“One eyed curse…” The title didn’t sound like any of the Deriliams she knew the existence of, which now pushed that number up to six, with only four known by name. “What’s he the creator of?” Maybe it was the way the Corruption talked about them, with an absolute lack of respect, or maybe it was the fact that she didn’t yet know that one, what made her drop the tone of reverence.
“Of the type of curses that transform humans into man-eating beasts, mostly. Like vampires and lycanthropes.”
“Lycanthropes…? You mean werewolves and the sort? … Aren’t those fictional?”
“You are a mage.”
“Yes, but I had seen mages before becoming one! And heard about fairies and sea monsters from people that had seen them! Can’t say the same about the others!” In fact, the only times she’d seen depictions of vampires were in the romance novels owned by a pair of women where Velvet had worked as a housemaid.
Oh, and Creftalia had books with werewolves on the cover.
“You can thank the Inquisition for that, and blame them for what it entails.”
“I can do both after we wake up our sleeping hero.” Velvet said, kneeling next to the center of the formation, where the other part of the hexagonal cylinder stabbing Dianthus’ chest was.
Folding a sheet of paper into a triangle, she began scrapping the symbols, more precisely, the parts connecting the cylinder to the rest of the formation, responsibles for the siphoning of magic.
There was no fancy way of removing a formation, at least, not without using magic, which she couldn’t afford to waste now. Taking the flesh from the Chained Man had brought her way too close for comfort to the limit of her miasma tolerance.
She had enough to secure Dianthus’ awakening, but after doing so, she had to purify herself, probably on one of the streams running across the pocket dimension.
Click.
Just as she finished scrapping the formation, the black cylinder jolted, its shape protruding out from the floor. Velvet poked at it with the paper at first, and, when it didn’t react like the one inside Dianthus, she pinched the top with the thumb and the index, pulling it up like a misbehaved kitten.
It… was longer that she expected, forcing her to get up and raise her arm. And, as she was suspecting the upcoming need of taking out her broom and flying even higher, the lower half of the cylinder swayed as a wave, before dividing itself in six vertical, triangular fragments, each one undulating next to the others, like a geometric octopus.
It didn’t move fast enough for Velvet to toss it away just in case, nor did it try to reach out for her, simply restricting itself to sway side to side.
Once again, she poked at it with the folded paper sheet, just that this time she aimed at the tendrils, dragging the paper’s corner down. They did react, but only by staying attached to the paper as she lowered it, like a magnet.
After testing and proving that it didn’t show any hostility, she took back the paper, rolling it like a piece of rope, before tying it around the cylinder’s non-moving half and dragging it down, binding the tendrils together.
She then repeated the same motions two more times, keeping it still before coiling the bendable parts, making it look more like a hand-held bag than the artifact who brought down the Chosen One.
A pretty ridiculous bag, if the snort coming from the Corruption of Fate was anything to go by.
“It’s easier to move around this way, and safer.” She defended.
“I would’ve braided it, keeping it straight like a staff.” Hyde said, crawling up her dress and hair before reaching her hat.
“Yeah, you could toss it to Frenese like a stick that way, have him carry it for you.” With a last check-up to the comatose, soulless mermaid, making sure it wouldn’t die before they were back, Velvet took her leave from the temple, stepping outside.
She wasn’t worried about the previous dangers in the Death Realm, since, with an eternally hungry Frenese on the loose, the ones not able to escape had long been devoured.
Good. Straight path towards Dianthus.
…
Not needing to take any detours this time, she reached the other temple way sooner. It hadn’t changed at all, a difference from the rest of the pocket dimension, who now had cracks all across it.
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“The result of that one crossing all the way from the depths of Hell to his dream.” The Corruption had explained while they walked.
“No wonder then, aside from Lothrigern, that the Deriliam don’t move much.” The memory of the Deriliam that had grabbed her, the one with a thousand hands, breaking down the space and the sky to reach her was still fresh in her mind.
“Only two can. Or, only two bothered to find a non-disturbing way to do it, just to fuck around with humans more easily. Trust me, the more detached one of them is from humans, the better.” Falling silent, it continued before Velvet spoke again. “Both gods and deriliams should just stick to their high thrones and look at humans from above, not mingle with them.”
