Majimonsters: Rosewood Journey - Chapter 149

We interrupt your reading to explain what is going on exactly and provide some background information:

Before all this happened, Silvia asked Alyra a few more questions as to gain insight on how to deal with her now monstrous brother. From these questions, she and Voxea learned that her brother was hunting based on tracking her scent.

The reason why she knew this, was because a week after the mausoleum incident, she was almost assaulted. But before anything happened, her monster brother came out of nowhere and ripped her attacker to shreds…and then switched targets to her. During the chase, she fell into a compost pile and her brother for some reason stopped dead in his tracks. She sat there in a daze as she watched him sniff the air in confusion before letting out an angry growl and leaping away. This revelation helped Alyra maintain some level of safety from her brother, but only in temporary chunks of time.

With this knowledge in hand, Voxea planned for Silvia to act as bait using a cloak that smelled like Alyra. But bait is pointless without a good trap.

Voxea turned out to be… unhealthily familiar with the type of curses that the Circle of the Argenti Bestia employed, and had already pre-planned the magic circle needed to undo the curse. Unfortunately, the circle had an unusual activation condition and even less pleasant ritual required.

But less telling, more showing, back to the actual story!

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As the three bruiser majimonsters slammed the beast man towards the wall, the spell circle that Voxea and I prepared ahead of time began to spin to life.

Chains of aether manifested from the circle and began to wrap themselves around the beast man, locking him into place. As he struggled against the magical bindings, the chains grew tighter and tighter until he was fully locked in place. A unfamiliar rune began to manifest upon his chest, causing the surrounding aether to become agitated. As all of this was happening, my friends and Alyra came from their hiding spots and joined me in front of the beast man.

“Alright guys”, I said while changing my belt into staff form. Bori and Albina looked shocked at the sudden change while Savina looked ready to help…oh right, I forgot to tell them that I could do this.

“Silvia, when could you-“, Bori began to ask

“Don’t worry about it”, l replied while using my aether to make the end of my staff look like a weird mix between a pitchfork and a pair of tongs, “because this next part is going to suck”.

“What next part?”, Albina asked…right before I let out a weird yell as I rushed towards the chained up beast man. The next thing anyone knew, I plunged my staff into the rune on his chest, an audible squelch echoing in the alley.

[Why…was there a squish?], I asked Voxea

[Side effect of the curse. Now then, get ready to pull], Voxea instructed me.

[Right].

Planting both feet firmly on the ground, I repositioned the grip on my staff and began pulling it out of the beast man. As I began to pull, I could feel aether suddenly churn as purple sparks began to fly from the beast man’s chest. Surprisingly, there was a lot of resistance against my pulling. It felt like pulling a wooden spoon out of a jar of cold honey.

A few minutes later, I could see a distinctly human torso being firmly grasped by my staff. But that moment quickly passed as I could feel the curse strengthen and pull the torso back into the beast man, dragging my staff deeper into it.

“Hey guys, would you mind coming over and help me pull? This thing isn’t getting any weaker”, I asked my friends while maintaining a hard grip.

Savina quickly came over and grabbed onto the staff to help me pull, Bori, Albina and Alyra coming a little after to help. If I had to guess, they were still a little shocked at my little magic trick.

“Now then…pull”!

At my command, my friends and I began to pull on the staff as hard as we could.

“Oof”!

“What the hell”?

“It’s like trying to pull out a tooth”!

“Wait, I see him! Boleros”!

After a few more tugs we could make out a person that looked like a more masculine and older version of Alyra, his body sticking out halfway from the beast man. With one last cooperative tug, we yanked him straight out of the beast man and the circle.

We managed to relax just before the force of our pulling knocked ourselves over, giving Alyra an opportunity to run and check on her brother and time for me to turn my staff back to normal.

“Is it over? Did we fix it?”, Savina asked expectedly.

I was about to say yes, up until I felt the fog of war forming around us.

[And here comes the tricky part].