Brivaria remained completely still even as all of her instincts told her to move. Kseniya and Nyx could not help her. She and Trixie would have to face this foe on their own but she knew the dog would be no help. The angel checked her status. Her health was full. Her mana was full. Her stamina was full. She was in peak condition and all of her skills were ready yet even the angel wasn’t confident in what came next.
The creature drew closer. Step by step it moved toward where the angel waited. The steps quickened—it had noticed her. The element of surprise was gone. Trixie hid behind Brivaria’s legs. The dog anxiously watched the unfolding scene and looked up to the winged girl as if to ask if she was certain about this. Brivaria never wavered. She held her ground. Without warning, the creature let out a roar that startled girl and dog with its volume.
Moo!
The baby cow ran up to the short fence and mooed at the angel and dog. Trixie was sniffing at the air but Brivaria was far braver. She reached a hand forward pet the little calf. Its brown fur was soft and its long ears wiggled as she pet it. Trixie sniffed closer and closer until the calf swung toward Trixie and licked the dog’s nose. Trixie let out an indignant bark and then licked the cow back.
“And thus a friendship is formed,” Kseniya said while watching the sight of the angel, dog, and baby cow interacting. The lamia shook her head in amusement. Her long, black tail was pulled under her and she sat on her coils.
“How can she know the names of so many monsters yet have never seen a cow up close before?” Nyx asked. The catfolk girl’s sensitive ears twitched every time the small cow let out a loud moo. For such a tiny thing, it had big lungs. The other cows grazing noticed the little cow’s excitement and meandered toward the fence.
“She has spent most of her life on those ‘intervention’ things where she fights monsters and that is all she knows. It sounds like a lonely life, you know? I think this is good for her. Perhaps it will cheer our little angel up too. She has been making many sad faces lately. They do not suit her,” Kseniya replied.
Mr. Collins emerged from the nearby house walking toward the pair as they chatted. Two tall, brown ears rose from a similarly colored head of hair marking the farmer as lephori. The lephori, or rabbit-kin as they were sometimes known, were a people renowned across Zlithia for one, singular reason—they were terrible with magic. This was why many of the lephori took up more mundane trades such as running a dairy farm.
The economics of a dairy farm were simple. One leveled in a couple useful classes like Carpenter or Gardener then Farmer then Dairy Farmer. The Dairy Farmer class gave skills that made the process easier, faster, and more gentle on the cows. Cows that were frequently milked then developed their own abilities to produce more milk. The milk produced from an experienced Dairy Farmer was safe to drink and absolutely delicious.
The Collins dairy farm was an old and successful one. It was a day’s travel from the city of Barton and there was a rotation of wagon drivers constantly ferrying milk from the farm to the city. It was close enough to Barton that the roads were safe and the farm never had problems with roaming monsters. While the Divine Blessing adventuring team would have likely stopped at the farm to see if they could pay for a room with a roof rather than camping, they were actually there on a bit of highly unusual business. They were there to kill bugs.
“So normally I don’t put in a guild request for this,” farmer Collins began. The group had torn Brivaria away from playing with the cows to have a formal discussion on why they were there. They’d moved into the farmer’s dining room to make the discussion more comfortable for the team. “I’ve got a guy in Barton who comes out once a month to look at the property. His name is Terrance Grand and he does a fantastic job. We’ve been friends for years. Even went up to Pemburne to go fishing together once.”
“So why isn’t Terrance doing this?” Nyx interrupted. It was rude but the catfolk girl was practically bouncing up and down. They’d all been given fresh milk to drink while talking and she’d already asked for a second glass. The milk also received a Trixie seal of approval as the dog was happily lapping away at some milk in a bowl.
“I don’t know,” Collins answered. The lephori man offered a helpless shrug. “I’ve not heard any word from him in a while. I asked a friend to check up on him and he’s completely gone. I then made a report to the city guard and that’s the last I heard.”
“Is the request to do pest control or look for your missing friend?” Brivaria wasn’t certain about hunting for missing folks. They’d went searching for two in Pemburne and only found one. It wasn’t a good track record for their team. Collins shook his head.
“Just the pest control. Matters inside the city are directed to the city watch so I can’t make a request to the adventurers guild that will step on the watch’s toes,” Collins replied.
“But you can make a request for some extermination and casually drop the knowledge that your friend is missing,” Kseniya finished the man’s thought for him. He smiled.
“If an enterprising and capable group of people were to go look into his disappearance on their own then who knows what could happen? If they were a group of proven exterminators then they might even have legitimate reasons to seek out a fellow exterminator.” The farmer relaxed back in his chair and eyed the lamia, catfolk girl, and angel. The trio exchanged glances.
