to catch up, and Kyle rattled the shopping cart along behind her. They were in an aisle full of glass. Everywhere she looked was glass. Thank goodness Benvolius seemed to have eagle vision. Maybe infatuation was good for the eyes.

She caught up just in time to see Avon, currently in snake form, wriggle out from under Benvolius’s sleeves to wrap around the widest part of the flask. They didn’t have a measuring tape with them, so they’d had to find an aisle full of scales and slide rules at the start of the shopping trip and have Avon adjust their snakey scale patterns to be at regular intervals.

Benvolius did the mental math and decided that the flasks were, in fact, the size on the label, and dumped ten of them into the shopping cart. “I hope these are the right shape,” he said. “Do you think there’s a flask shape guide somewhere?”

Avon flicked out an impatient tongue.

Before Benvolius could ask another question about glassware, Sera whipped out the shopping list. “Right you are, Avon. Let’s see… next is dried seaweed, and then we’ll finally be done.”

The endless interior of Azuria’s Amazing Arcanery had no signage other than a few vague, brightly colored neons that read ‘Looking for checkout? Make a wish!’ that hung high in the boundless, starry ceiling overhead. Sera couldn’t tell if there was a real ceiling hidden behind a night sky illusion, or if the demiplane just had no vertical limit.

They wandered out of the flask aisle and into a wide corridor flanked on either side by still more aisles full of glass - beakers, drinking glasses, shot glasses, crystal balls- which eventually turned into various kinds of lighting devices, and then incense, and then fireworks. After the fireworks came an entire mine’s worth of mineral powders, at which point they decided to change direction.

“I feel like mineral powders are only a few steps removed from dried plants,” Benvolius said, as they wandered down an aisle full of various red vials. “Are you guys sure we weren’t supposed to just keep going straight?”

Sera noticed a tube of a very toxic red cinnabar next to a vial of forty-percent unoxidized copper clay and just pushed him along. Avon hissed, probably whining about the length of this shopping trip.

They passed an aisle of orange powders, and then yellow powders, and then finally arrived at another open corridor. A quick look both ways showed still more mineral powders.

“This is absurd,” Sera said. She looked up to the neon signs hung in up the vast nothing overhead and then frowned. A slight distortion warped the edge of one sign, as if light was bending around a shape perched atop the shelves. She nabbed Benvolius and Kyle by the elbows and urged them to keep walking. “I think we’re being followed,” she whispered.

Kyle stiffened but kept going. Benvolius, clueless as ever, immediately started looking around. Sera wanted to bang her head against a wall–if only there were any in this abominable store.

“Don’t look for them!” she hissed. “Act natural!”

“But I want to see where they are!” Benvolius craned his neck, peered backward, and blanched. “Oh. Um.”

“What?”

Benvolius made a choked face, then glanced back over his shoulder. “I think maybe we should run.”

“Why exactly do we need to”- Sera cut off when she heard the soft, deadly thwick of something flying past her face. When she lifted her gaze to the top of the shelves, she found a figure wrapped in dark, black-green cloth, bow drawn, aiming straight at them.

Scratch that. There were four of them, all perched high atop the shelves, their dark clothing helping them blend into the magical night sky above. Before she could fully process the situation, Benvolius shoved her to the ground, and she felt the whisper of another arrow just missing her neck.

Then, in a tumble of limbs, Kyle wrapped an arm around her and plopped her into the shopping cart. “You want in too, Benny?” he shouted.

“I’m good! I’ll try to hold them off!”

By himself? Kyle was clearly rubbing off on him, and not in the fun way. Or even in a positive way. Sera floundered to get upright and hauled herself over Kyle’s shoulder. Librata’s magic rose like a wave inside of her, then blazed out to envelope Benvolius in blinding white light.

“Is Avon on you or Ben right now?” she asked Kyle.

“Ben,” Kyle replied. “You got a play in mind?”

Not really. Sera hadn’t thought anyone would come after them like this. The only party with any beef against them right now would be the Wildes, and it wasn’t a good look to attack the people who’d just filed a stay on one of their monster hunting gigs.

Not unless they thought they could get away with it. Or spin it. They had the assets, the influence, and the liquid cash to do that.

Sera blinked back to reality as Benvolius poofed across the tops of the shelves. He landed behind one of their attackers, arm outstretched to grab for their bow, and Snake-Avon sprang out like a whip to extend his reach. Crap. They did not have a lot of options here.

She cupped a hand to her mouth and yelled out, “be careful! If we attack recklessly, they might try to”-

She cut off. A sting of pain radiated from her shoulder, right in the gap between her breast plate and pauldron. She jerked a hand up on instinct to clutch at it, only for her gloved fingers to smack clumsily against the shaft of an arrow. Sera choked on the agony. Was it poisoned? She didn't have time to check.

