A Weapon’s Serenade

Cheating on the hike through parts of the Black Forest also meant cheating on leaving it. The girls had arrived on time at their hotel in Munich after actually finishing the trail and feasting on a nice buffet at a local restaurant. Magical endurance enhancements worked well on humans but often left them feeling very hungry afterwards.

It was almost noon the next day, and the girls had set their sights on the Viktualienmarkt after a well-deserved long and restful night. This market in the inner city of Munich was the perfect place to find something good to eat and something delicious to take, in this case teleport, home.

“I will return home after this and make sure our spoils are properly preserved.”

Melody nodded. “Good idea.”

“We might be a bit too eager to try and buy new food.”

“You think so? Honestly, I love this. Why not try everything interesting? Humanity is fleeting, we should enjoy what it has to offer as much as we can.”

“I suppose that is true. Don’t let me stop you, and I shouldn’t let me stop myself either.”

A man and a woman, both very professionally dressed, approached the girls. The man spoke with a heavy German accent. “Excuse us, we couldn’t help but overhear your conversation and we have a few questions. If you don’t mind.”

Kuria raised an eyebrow. “What exactly did you hear?”

“You talked about humanity as if you were not part of it. Do not worry, we know about the supernatural.” He pulled his ID from an inner pocket of his jacket. “I am Anton Obermüller, Bundesamt für Extranormale Phänomene.”

Melody immediately got what was happening. “You’re from the German version of RICA.”

“Precisely, yes. I am sorry to ambush you like this, it was just a chance we couldn’t let pass. If you know about RICA, you also know what we do, right?”

“Of course. Kuria, if you would.”

“I am what you assume. These two are still human. We are merely on vacation, not here to cause any issues.”

The man shook his head. “We did not assume that. You must be young miss Valefor and miss Engelhardt then. We have read a report about you and that we should cooperate with you in case you need our help. I apologize for our eagerness, this is just the first time we two are meeting with someone actually not from ‘here’, if you know what I mean.”

“It is my pleasure to be your first encounter then.”

“And such a special one too. No offense meant, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that you’re not a… I should just stop talking. Apologies.”

Kuria smiled. “I understand your excitement and it is okay to fumble at times.”

The woman chuckled. “I told you they would be very nice and you didn’t need to worry. I’m Sarah Huber-Langenmantel.”

“I’m Kuria, and you already seem to know Melody Valefor and Anne Engelhardt.”

Sarah smiled. “You are almost celebrities in the office. It’s so nice to meet you out in the wild, we don’t get out much and there is very little opportunity to work with demons at all. And our more local supernatural friend, Jolene, is handled by small office in the town she resides in. Head office here doesn’t deal with her. We just get the artifacts and the paperwork.”

“I suppose we should give you ample opportunity then. We don’t have dinner plans yet for today, if you want to join us and maybe recommend a nice place to invite you two to.”

Sarah sighed with a sad tone. “I wish I could but I have a fourteen-year-old daughter at home and I promised her that I wouldn’t miss another dinner for work.”

“You are raising her alone?”

Sarah nodded.

“I assume she knows nothing of your work, but I have no qualms about telling your teen the truths of this world. You can just bring her too. This isn’t a business dinner after all, it’s your opportunity to make a demonic friend.”

“And that would be okay with you? I mean, she is a big security risk.”

Kuria shrugged. “Aren’t we all? We made no effort to hide our conversation earlier. The librarians are teleporting to places across the city in broad daylight. Even if she doesn’t follow along with our requests to keep everything we tell her a secret, the current inquisitorium has highly effective methods to supress information online. No one will believe her if she publicises anything.”

Sarah smiled. “You convinced me. Do you have a way we can contact you for later? I assume you have plans for the afternoon and don’t want to spend the day at the office with us.”

Kuria handed Sarah a business card. “You can send us a text message. Calling us might work, but that depends on where we are at the time.”

“Awesome, thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now, Anton, do you have family you might want to bring?”

Anton shook his head. “I’ve been single for a while now and no children to speak of.”

“Understood. Now, if you would excuse us. We have a market to finish exploring and a castle to visit.”

“Of course. We shall see you later then.”

The Munich Residenz was the largest city palace in Germany and a lovely tourist attraction. The girls had taken their time to take in everything inside the palace and were now wandering the garden just outside.

“I wonder…” Anne let her eyes wander across the pristine garden. “I wonder if the demons would do something like this.”

Melody tilted her head slightly. “I am honestly not sure. On the one hand, this is art. On the other… demons value nature too much. This isn’t good for insects or birds, no matter how pretty it is.”

“True… but it might be possible to create a sustainable version of this.”

“I am sure it is and maybe someone has already tried. There are five entire circles of Hell we have never seen before and the four we have visited, we have only seen small parts of. There might be a park like this in Hell somewhere.”

“If there is, I really would love to see it. And if there isn’t, maybe we should create one. A sustainable, nature friendly one of course.”

Melody smiled in amusement. “That would certainly look awesome with our castle.”

“Absolutely. I hope you didn’t take the castle thing seriously though…”

“Partially I suppose. It is a fun idea to move in together but also not at the same time. I also like the idea of being a strange hag living in the woods in a small hut.”

“Maybe not a hag, more of a sexy witch, but yes…” Anne took a moment to fantasize. “I like that. I like that a lot… so much dating potential… little Anne lost in the woods… oh my.”

Melody giggled. “Do we need to book time with the riddle chamber again?”

“Again? You still owe me a sexy sci-fi sword fight.”

“Right… I guess we will see how far the siren thing has come along when we get back and maybe we can get in a little riddle chamber time before uni starts back up again.”

“Alright, sounds good.”

There was a small chirp from Melody’s phone. “And that would be miss Huber-Langenmantel.” She pulled out the phone and took a look. “Ah, nice. She got us a table at a place serving local delicacies at seven. We will meet just outside, got the address here.”

“Then we still have two hours before we need to be there.”

“Indeed. Let’s take our time here then.”

“Yes, no need to rush. Do we teleport or take some sort of tram or whatever?”

“Kuria?”

The disguised demon didn’t need to ponder her options. “Let’s just teleport, I want to enjoy this place for a good long time.”

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