“Well, our next stop is Barton so we’re going to be in the area anyway,” Brivaria hedged. She wanted to help Mr. Collins. Helping people was what good angels did.
“I concur with the little angel. I would also like to help,” Kseniya agreed.
“Then we’ll do it! Though, can we talk a little about payment…” Nyx hedged. Kseniya chortled at the catfolk’s open display of avarice. Everyone in the room had already realized that her loyalty could be bought with milk.
“Sure, let’s work something out,” the angel agreed. Kseniya quickly took the lead in the discussion since Nyx was so very impartial and Brivaria was still learning the value of money on Zlithia. The angel was not used to negotiating for services and she would doubtless lose all of her coin to any competent merchant taking advantage of her innocence. No, it was up to the lamia to ensure a good deal was made.
Half an hour later, they shook hands with the farmer and handed him a few coins. They were effectively discounting the cost of hiring the group but, in turn, were getting twice that value in milk at cost. It was an incredibly good deal for both the farmer and the adventurers. Mr. Collins could produce far more milk than he was contracted to produce for the city. It was trivial for him to fill up Brivaria’s entire inventory with milk though they didn’t quite go that far. Meanwhile the group was getting roughly five times the value of each coin in trade. The farmer’s offer was so good they’d agreed to pay him a few coins directly.
Of course there was the little matter of doing the thing they were supposed to be doing. They were not exterminators nor pest control experts but they had two people with skill sets that were nearly perfect for the task.
“So I will take these ant hills and you will take the flying ones, yes?” Kseniya asked Brivaria as they entered the grazing area. The snake had to be very careful where she slithered as the risk of cow dung was a lot worse for a lamia with her long snake tail than her two-legged friends.
“I think I can do that. I learned very quickly that my light can kill insects. They have such low attributes that even low intensity decay magic will do the job. What about you? Can you kill the ground stuff without ruining the soil or hurting the cows?” Brivaria didn’t want to see the cows hurt. She was in love with them. They were curious and friendly. They were like Trixie but larger and louder.
“Not all skills or spells are so versatile that they may hurt only what we wish them to,” Kseniya said with a sad smile. The lamia was a poison or toxin mage as far as the angel knew but the winged girl had also seen the mage being very selective about what spells she cast and when. “Mine are not so kind to other creatures around me. While I am immune to my toxins, you and Nyx would not be.”
Brivaria stepped back as Kseniya began casting. At the end of the short incantation, Kseniya made a fist. Green miasma fell from her closed fingers like water. It hit the tall ant hill and rolled outward. Some spread along the grass but most simply sank into the earth.
“This will not damage the soil. It does not create long-lasting poison. It is present for the duration of the spell and fades. As for harming or not harming creatures, that is a more difficult thing. There is an element of will in each skill we use and spell we cast that is entirely our own. We change the magic as we cast it in ways that are unique to that one moment in time. The System will never allow a skill or spell to go against its very nature but if your will strong enough then sometimes you can give it a little push in a direction you desire. You can bend the rules just a little.” Kseniya smiled and turned to Brivaria. “That said, do not breathe in the poison or allow the cute, cute doggy to either. I would be very sad if one of you got sick, you know?”
“I think we can manage that.” Brivaria knelt down and pet the dog that was sitting next to her. Both were watching Kseniya do her thing for now. Brivaria was content to pet Trixie and Trixie was content to be pet. The golden sunchaser’s fur was incredibly soft and she loved pets. When Brivaria had purchased the dog back in the town of Keaton from the Second Sword adventuring team, they’d been disappointed the dog didn’t have any unique or magical senses. Brivaria was pretty certain the dog had at least one unique ability and that was the ability to find people who would pet her.
It took nearly an hour for the lamia to hit the main infestations in the grazing field. Her work was not nearly what a dedicated pest control class could accomplish but it would give the farmer some breathing room until the weather cooled down. Trixie and Brivaria took to playing with the cows while the lamia worked. The sound of giggling reached Kseniya’s ears when one particularly curious cow decided to nibble the angel’s large, white wings.
“Alright, little angel. Now it is your turn. Remove the bugs,” Brivaria reluctantly stopped playing around with the animals to get to her task. Her light magic did allow for safe-guarding friends from its effects. It would be nearly useless if not. This made her side of the work far easier.
“One bug removal coming up!” Brivaria raised a hand into the air and pointed a single finger toward the sky. The tip of her finger shone as a globe of light appeared just above it. All the flies buzzing about the nearby cows fell out of the air. With a flap of her wings she flew into the air and began flying around the grazing fields. It took just a fraction of the time for her to very thoroughly cull the flying insect population.
