Chapter 122 - Two Blades and a Tail III

After finishing her experiments and curling up under a tree, Claire opened her eyes to find the usual sea of clouds. Her mind had once again been ripped from its vessel and placed within the fortress that had always been her home.

Nightly excursions were already the norm, and she had expected to see the dreamscape the moment she set her mind to sleeping. It had long become another boring sight tainted with the poison of familiarity.

It was precisely that familiarity that tipped her off. A sense of malaise struck her as she wheeled around and scanned her surroundings. There was a peculiar aura about the place, and not just because the manor’s floors were steeped in blood.

All of the obvious things looked to be in order. The gardens were perfectly arranged, the mansion was spick and span, and even the training grounds were free of fresh stains. Likewise, the backdrop was also in perfect order. She could see in the night sky all the stars that lay above Cadria. The constellations that denoted the gods and their servants were in full bloom, glimmering as they would on any summer day. No matter how far she looked, she found nothing out of the ordinary, but her senses were screaming that something was awry. Her raised scales refused to return to their natural state, ignoring her as she ordered them to abide by her commands.

“It’s a dream. Nothing’s meant to make sense.”

Her tension slowly drained as the words left her mouth. She began to walk down the hall, taking slow, dignified steps with each echoing throughout the manor. Her back was kept straight and her head was held high, as if to prove that she was unbothered by the occasional meow that leaked from within the walls. She couldn’t get over them, but neither was she startled enough to react. They had persisted for over a week and she was already desensitized; she was confident that she could maintain her poker face so long as she wasn’t blatantly harassed in person.

The clear night sky faded into a wall of mist as she moved from window to window. Sudden as it was, the transition was not an unusual occurrence. Every day, the manor would pass through a dozen clouds. It was as ordinary a sight as a flower blowing in the breeze. And yet, it was accompanied by a chill, a shiver that pulsed down her spine, the same offputting sensation she felt when the dream began. But again, she shrugged it off and continued to wander.

Her feet were eventually drawn towards the courtyard, out into the all-obscuring shroud that wrapped her in dew. After walking through a number of foggy banks, she came across a large round table, shared by a person and three empty chairs.

One of the seats pulled itself out from under the table as she approached. Seeing no reason to refuse, she sat down and faced the familiar goddess.

“Good evening, Box.”

“My name is not ‘Box,’ Claire.”

“I don’t care.”

Flux’s star-speckled locks shook as she chuckled. When her cheeks flushed, so too did one of the galaxies. Claire was almost certain she saw one of the glowing suns burst into a ball of fire a hundred times its previous size. “You’ve made a lot of progress for someone so inept.” The goddess leaned forward and smiled, wide enough for her dimples to show. Her scaly arms were placed atop the table, while her eyes stayed focused on the lyrkress. “At this rate, it will only take you another three lifetimes to become a goddess.”

Claire narrowed her eyes into a momentary glare before reverting to her poker face. “You’re not very good at giving compliments.”

“It was honest praise,” said the deity. “This is the first time you’ve made any meaningful progress in seven incarnations, very impressive, given that you are presently at your most foolish.” A soft smile fluttered across her face, just long enough to distract from the star shooting across the galaxy in her eyes. “Still, it is not as difficult as is often relayed. You require only five additional ascensions. Simply do as you have, until you abscond your mortal coil.”

“Even my father is stuck on his fourth,” said the deadpan lyrkress, “and he’s over five hundred years old.”

Flux raised her head, as if to look beyond the great wall of mist that kept the heavens obscured. “If Vella is capable of it, then it is possible for anyone, no matter how mindless or incompetent.” The clouds cleared away when she got up from the table and walked around the dreamscape, revealing not the sky above Cadria, but a massive temple, made of stone. One by one, the goddess ascended the steps, with the mortal following silently behind her.

