Well, now I know I guess.
After doing some experimentation with Abaris around a handful of hypotheses, we’ve narrowed it down to a few possibilities…
But the most likely one is related to how Spellspeech doesn’t seem to cost me anything.
No mana, no will, no uhhh vitality? Health? Nothing.
But according to him, spells are always powered by mana, specifically the mana of the caster, which is why mages run out in long battles and so forth.
So where exactly is the mana for Spellspeech coming from? Probably one of my Domains. And since Spellspeech isn’t well documented – only knowledge that some gods have had it – we don’t really know what one.
Although that Domain: Control does seem suspicious, considering I got it with a weird Class tied to a weird god nobody knows about…
…
Wait.
Nyx!? Didn’t you say forever ago that Ananke was what, ‘mother of Fate’ or something? Why would you know that and nobody else?
(I have no idea what the hells you’re blathering about,) my former Assistant snaps.
You’re kidding.
(Nope. Never heard of them, other than how it’s in your Class name.)
…
How?
(You’re probably losing your mind, finally. Not like there’s ever been much there to lose.)
Not funny. Not funny at all, and definitely not the time.
(What?)
How the hells would you know about a literal fucking god, and then suddenly forget?
I can practically feel her shrug.
…
Searching for understanding and coming up empty, I sigh. Something about this feels very, very wrong. And I have no idea how.
***
“Signs of Skill use?”
Olive is reporting her progress with the issues I’ve assigned her – namely the insurgent issue and disappearing people issue.
She nods furiously and starts scribbling on her writing tablet again.
“Hm hm. I see. So you can find mana residue where someone uses a Skill… That’s good to know. Can you tell what Skill, or what type at least?” I ask.
And now she shakes her head furiously instead.
Huh.
“So all we know so far is that some kind of ascendant or ascendants are doing this. Right?”
She nods again, her ears flopping slightly. I absentmindedly manifest a feeler, looping it around behind her and reaching up to touch the white fluff in one of them.
And she jumps back from it with a squeak.
…
Wait, why is she blushing? No, you know what, I don’t want to know. Nevermind.
Anyway.
“So we’ve got nothing actionable yet, right? Yeah, I know.”
Olive tilts her head to the side and glances suspiciously at my feeler still floating where it’d been.
And now I know it’s warm and soft in there, although I’m not sure why exactly I wanted to touch her ear fluff.
The fox spirit frantically grabs hold of both her ears and flattens them against her head – probably safe to assume she heard that thought too.
Well, whatever.
…
Now that I think of it, I haven’t seen Aubrey in a while…
(He’s managing the town guards. They’re busy as hells, especially with all the disappearances and attacks,) Nyx says.
Which, makes sense.
…
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“When I wanted to go to the hive, all I had to do was visualize the place and project it to you, Olive… Can you do the same, but for the face of one of the missing people? Just one of them will do. Oh, or the taste of their mana…”
She answers with a disappointed frown.
“I’ll take that as a no. Omorth, Olive, let’s go to the site of the most recent disappearance. I have an idea.”
***
Sure enough, they left everything behind. And it’s all the hells of a mess!
From my maid’s bond, I suddenly feel a rapid flash of images… most of which are me throwing clothes on the floor.
Huh.
“Wait, so you can project images! You should have said so! Why didn’t you just show me a face? It’d be faster if I told my kin to track by looks! And well, I wouldn’t have to be here, doing… this.” I gesture at the stinking heap of unwashed clothes, dishes, bedding… basically everything, I’m a literal ash monster and it even offends my sensibilities.
Omorth is idly moving around the mess with the tip of his blade while I get to my actual work… that being, using True Sense and Consume to look for traces of the human’s mana…
Ah, there it is.
…
And it tastes just as foul as the rest of the room.
“Alright, I’m done, let’s get out of here and I don’t know, burn down the building or something. Ew.”
Without my input, Olive has already transported me to the bath… again. Either she teleported the sword knight somewhere else or just left him there entirely…
Oh well.
I can tell from the look on the fox spirit’s face that she’s not going to take no for an answer, so I drop my clothes on the floor as usual.
I don’t miss her quiet sigh, though.
After using the wall water thing, I drift my way to the standing water and drop myself in.
…
“You’re doing it again. If I need to wash, you need to wash. Don’t just stand there.”
And yet, she continues to stand to the side in a prim and proper pose.
“Ugh, fine.” I lasso her with a few quickly manifested feelers and dump her in naked again.
***
“What?”
I’m standing around in the garden, bored like usual, with Olive following me. She tilts her head at my question.
“No, you know exactly what I’m getting at. Don’t pretend I haven’t noticed.”
The fox spirit blinks, and then tilts her head the other way.