“Alright, I want to do one more thing for Mr. Collins,” the angel proclaimed upon landing. They went back inside and the farmer gave the angel one of his mana lamps. These were small lanterns that could be charged with mana to glow. While they weren’t cheap, anyone could charge them so long as they had some mana. The farmer had several and Brivaria was willing to try charging one or two of them for him.
“Alright, that should do it,” she said as the mana lamp flickered to life. She offered the lantern to Mr. Collins. He took it and looked it over. Brivaria’s unique decaying light magic would theoretically let the lantern kill the bugs just as effectively as the angel herself.
“How long will it last?” he asked. Brivaria fumbled at answering the question. She wasn’t sure. Thankfully, Kseniya was far more knowledgeable about such things.
“Mana lamps normally last about two hours per 10 mana invested. A low intensity light such as this one may get twice that. How much mana did you put in?” the lamia questioned.
“I put 110 mana in so that means about 44 hours?” Brivaria’s words got nods from the farmer and lamia.
“A good amount and even better if I can leave it active around the cows for a couple days. They’ll be happy to have some relief from the pests.” The farmer was just about to thank the pair when Brivaria asked another question.
“Do you have any other mana lamps? I could probably charge a couple more with even more mana. My recovery period is only four hours so I can charge more between now and tomorrow morning while still leaving with full mana.” The angel was so cheerful about it that Kseniya just sighed inwardly. They could have negotiated a better deal if they’d known that from the outset.
“I’d love that. I’m sure my cows will love it as well. Thank you both so much,” the farmer replied. Both girls returned the farmer’s smile. Ah well, the lamia would chide the angel later. It would be a lovely evening at the farm and tomorrow they would be in Barton.
The trio ate with Mr. Collins and his wife then bedded down in the guest room. The bed was too small for Kseniya leaving it for Brivaria, Nyx, and Trixie. Nyx didn’t mind sharing the bed with the golden pooch and Trixie refused to sleep unless Brivaria was with her. The angel and dog had formed a close bond over the many weeks since they’d met in the woods east of Keaton. They were the best of friends and Trixie loved nothing more than having the angel there when she slept and there when she woke up. Brivaria was more than happy to pet the golden until sleep came.
Once everyone was sleeping, the angel tiptoed out of the room. She found the common room of the house and used a small light spell to read. Once her mana was fully restored, she’d charge one of the lamps the farmer had left out for her.
Reading wasn’t what she really wanted to be doing, however. What she truly wanted was to hear from her angelic overseer, Balthazar. The kindly older angel hadn’t contacted her in two weeks. Time worked differently in Heaven than on Zlithia but it bothered her. It made her lonely in a way that nothing else could. She felt cut off from her home and she ached to hear his voice just once.
“Pathetic.” The word was quietly spoken, barely above a whisper, yet the angel reacted like it was a peal of thunder. She jolted upright and looked around frantically. Her wings had been made small via the Lesser Shapeshifting skill and they fluttered with her sudden fright. Slowly her eyes scanned the room. It was only when her eyes glanced upward did she see something.
It was huddled in the corner of the family room, nestled into the place where the ceiling met the two walls like a spider. It was shadowy and indistinct. The angel’s illumination was enough to read her book but it did not fully light up the whole room. It did not reveal the thing in the corner.
Brivaria started to adjust her light upward to shine on the thing but then it flowed downward. It didn’t move like a living creature nor like any beast the angel had ever fought. Even slimes had a pulling/dragging gait. There was nothing natural in this thing.
“Day by wasteful day,” the voice chided her. She knew this voice and tried to follow it with a ray of light to scatter the darkness and shadows. Her attempts were futile. This was not a creature of the night, of shadow and darkness. No, this was a creature that existed outside such material concepts. It defied her sight and her magic by means she did not understand. The light could not give form nor shape to something her mind itself refused to comprehend.
“Who are you? What are you?” she whispered back to the thing. Brivaria instinctively knew she could not escape from this creature. This wasn’t a thing she could outrun so she mustered her courage and faced it.
“You see but you refuse to see. You know but you refuse to know. You have the answer you need. Speak it or wallow in willful ignorance like the spineless wretch you are.” The monster’s voice was elegant and feminine yet filled with anger. Brivaria could feel that hostility and disgust directed squarely at herself. She bristled and forced the words the thing desired to hear.
“I name you then, demon.” The entity froze at the proclamation then it exploded outward. A long, segmented body emerged from the indistinct fog. In seconds it was everywhere. The gigantic, centipede-like body was attached to the floor, the walls, and even the ceiling. It filled the small family room and Brivaria was seated right in the middle of it, her small wings still fluttering nervously. The demon crawled over the chair opposite Brivaria reminding the angel of Kseniya with her long tail and human upper body.