“Fuck, Sera! Are you okay?”

“Ow!” she whimpered. She was not okay!

Above them, Benvolius and Avon now had two figures to fend off. The other two attackers were tailing her and Kyle, and with her dead weight in the shopping cart, Kyle couldn’t move fast enough to outrun them. And Librata above, she couldn’t even pull up magic-sight to see if these people had any kind of recording devices on them–not with the whole store being made of magic.

Not sure what else to do, Sera summoned up a shield, and the next volley of arrows clattered off it, missing her and Kyle by a mile. She couldn’t keep that up for long, though.

Kyle seemed equally unsure, his face twisted in conflict. Sera knew he wanted to go fight off these people, but he also wouldn’t want to leave her alone. Maybe, if they could just make it to checkout somehow, the presence of other people would get these attackers off their backs.

“I wish we were at checkout?” Sera muttered under her breath, looking at the neon signs in the ceiling.

It did not do anything. Instead of magically appearing at checkout, they passed into an aisle full of dried flowers. Maybe they were actually getting closer to their dried seaweed.

“Try again?” Kyle suggested, jerking his head left to avoid another incoming arrow.

“I wish we were at checkout?” Sera said a little louder.

Still nothing. Benvolius poofed onto the adjacent shelf to run alongside them. “I don’t think we can outrun these guys!” he panted. “I know my uh- you know. We’re all very trained for… this.” At the end of the shelf, he leapt down, landed in a forward roll, and puffed along in front of the cart. Snake-Avon slithered up around his neck, facing down the trailing attackers, and swayed right.

They all dodged right. Dried flower petals exploded in front of them in the volley.

“You gotta know their game, right Brah?” Kyle called to Ben. “Any tips?”

Benvolius cringed over his shoulder. Of course. The stupid contract magic.

“Avon, what if you turn into a giant bird?” Sera suggested. Snake-Avon just wilted on Ben’s shoulder. Not an option, apparently.

They had to do something. If only Sera could think clearly! But her shoulder hurt like the blazes. None of them were armed, and even if they were, it wouldn’t be good to fend violence off with violence, in case the Wildes tried to accuse them of something.

Gods damn it. This wasn’t fair. They passed out of the flowers and into herbs, the cart wheels rattling beneath her. Kyle and Benvolius’s footsteps grew slower with every passing thud of Sera’s too-loud heart.

The Wildes couldn’t play dirty like this. They couldn’t retaliate against them for filing a legitimate stay on this stupid monster hunting gig, which, given this reaction, Sera was positive they knew was suspect. They couldn’t cover up their attack with their money. It wasn’t fair. The law was meant to serve everyone, not just people with the power to bend it.

“Librata save our dumb asses,” Sera spit out. She tore open one of the reams of paper in the cart, peeled off her gloves, and reached for the arrow in her shoulder. She couldn’t tell if it was delirium or something else, but her body moved on instinct. Rage burned in her chest, pumping through her blood as she ripped the arrow out.

Her hands found a feather quill somewhere else in the cart. In bright red ink, she carved “CEASE AND DESIST” across the paper in her lap.

Then she stabbed the page through with the arrow, lunged over Kyle’s shoulder, and threw it. Somewhere in her heart, Sera felt a tsunami of Librata’s power. It surged, leaping from her fingertips, pushing that stupid, dirty arrow up and up and up, a blinding white trail against the black of the store’s ceiling.

Sera’s mind suddenly cleared. The paper she’d written on–in her blood, she realized, oh gods–blazed, fizzled out, and then exploded like a firework.

The cart slowly rattled to a stop. Avon hissed appreciatively at the spray of light above them. Kyle, Benvolius, and Sera stared in shock, almost as frozen as the four darkly-clad figures that had been attacking them. Holy hell in a handbasket. Had Sera done that? She’d never frozen people before. This was new. Next to her, Benvolius’s jaw dropped open.

“Brah,” Kyle whispered.

After a moment, the light faded away. The four figures remained frozen atop the shelves of Azuria’s Amazing Arcanery, all of them mid-stride, bows at various stages of being drawn. And now that Sera could see them in better focus, and without the overbright wash of her own magic, she could confirm she hadn’t petrified them, at least. They were just stuck, compelled by Sera’s own command that they obey the law and not attack people in stores.

Avon stretched back out into a human shape and plucked a vial of what appeared to be dried seaweed off the shelf beside them. “Couldn’t you have done that any sooner?”