“There is one thing that you must be aware of.” When she turned to face the halfbreed again, her lips were curled up into a frown. The swirling stars in her eyes were focused on her; she stared for several seconds before opening her mouth to speak. “Chaos is not a force to be trifled with.” A tiny golden conflagration appeared in the palm of her hand. It remained stable, until it was suddenly dyed in a mix of reds and blacks. “But neither is it as harmful as it is so often made out to be. It can be mastered, harnessed, and controlled.”

The lyrkress couldn’t pull her gaze from the flame. Something about it seemed to keep her focus. It was maddening, enticing, sparking within her a primal urge whose presence she had been unaware. It was almost like the catgirl curse, only warmer, more welcoming. It wasn’t a foreign element that had reacted to the strange power, but something deep inside, something that belonged to her.

“But that is if, and only if you remain its master. You cannot lose yourself to it.” The talking box of a goddess clenched her fist and reduced the ember to ashes, and ended the moose’s trance.

Slowly, Claire brought a hand to her face and steadied her breath. The concept the goddess had mentioned was one that even an uneducated hick would know. As former mortals themselves, the gods were subject to their pitfalls and failings, which was to say that they were organised into a pair of opposing factions.

Led by the goddess of order were the various divines that believed first and foremost in systems and rules. Their worshipers often endeavoured to remain within the bounds defined by the powers that came before them. Gods of chaos believed instead in a laissez-faire approach. True to its name, the more spontaneous faction lacked a leader, or at least one that was officially recognized. Its members’ whims drove its direction, often randomly and with no sense of congruence. As a whole, the group was unified only as the opposition that stood against Flitzegarde and her followers.

Though diametrically opposed, the cliques were more broad categorizations than they were a way to denote parties in an ongoing conflict. There were gods frequently described in both or neither, and the two groups were often depicted together in the same space. They existed more so to represent schools of thought than they did true bastions of power. It had long been prophesied that they would one day wage a devastating war, but while smaller conflicts did occasionally arise, the foretold world-ending battle showed no signs of stirring.

“Are you telling me to learn wild magic?” asked Claire. The school that the frog had employed was a true embodiment of chaos, a freakish, unchained power whose output often simultaneously failed and exceeded both the most conservative and wild estimates.

“You may indeed lack just the right number of brain cells to put it to use, but I am not, and I would never.” With a slow shake of the head and a small smirk, Flux turned around and resumed her trek up the seemingly infinite staircase. “You will soon understand.”

“Explain. Now.”

The demand was answered with silence. She didn’t speak until the steps came to an abrupt end. “There is another matter I wished to address, and we lack the time I would require to elaborate.”

Revealed before them was an altar adorned with corpses. Deer-horned rabbits, bloody slimes shaped like rats, horned cats, winged canines, and people of all races were strewn atop its steps. Dead, with their eyes gouged and their hearts removed.

“Beware of the promised hunter. Steer clear of Kael’ahruus’ temples and shy away from his clergymen.”

She looked towards the beast that lurked on the other side of the heavenly platform. Its frame was obscured in shadow, but its piercing yellow eyes grabbed her attention and forced her focus.

“Ascending will become far more difficult if he sets his sights on you. His pursuit is every bit as eternal as the holy books claim.”

Not waiting for a response, Flux slowly stepped towards the halfbreed. She almost seemed to grow as she approached; her head rose with every step she took. Only after the distance was closed did Claire realise that it was not the goddess, but she who was changed. She was back in her humanoid form; her lyrkrian parts were gone, save for the ones that were most aesthetically pleasing.

The goddess raised her arms and wrapped them against the bloodthief’s shoulders. For a brief moment, that was how she stayed. On the count of three, her body turned to dust, a fine mist of golden particles that vanished into the night. The temple went with her. It was turned into a thick mist that vanished with the wind, leaving only the manor behind.

When she blinked again, she found that it was already morning. The sun was high in the sky and Sylvia was already in the midst of chewing on a fresh monopus. Even some of the sea cows were present and flopping around, as they always did, on dry land.. How did they get up here? Only one of them can fly.