“You do have a worrisome grudge against them.”
“You have no idea.”
Pressing her hands against the temple’s door, Velvet pushed them open. “Yet here you are, needing the help of the one working with one of Them to save your little soldier.”
“Think of it as a truce between two parties sharing the same goal and enemy.”
The goal to release the Chained Man.
“And after that?” Velvet asked, walking down the aisle, sidestepping around the glowing tendrils emerging from Dianthus.
“If you even manage to get that far.” It clarified. “Then, after that you’ll have Dianthus’ blade in your throat.”
“A very compelling motive to revive him.”
“The world ends if you don’t, and you with it.”
“I. Know. That.” She said, next to Dianthus' open coffin, as she uncoiled the artifact. “You really choose your ally nicely, making sure he needs to remain alive if we want to survive. If Lothrigern is a bug by your standards, then what does that make you? A parasite?”
“I am even less than that. I am nothing, I have nothing and I can do nothing. I’m merely a voice in your head, and even that shouldn’t be possible.” As Velvet raised the artifact above Dianthus, its tendrils now free, it continued. “And so, any chance I could possess fall in teaming up with the one that can do anything.”
Holding the top of the cylinder with both hands up high, Velvet slammed it down, stabbing Dianthus’ chest on the same place where the other half of the artifact was nailed down, its tendrils coiling around it’s counterpart’s, tangling and merging between each other in an dance of flesh, bones, and a black, strange material.
Blinding lights flashed from Dianthus’ body, as the pulsating tendrils of energy retreated back inside him, healing the gaping hole in his chest, where his destroyed heart was.
The artifact finished merging too, condensing in size, now a black, hexagonal cylinder as long as her forearm and twice its width. A faint line still made visible the two halves, shaped into a string of symbols she didn’t recognize.
Yet she put it into one of her pockets. It was hers now.
Putting a hand on the edge of the coffin, Velvet leaned forward, looking down at Dianthus, who showed no reaction.
“Dianthus?” She asked, before moving her free hand to his neck when getting no response, checking his pulse.
He didn’t have one.
“You have to be kid-” Before finishing her sentence, her world became a blur for one second, until her back was slammed against the cushioned bottom of the now empty coffin.
Well, not empty, she was there now. And, above her, a shit eating grin that Velvet very much did not miss or appreciate looked down at her.
Dianthus leaned over her a bit more, propped up by both hands against the coffin edges, blocking the multicolored light falling from the glass window.
"Hmm..." He said, tilting his head to the side. "I can see my reflection in your eyes. Even after a week like this, I do look gorgeous, don't I?"
Velvet looked up at him with an emotionless face, trying really hard to not flip at him after the slam he just did. Oh, how much she would love to blow his face off right now… alas, it was too close for a safe explosion. So, she followed his game, meeting his gaze.
Well, his gloating wasn't exactly wrong, since his pale hair helped reflect the myriad of colors surrounding him, coupled to his week-long nap that didn't dirty him at all, probably due to magic means, and instead made him look like some recently awakened sleeping beauty from children's tales.
But she wasn't going to tell him that; Dianthus' didn't need anyone’s help to bloat his ego, after all. So, she returned his grin, making an exaggerated dreamy sigh. "It only makes me wonder how gorgeous Igern would look in your place..."
Dianthus' smile flinched. "He is the kinda guy that wakes up angry, and, the idea of having him pinning you down is a nice fantasy, but the kind that translates to reality as a horrifying scenario."
"I can fix him."
"You’ll just make him worse, and that’s hard to do."
“Jealous he’s hotter? Now that I think about it, Igern’s black, long hair would look way better under these lights than yours. So get off me.”
“He’s just edgier, not hotter by any means…” Dianthus grumbled, moving away from her, before grabbing her waist and pulling both of them away from the coffin in another single, damned, sudden, incredibly fast movement that made her heartbeat flinch and her mood worsen.
Oh, how badly did she want to slap his grin off. But, whatever, her deal was with the Director and the Prophet, not him, so, once Dianthus put a soul into the mermaid, she would simply send him back to the Mergifari on his own.
And her? Well, she planned to spend some days on Cardomos’ pocket dimension, where no one could spy on her, to finish her staff and craft some charms.