The angel fought this demon or something remarkably similar in the Pit of Rusek what felt like so long ago. She vividly recalled their battle with her attempting to desperately destroy it before her summoning time ran out and she was returned to Heaven or before it killed her. Yet now as she beheld the beast there was something different about the demon, about its features, which made the angel’s blood run cold. She could now see a passing resemblance to another face which she knew very, very well—her own.
At the head of the massive centipede body was a winged woman whose features were strikingly, terrifyingly similar to Brivaria’s own. The demon was not the angel’s twin; her six arms and large forward-facing horns dispelled that possibility. Her wings were those of a bat rather than a bird and her body’s proportions were far different from the small angel’s yet Brivaria could see the barest reflection of her own features, distorted as they were, in the demon’s countenance.
All of the demon’s body was overlaid by a gray pallor. The whole creature from the long centipede end to the woman’s naked body was devoid of any color. She was as though life and color itself had been drained away to leave something that no longer fit into the world.
“So named, so I appear, but a moment of bravery does not a coward redeem or are these scant moments all you are capable of? You have already made your choice. Your so-called friends now live yet you hide from it.” The demon-thing’s words strange to Brivaria’s ears. The way she spoke seemed to shift from sentence to sentence yet the underlying tone was one of anger and… frustration?
“I refuse to be lectured by a monster,” the angel snapped, “I am no coward and I have sent two dozen of your kind back to your home plane in pieces.” The demon’s cajoling was getting the better of her but Brivaria couldn’t help it. She was terrified, absolutely terrified of the thing in front of her. It hurt to name thing and to give recognition to her situation. Something inside her wanted to desperately pretend this wasn’t happening but the angel had already listened to that part of herself for too long.
“Then why do you not progress? Must you be pressed to the edge of death to recognize your folly? Or will seeing the mortals you travel with pay for your sloth be enough? The cat saw you take a spear through the heart and not die. What does she suspect? The snake is a sorceress. She is not ignorant of those who wield death and decay yet she travels with you.” The demon crawled over the chair toward the seated angel. The many legs made no sound as they moved along the walls, the ceiling, and floor. “You are not clever. The only one you hide from is you.”
The demon grew closer and closer as she spoke, her tone going from unpleasant to outright hostile. She was nearly face to face with the angel then she was gone. Just like that the demon had vanished leaving Brivaria alone in the family room of the farmer’s house. In the dark house, where all save the angel should have been asleep, Brivaria heard footsteps.
Trixie peaked her head into the room from a doorway. The golden sunchaser’s tail started to wag slowly, tentatively, as she entered the room. Brivaria’s hands shook as she pushed the book that she’d held in a death grip only moments before to the side.
“Hey girl, are you okay?” the angel asked. The golden hound padded forward and put her head on Brivaria’s lap. Her soft, brown eyes looked up at the angel as if to ask her that question. Brivaria stroked Trixie’s soft fur and the dog quietly whined.
The two had been together since the first day of her awakening on Zlithia. Trixie was always there for her and she was always there for Trixie. When the dog went to sleep and when she woke up, Brivaria always tried to be present. Those times she wasn’t present upon waking up made the dog worried and anxious. The angel didn’t know if her conversation with the thing had woken Trixie up or the beautiful golden just sensed something but she’d woken up without her favorite angel and was now very distressed about it.
“Okay, okay, I’ll come back,” the angel relented when it became clear Trixie wasn’t leaving without her. She put the book back in her inventory and took the mana lamps. The two made their way back to the bedroom and she tucked in alongside the dog. Nyx had not woken up when Trixie got out of the bed and didn’t seem to rouse upon their return.
The angel didn’t sleep. She couldn’t sleep. She just hugged her dog and waited for the moment the demon would return. That moment never came. Perhaps the demon had said what it needed to or perhaps the little bit of security that being back with her friends gave warded it away. While the monster did not return to scold her further, Brivaria admitted that she did need to move forward. Nothing good would come of leaving her skill point unspent nor leaving her two friends in the dark.
Name: Brivaria
Race: Angel
Class: Apprentice Shaper of Flesh
Level: 32
Stats: Health 68/68, Mana 129/129, Stamina 89/89
Attributes: Physique 55, Endurance 34, Arcane 61, Spirit 64, Awareness 34, Presence 68
Active Skills: Current Control, Defensive Bulwark, Healing Touch, Wind Formation
Passive Skills: Flesh Sculpting, Infernal Seed, Inventory, Lesser Flight, Lesser Shapeshifting, Lingering Decay, Rest, Traits (Angel)
Magic: Light of Decay
Affinity: Corruption, Decay
Unspent Skill Points: 1