Her ears twitching, the fox turned towards the freshly awakened lyrkress and waved. “Claire! You’re finally up! Good morning!”

“Stop shouting. Not so early.”

The blueblood got to her feet and switched her nightgown for her usual armour. On any other morning, that would have sufficed, but she decided to take it a step further. A cloth mask obscured the bottom half of her face, while a pair of clips were used to keep her ears hidden in her hair. The only defining traits she retained were her distinctly reptilian eyes.

“Oh, come on! It’s not early! It’s not even morning anymore. Noon was like two hours ago.”

“Early.” Claire magically pinched the fox’s nose, walked to the island’s edge, and looked over.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Uhmmm… Claire? Where are you going? Aren’t you going to have breakfast?”

“Later. I’m not hungry.”

Frederick had informed her, during a brief check in, that her gear would take him two days to prepare. It had been three since then. He was confident, but she had given him an extra twenty four hours of leeway, just in case.

“Oh, okay! I’ll be done in just a second!” said Sylvia.

“Don’t rush. You can meet me by the cliff. The one that leads back to Mirewood Meadow.”

“I don’t wanna.” Her jaws unhinged, she swallowed the rest of the one-armed octopus in a single bite before leaping at Claire and winding up in her arms. “I’m just going to get bored if I have to sit around and wait. It’s gonna take you forever to finish talking to him.”

“I’m not going to talk to him. I’ll leave as soon as he gives me my stuff.”

“Yeah, right!” The furball raised her head, as if asking for a scratch. She repeated the action twice, speaking up again only as the demand was fulfilled. “You guys are gonna end up chatting about something random, and you know it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Still holding the fox to her retracted chest spike, Claire fell towards the citadel. She adjusted her trajectory only once, when she closed in on the goblin’s forge. Most of its guests were gone, but the workplace was even noisier than it was during her first visit. Muffled bangs and clangs wormed their way through the cloth covering her ears and resounded throughout the back of her mind. Individually, their patterns were rhythmic, but there were far too many of them echoing in tandem for it to be anything but a mess of haphazard noise.

Log Entry 3187

Force Resistance has reached level 2.

Getting closer revealed that there were six furnaces lit, with anywhere between one and three individuals working at each. The goblin was not in the workshop, but tracking him was no difficult feat. Her detector skill pointed her straight towards a room on the second floor.

Unlike her previous method, her newfound approach to flight allowed for a slower, more controlled descent. She was able to silently approach the window and investigate the other side while her companion shrunk and put on the bracelet that was her dress.

“Arrived, you have.” Frederick swiveled around in his chair before she could crawl through the opening. He took a moment to furrow his brow and glance at the window frame before sighing and waving her in. “Expected two days before. Thought you no patient wait longer, so finished early me did.”

“Hi Fred!” said Sylvia.

Returning the greeting with an off-handed wave, he walked over to the furthest wall and grabbed a pair of items off its lower-middle shelf. Though he had his back turned, his frame did little to obscure the metal from her view. Most of it was hidden, wrapped in leather or cloth, but the shiny bits that showed through were so well polished that it was difficult to believe that they had been made from the monster she defeated.

“Follow, show to testing ground, me will. Give no here, break much things.” He walked out the door and down the hall as he pointed the way with his chin.

“What did you ask him for again?” Sylvia spoke at a whisper as she curiously glanced at the weaponry. One of the two was obviously something mounted on a large pole, but the other was contained in a bag. There was no way to tell what it was at a glance.

“A spear,” said Claire. “And a dagger.”

The tiny elf landed on her club and leaned on the side of her head. “Oh yeah! That’s what they were! That’s what I thought, but I kept thinking I was wrong because of how much you like axes.”

“I don’t like axes.”

There was an awkward moment of silence. After a brief delay, it culminated in Sylvia scratching her head right as they rounded the corner and moved down a flight of steps. “You don’t?”