I sigh, and then step to within a foot of her, right in her face. “You’re standing closer to me than usual, and sometimes you try to inconspicuously hold the hem of my… what is this, a gown? Why do you keep dressing me up in this stuff? My robes are fine.”
Ah, there’s that look again. The one with the upturned eyes.
Nyx sighs in my head. (How would you react if Izahne did that?)
I’d probably, I don’t know. Consume, probably? She seems to like that.
(And what do you know of that Olive likes?)
The fuzzy maid leans closer toward me until we’re practically touching while maintaining eye contact.
“Oh, fine. Whatever.”
And I pat her head, which she leans into again.
…Enough that she’s now pressing against me. I furrow my brow.
…
But I can’t help but be confused by this.
***
Izahne, Pearl, and Nyx finally came back to the castle. They’ve been in the dungeon for literal days now and haven’t even come back since I told them all I was awake.
Maybe they just assumed I would be. Well, except for Pearl, I’m pretty sure she was hoping I just wouldn’t wake up. But that wouldn’t be any fun at all! I didn’t even dream!
I absentmindedly grate my fingers across my armrest.
Vivianne gave me another update just moments ago… still no useful progress on the insurgency, and I’m still waiting for my kin to –
Ah! There it is!
“My kin have found that smelly human. Let’s go.”
A flash of blue later, I’m standing in…
Where am I?
…
I look around curiously. This is definitely somewhere I haven’t been before…
(Be careful. The mana here is… wrong, somehow,) Nyx warns me.
Noted.
We seem to be in some kind of cave system, though I don’t remember seeing it on the map… Not that natural caves were even on it, that one is mostly dedicated to towns and cities and dungeons and so forth.
“Olive. Is this place familiar?”
She shakes her head.
Great.
And then something blurs from the shadows at the end of the stone hallway, leaping into the air in an attempt to attack…
Me, of all monsters.
I disperse and let it pass through me, materializing and lashing out with a dozen feelers to catch it before it can hit the ground.
“There you are,” I say as I reform my body and turn to face the restrained… person?
Is that a person?
It’s not acting like a person…
…
With the way it’s thrashing, it’s acting more like Izahne did when she didn’t feed…
[Vampire (Least) – Unknown – Level 65]
Oh, hey. Identify wasn’t completely useless…
Wait, why is there a weak vampire losing its mind in some remote cave? I feel for my nearby kin and, finding some, quickly investigate above ground, and yeah. We’re in the middle of nowhere, there aren’t even any towns or villages near here.
“So why are you here?” I ponder, while they continue thrashing and foaming at the mouth.
…
“I am fairly certain it can’t answer,” Omorth says. “Vampires lack many of the benefits of nightwalkers, and have many weaknesses instead.”
“Ho? Like what?”
“Sunlight is the strongest, I’ve heard that their kind offended the sun god somehow in ages past, and they were cursed for it. Also, they have a deadly weakness against radiant magic, and once they lose their minds to hunger they often never regain them.”
I see.
“Well, nothing to gain here then I guess,” I say and drain every drop of mana from the lost cause in the space of one breath, reducing it to dust and promptly absorbing that as well.
Olive frantically starts moving to stop me, stopping with a sigh when she fails.
Oh well.
***
Izahne is back in the dungeon again already. I guess she really did just want to stop by and pay her respects – although she did at least hug me before leaving.
…
When did I start looking forward to that? Why did I start looking forward to that?
…
…
Eh, whatever. At least the clingy fox maid isn’t the only one, uh. Clinging to me all the time.
I guess I’ll have another night on the ramparts, staring up into the empty sky…
My idle musing is interrupted by the clingy fox maid tugging on the hem of my sleeve.
“What?”
She blushes lightly, and points.
In the direction of my bedroom.
I sigh. “What, you want to lay down? I don’t need to sleep. You probably don’t either. Do you need a break or something?”
Olive furrows her brow lightly, and then tugs the hem more insistently.
I answer her with a flat stare. “I don’t understand you. Well, I usually don’t, but I understand this even less. What are you after? You aren’t my wife or anything.”
A brief spark of hurt pulses in our bond, but it doesn’t show on her face. Instead she opens her mouth, then closes it again. After another moment of what I assume was spent gathering her thoughts, she finally speaks.
“This one, Her Mistress, once. Past? Past.”
She leans closer, locking eyes with me.
“Wife,” she says.
“What?”
The fox spirit takes hold of the front of my ruffled dress and pulls close enough that we’re practically touching.
“Waited.”
“Yes, I know. You waited for a long time, and instead of ‘Her Mistress’, you got me. Sorry, I guess.”
“Inside? Inside,” she says emphatically. “Wife.”
I absentmindedly try to back a step away, but she clings tighter.
“Renew.”