Chapter 153 - Farenlight’s Den III
With three turns made and a fourth right around the corner, Claire pounded her hooves against the floor and chased the klimgor through the dungeon’s magical tunnels. Her prey was fast—it knew she was coming and put all the agility in its arsenal into orchestrating an escape—but she was faster and closed in bit by bit. The relentless pursuit continued until the monster eventually collapsed in the middle of a particularly large hall, chest heaving and limbs shaking.
The lyrkress rounded the corner soon after, but she wasn’t the only one to make the turn. Natalya was hot on her heels, and like the centaur, she showed no signs of exhaustion. Her breath was steady, her heartbeat was regular, and there wasn’t a hint of sweat on her brow, despite the awkward, four-limbed gait with which she ran.
Without standing up on her hind legs, the catgirl took the lead, approaching the lizard and slashing at its neck with the sword in her mouth. She pulled her head to the side and snapped it back with more speed and force than she could have managed with her hands.
Log Entry 5539
Your party has slain a level 142 Klimgor Exploder.
This feat has earned you the following bonus rewards:
- 5 points of agility
Log Entry 5540
You have unlocked a new spawnable food item.
The lizard’s two halves continued to twitch and spurt blood as they fell to the ground. Both its parts tried to crawl away; it was almost like it failed to register that it was dead until the system finally reaped it of its consciousness.
“Only level 142?” Claire frowned. “Why do you need a permit for something so weak?”
“I can find out if we head back to town and look over the files,” said Lia.
The rogue rolled her eyes. “We’re not going back until we kill something strong.”
She scanned the hallway as she spoke, in hopes that another monster would saunter into the hall, as Llystletein’s hellhogs often would, but there was nothing. It took raising her ears to catch the occasional, distant scampering.
“What do you mean by strong?” asked the cat.
“Level 400? Or maybe 600?” Claire tilted her head as she answered. “I don’t know. But I want a challenge.”
“See! I told you she was reckless,” said Sylvia.
She leapt off the blueblood’s head, only for the mount to snatch her out of the air. Once captured, her cheeks were immediately abused, stretched to over twice their usual width.
“I’m not reckless.”
“Yes you are!” shouted Sylvia. “Are you already forgetting about the time you fought the frog, even though I told you that you weren’t ready? It was like twice your level!” A phantom body double hummed a tune as the fox spoke, and with its notes, created a small projection of the amphibian in question.
“And I killed it. Easily,” said Claire.
“Only because your classes are stupid strong! Al had to have messed up or something.”
“He didn’t mess up,” said Claire. “I made smart choices. You helped.”
Sylvia rolled her eyes. “You literally just picked the one I told you not to take! And then when it evolved, all you did was pick the one that I didn’t recognize!”
“Exactly. You helped.” Claire loosened her grip on the fox’s cheeks and gave her chin a quick scratch.
“Oh, that’s right!” Lia hit the palm of her hand with the bottom of her fist. “I’ve been meaning to ask, Claire, but what kind of mage are you, exactly?”
“The type that hits you when you ask too many questions.”
“I’ve been thinking about how we should set up our battle formations,” the catgirl ignored the threat and continued to speak, “but I haven’t been able to come up with anything concrete because I’m still not sure how you fight.”
Claire frowned. “You’ve seen me fight. And I already told you. It rains. And things die.”
“What about when it doesn’t rain?”
“Then I make it rain.”
“Can you do it while we’re indoors? Like we are right now?”
“Not at all,” said the lyrkress, with her usual blank stare.
Lia sighed. She cupped her face in one of her hands and slowly shook her head. “I know you want to keep your secrets, as much as you can, but can you please just be a little more cooperative?”
“I’m being very cooperative.”
“I’m not dumb, Claire. You wouldn’t have come so deep if you were helpless without the sky. Can you please just tell me what you do?”
The lyrkress frowned. She paused briefly before lowering her head and pulling her hood over her eyes. “Fine. I’m a—”
“Oh, oh, can I do it?” Sylvia popped up in front of her face and cut her off with her paws waving wildly, “I think I know pretty much everything you do now, so I think I have a pretty good way of dressing it up.”