“No.”

“Then why do you keep using one?”

“I don’t know.”

It was the honest truth. She had only turned her club into an axe because an axe was effectively just a club with a sharpened edge. That wasn’t to say that she was partial to maces; that particular choice was yet another product of happenstance. She had only held onto the femur for as long as she did because it was the most durable thing she found.

“Take now,” said Frederick, as he stepped into the forge’s yard. It was a training ground. There were dummies made of various materials strewn all over the grass, with some more intact than others. Not all of them were clothed, but those that were wore armour. There was no consistency to the variety; she saw treated silk, hard metal plates, and just about everything in between. Some pieces were even made of bones, with whole cleaned ribcages layered directly overtop the Frederick-shaped dolls. “Start spear.”

The goblin unravelled the cloth around the weapon’s tip as he presented it to her, revealing an intricate blade with two jagged points. The first, of course, was its sharpened end. Located at the front of the two-meter long polearm was a keen point atop a wide, flat blade. A large hook protruded from the base of its edge. Unlike the weapon’s furthest extremity, it was directed back towards its wielder. The top of the arching arm was thinned and sharpened like a knife. Opposite the curved organ-ripper was a thick widened end resembling the head of a hammer, its face studded with a series of tiny sharpened spikes.

“Woah! What the heck is that?” asked a wide-eyed fairy. “It’s super wonky.”

Claire had to agree with the pixie’s confusion. The creation was an abomination whose purpose was vague at best. Though it was impossible to deny its top-heavy nature, she found that she didn’t particularly mind its weight. The full metal weapon remained light enough in her hands for it to be easy to manipulate. There was only one problem.

“It’s not a spear,” said Claire.

The corresponding mastery skill was inactive. Wielding the weapon provided none of the bonuses that she was meant to have, and the theory behind its various uses didn’t suddenly pop into her mind the moment she touched.

“Is halberd,” grunted the goblin. “Fit you better, lassie.”

“I asked for a spear.”

“Ask for spear, get halberd. Is no issue.”

The lyrkress paused for a moment to fight back the urge to roll her eyes. “Fine.” She wasn’t entirely against picking up the associated mastery skill, assuming the man’s judgement was correct.

She extended a hand and waited for the goblin to hand her the other weapon, but the only thing he offered was a raise of the brow. After a moment of confusion, he brought a hand to his face and pointed at the field of mock-soldiers.

“Try first, then me give dagger. Need see if need adjust and no real swing yet.”

“I’ll try it later. Alone.”

Frederick crossed his arms and tapped his foot against the ground. “Try no later. Try now, while me watching or no can fix.”

Claire glared at him, but approached a target nonetheless. “Stupid stubborn old man.” From the glint in his eyes alone, she could tell that the craftsman would refuse to compromise. A part of her simply wanted to walk away, but he owed her another weapon, and she had no intention of giving it up over something so trivial.

Raising the blade overhead, she carved it through the air and slashed a dummy made of straw. Its scalemail did little to protect it, the tiny chain links shattered and crumbled as she blew through them with brute force.

Nodding to himself and muttering something about ratios, Frederick appeared next to her and took the blade. She didn’t even have time to resist before it was stolen right out of her hands. He ran a finger along its edge and nodded to himself as he mumbled under his breath. “Is no heavy enough, need bigger. Is bad weight distribution, swing no like expected. Remove tenderizer too, sad.”

“It’s fine,” said Claire. She reached for the weapon, but he twisted it away from her.

“Need fix. Come again in half day.”

“I want to leave now.”

“Leave then, me no stop you.”

“With the spear,” she said.

“Allow no, me fix.”

Again, she reached for it, but the goblin was faster than her; the weapon slipped away every time her fingers brushed against it. She tried grabbing it with a spell, but her magic failed to remedy the issue. Not even her most powerful vector could remove it from his one-handed grip. He stood his ground with ease and even flashed a bit of a grin.