Claire gave the fox a questioning look. A part of her suspected that it was a thoughtless remark, but she knew that Sylvia was a lot more intelligent than she seemed. She doubted that the four-legged hat had failed to realise that she was looking to obscure the truth, albeit mostly for fun.
“Okay.”
“Yes!” Sylvia pumped her paws and wagged her tail as she scampered up the length of Claire’s arms, got up on her head, and struck a pose, as would a hiker that had finally managed to climb his way up to a distant peak. “So basically, Claire’s a blade mage.”
“A blade mage?” Lia opened up her book and started flipping through the pages again. “That doesn’t quite seem to ring any bells. What exactly does she do?”
“It’s actually pretty simple! She can make blades with magic,” explained the vixen. “The lightning strikes are actually just blades made of lightning, and all the ice stuff is blades made of ice. She can use normal weapons too. It’s super fancy and she can even control them like puppets without actually touching them. Oh, and she has that one weird class she told you about that can make it rain and stuff.”
Claire relocated the fox into her arms again and gave her a pat on the head. It was almost a perfect cover-up. Sylvia’s totally made up explanation provided her the ability to use most of her kit, without revealing anything critical regarding its identity. And most importantly, she had failed to explain the reason the cat would occasionally trip on thin air.
“Good job,” whispered Claire, as she brought the fox closer.
“Thanks!” said Sylvia, in the same hushed tone
“So basically, she makes sharp things,” mumbled Lia. “I guess that would also explain where she got the dagger.” She continued to think for a moment before looking up. “Oh, that’s right. I’m just about halfway between a blademaster and a berserker, with a few extra tricks that don’t really change how I fight. I’m really good in close quarters, but I can’t do much from afar.”
“Okay,” said Claire.
“Would you mind giving me a quick demonstration of how your blade magic works? I’m still a little unsure of how much destructive force I should be expecting.”
“You first.”
“Sure,” said the cat. She put her hands on her weapon and paused briefly before suddenly perking up. “Actually, I think I have a better idea. We should spar instead. It’d probably be a lot easier to understand than trying to explain everything with words.”
Claire reached into her cloak, and with her hands still hidden, grabbed a pair of rusty daggers. “Okay.”
“Wait, wait! Not here!” said Lia. “I meant when we get back into the city. We’re going to need to hire a healer, in case something goes wrong.”
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“We have one.” Claire grabbed the fox off her head with her tail and raised her into the air, as one would a fuzzy newborn king.
“Sylvia’s a healer?” the catgirl blinked.
“Kinda!” chirped the fox. “I can’t give you mana or instantly reattach your limbs and stuff since I’m not a doctor, but I’m really good at making it so you don’t die.”
“Oh… I had no idea,” said Lia, “Shouldn’t we have added you to our party? It doesn’t really sound fair if you heal us, but we don’t help you level up.”
“No, it’s okay. I don’t mind,” said the fox. “I’m just tagging along because it’s fun, not because I wanna get caught up in fights ‘n stuff.” She was placed on top of a nearby rock as she spoke, the perfect vantage point to watch the battle unfold.
“Okay, but you’re welcome to join if you ever change your mind,” said Natalya. “Just say the word.”
“Thanks! I will!”
“Don’t rely on her.” Claire returned to the room’s center, her hands still hidden in her cloak.
“I know. I wasn’t planning to.” Natalya drew her blade, put it in her mouth, and got down on all fours. “Are you ready?” The words were muffled and unclear, intelligible only because they could be easily assumed.
“I am.” The brief conversation had bought her just enough time to think more deeply about the ramifications of Sylvia’s game of make believe. “Let’s begin.”
Claire was the first to attack. She revealed the daggers she kept under her robe and whipped them at her target full force. One was aimed at each side of the catgirl’s body, with the blade closer to the catgirl’s rapier lagging slightly behind. The delay was minor, but just long enough to make it awkward to deflect them both in the same swing.
The trick had worked on the bandits, but the catgirl didn’t fall for it. She leapt into the air and twisted her body at just the right angle for the knives to slip past her before landing back on her feet and pressing forward again.
Narrowing her eyes, Claire pressed the attack with another four pairs of blades. But rather than throwing them directly at the catgirl, she opted instead to toss them into the air. Only with all four out of her hands did she finally launch them with a vector storm. The remote weapons twisted and turned, closing in on their target with their paths wild and unpredictable.
And yet, Lia managed to evade them, and not with speed. She wasn’t much faster than the backpedalling lyrkress and gained only a little distance at a time, but for what she lacked in agility, she made up with overwhelming accuracy. Her eyes followed all eight daggers perfectly. With her feline agility, she weaved in between the gaps with a quintet of rapid spins. The only edge that touched her barely skimmed her; it nicked the bottom of her chin and slid past her cloak, drawing the slightest bit of blood.
The feline was so attentive that she even managed to notice the two blades that came from behind, albeit only a moment before impact. One left a wound on her left leg, while the other cut into the side of her waist, but her evasive maneuvers rendered the wounds too shallow to slow her down.
Her lips widened into a grin that exposed her fangs as the distance between them continued to shrink. All four of her limbs sped up, blurring as a hint of madness flashed through her eyes. Impact was inevitable, and the catgirl was ready. She swung her weapon with blinding speed, aiming it at the lyrkress’ legs. The tip of its blade was slower than its midsection; the force of the attack bent its end back, so that it would lacerate like a whip once its base made impact. But it never happened. Even though the slash landed on target.
Claire transferred all the weapon’s momentum right as they made contact, first from the blade to the hoof she used to parry, and then from herself to the pony on her shoulder. The invisible puppet crashed into the dirt wall and left a cloud of dust, a cloud of cover. Her supposedly injured leg was the first thing she attacked with. She raised the hoof into the air and brought it down on the cat’s forehead. Lia couldn’t see her in all the smoke, and yet, she dodged it with a perfectly timed twist of the neck—an almost perfectly timed twist of the neck. She would have evaded the blow, had one of the lyrkress’ leg fins not popped open. The flattened appendage prodded the catgirl with its jagged spines and cut into her flesh.
The wound was shallower than the one that landed on her torso, but it packed more of a punch. Because while there was no way for the halfbreed to explain her weapons being coated in poison, the same could not be said for her body; the fin was caked in a layer of the most painful substance known to Clairekind. Bee venom.
Unlike a monster, which would have recoiled, the feline was unaffected. Unflinching, she slashed at Claire with her claws. The tips of the cat’s fingers barely touched her, but her underside was marred with a line of cuts, each deeper than the last.
A retaliatory kick caught the cat in the chest, shattered three of her ribs, and sent her flying into a wall. It was difficult to determine which of them was more injured. Lia had blood dribbling from her lips, but one of the lungs in the horsier part of Claire’s body had been damaged in the attack.
The next round of exchanges kicked off when their eyes met again. Natalya practically flew off the wall. Shifting to a bipedal stance, she charged with her rapier in her hands and her lips twisted into a frown. She was also struggling to breathe, but the lack of oxygen had no effect on her speed. She took all seven inbound projectiles out of the air with a series of quick slashes. They were so fluid that it looked more like she was drawing than waving around a weapon.
Because that was exactly what she was doing.
Lia wasn’t a mage. She lacked the classes, the magical knowledge, and even the ability scores required to cast a spell powerful enough to harm her lyrkrian foe. But her mana was not without purpose. By carving a symbol into the air, she could activate one of the magical abilities bestowed upon her as a runecraft berserker.
“Enrage. Level 1. Uniform.”
Like a raging flame fed a vat of oil, her aura flared to life. She could feel her body growing stronger. Her eyes focused, her hearing sharpened, and her heart slowed. Everything calmed. Except for her mind.
Her brain was on fire. Though her senses were heightened, she grew less cognizant of each individual object. Like her weapons, the horse snake became a blur of blues and whites. And blues and whites were bad. She needed to evade them and strike at them with her fangs and claws.
She darted forward, the relic that was her blade held in front of her. The blue blur evaded her first swipe and launched a wave of smaller blue objects at her. She didn’t know exactly how many there were, but she didn’t care. Because it didn’t matter. She swatted a third of them out of the air and dodged the rest, but they continued to pursue. The ones knocked to the ground lifted themselves back up, while those that had passed her by suddenly spun around and moved in reverse.