“Come later for spear, next try dagger.”

Completely nonchalant, he threw her the leather bag he had in his other hand. She thought it was a bit of a strange vessel for something that was meant to be a short blade, but she understood as soon as she caught it. The bag clinked, as would one full of gold and silver. When she opened it, she found a pair of sharp knives accompanied by a long chain. Each individual link was inscribed with an identical rune, with the total length coming to something in the realm of a meter.

The blades themselves were relatively ordinary. Each was long as her forearm and wide as her wrist. They sported beautiful single edges with slight curves and thick unsharpened spines. Like the chains, they were marked with magical engravings. The individual letters looked familiar enough, but their meaning was lost on her. That, however, did nothing to stop her from filling the weapon with her magic and waving both its sharpened ends around.

“They don’t do anything,” she said.

“Use wrong,” chortled the goblin. “Swing only one, no two.”

Claire tilted her head and gave him a stare before deciding to act on his advice. She held one dagger to the side and swung only the other, but the results were unchanged. Again, it behaved exactly as expected, like a normal blade.

“Use wrong still. Swing no like that!” Frederick groaned again and rubbed his head with one hand while yanking the weapon away from her with the other. “Watch, like this.”

Holding one blade in in a reverse grip, he swung the other like a flail. The dagger reached not only the target directly in front of him, but also the one behind it, courtesy of a freshly extended chain. Its length reset when he pulled it back towards him; in his hands, it looked just as short as it had been when it was unsheathed.

It’s like a crab claw.

“Try now, like me,” he said.

She swung one of the blades as soon as she received it and cleaved through a dummy made of straw. Three more targets followed suit, with each at a different distance. When she reeled the weapon back, she stared at it with a curious tilt of the head. Its use was simple. It would drain her magical energy whenever it grew and discharge it upon its return. Manually limiting its throughput allowed her to keep it from growing in excess. Adjusting its length was almost alarmingly intuitive; to her confusion, it took no manual thought or effort.

“Work good,” said its creator.

It was clear that he had preferred one of her two orders, and that it wasn’t the spear. The latter weapon had far more thought put into its structure and balance, and the enchantments built into its chains couldn’t have been anything but an excessive amount of work. She was a little peeved that he had shelved her primary request, but not enough to voice a complaint. The chain blades were superior to everything else she had at her disposal.

“Come later, will give spear if ready.”

The lyrkress nodded, and said little else as she floated into the air and got ready to depart.

“Wait, wait! Don’t leave!” A familiar plant burst from the doorway with a bang. Her body violently pitched forward as her roots were caught on the steps, but she was caught from behind before she hit the ground.

“Perhaps it would be in your best interest to proceed with an increase in caution.”

“I couldn’t, Grelly! She was going to leave!”

The jellyfish buzzed to express his disapproval, but said nothing more. Turning to Claire, he launched the long, black object he held in his tentacles. The projectile flew far, but it veered off course and nearly wound up on the building’s roof.

Magically pulling the sheath into her hands, she raised it to the light and looked it over. It was of a rather simple design, featuring a trio of pockets. The two in front were long and thin, but the one to its rear was wider than both the others combined. It sported a wide mouth, just deep enough to fit the daggers’ chain.

“Work slow as rock,” grumbled the goblin. “Thought never finish.”

“We tried our best, Fred. Three days was really pushing it.”

“See, I told you there was gonna be a bunch of talking,” whispered Sylvia.

“There isn’t. We’re leaving.” Nodding at the group, Claire pointed her tail at her back and continued her ascent into the sky.

“Bye everyone!” shouted Sylvia.

“Wait, come back! Lova needs to talk to you!” Myrtle shouted after them, but the lyrkress froze her ears shut. She didn’t know what the bug wanted from her, but if their previous encounter was any indication, it was sure to be nothing but trouble.