Dodging again, she found that there were even more of them. Their shapes were no longer uniform; some were thinner, some were longer, and some were both or neither. There was even an extra large shape made out of something different, something colder, but whatever the case, they all shared a scent. They were just like the nice-smelling blue blur that she had to subdue.
She tried ducking through the floating blue blobs as they flew at her, but there were too many. She was being kept on her feet by the constant flow. It didn’t matter how much she parried or which ones she struck. They would always launch themselves at her again, giving her no room to breathe.
Even with her mind hazy, she recognized that she was at a disadvantage.
Level one was insufficient.
“Enrage. Level 2. Speed.”
The next blue thing she struck was split in two. She couldn’t exactly tell how large it was, or if she had come anywhere close to cutting it down the middle, but she knew that it was smaller. The two miniaturized halves continued to attack her, but she didn’t care. Even when they pierced her limbs. She kept slashing and slashing. Because all she needed to do was cut all the blue things until they were too small to be blue.
Before long, all the tiny blue things began falling apart; only the biggest one remained intact. It dodged when she lunged at it, moving in the same strange way that the other blue things did. And when she touched it, it didn’t bleed. Or get sent flying. She didn’t know why, but her hand stopped moving, and she was sent in the direction of her swing.
Level 2 wasn’t cutting it, but it had to. Level 3 was too hard to control; she was sure to break the blue thing and she needed it not broken so it could munch her. So she tackled it again.
It produced another pair of weapons. There was a big blue thing and a long bendy thing, but the blue thing wasn’t very good at using other blue things. Her eyes had an easy time following their trajectories as they arced through the air, nor did she struggle to block the attacks with her grey thing. But they were much heavier than she thought. Again, she was sent flying away, into the brown and grey thing all around her.
Yowling, she kicked off the brown thing and spun through the air again. The attack was almost the same as the last one, so the blue thing reacted the same way. But only because it didn’t notice that she had touched the blue thing on her grey thing. The blurry grey thing spun. Different parts got blurrier as they moved in different directions and sawed right through the blue thing’s long thing.
Dodging the bendy thing that followed, she cleaved at the blue thing with her claw. She could have slammed it into the blue thing’s least blue part, but they both stopped just before she did.
Knowing that it was over, the blue thing lowered her other blue things, so she too lowered her blade and finally expelled the air in her lungs, along with all the rune dust that had entered them.
“I win.”
When the madness faded from her eyes, Lia found a broken icy halberd at her feet, and the relic that was her sister’s sword glowing with a bright green light. Slowly looking up, she gazed upon the claw that she had held in front of the other girl’s jugular, and pulled it away after looking at her still neutral face. A disappointing outcome. She had at least wanted to see surprise, or maybe even frustration, but there was nothing.
“Fine.” Throwing away the broken icy lump in her hands, Claire turned away and walked over to the fox. “You win. This time.”
“Woah! What’s up with that berserker class? Can you actually control yourself? Even though you aren’t holy?” asked Sylvia. She sang and spoke at the same time, enveloping the pair in a warm layer of visible light.
“Sort of.” The catgirl smiled before looking at her opponent. “Was that enough of a challenge?”
Claire narrowed her eyes just a bit. “If we do it a few more times.”
“Maybe some other day.” Lia shook her head and sheathed her rapier. “One round is already exhausting enough.”
The lyrkress narrowed her eyes a little more before putting the fox on her head and turning around. “Fine. Then let’s go back to town.” She pulled her hood over her eyes before continuing under her breath. “I can’t believe I lost to a pervert.”
Lia grabbed one of the other girl’s shoulders. “Can we please do away with this misunderstanding already? I swear to Tzaarkus, Claire, I’m not a pervert, and I’d really like you to stop calling me one.”
There was a brief moment of silence. For once, Claire looked at her with a face that could be easily read, one that put her clear confusion on full display. It lasted for only a fraction of a second before once again losing all its emotions.
“Fine,” said the lyrkress. “But only if you can beat me. In another duel. Right now.”
Lia glanced at her MP, which was only missing about a fourth of its total, before responding with a nod. “Okay. If I win, I get to pet Sylvia, and you stop calling me a pervert. If you win, you can call me whatever you want.”
“Deal.”
The two stepped back into position, readied themselves for round two, and began right after another klimgor exploder passed through the end of the hall.