Chapter 246 - Scorching Embers IV

“It has come to my attention that you are causing undue trouble.”

Arciel breathed a sigh as she entered the room that Claire had turned into a makeshift dungeon. In and of itself, the extra ward was a decent location to house their guests. There were enough beds for all four visitors. There was even a stove on one side of the enclosure, accompanied by a washroom in the opposite corner. And while there weren’t many ingredients of note, they were within earshot of many a minder that could aid them in retrieving whatever it was they desired. Convenient as it may have been, however, there was a tiny problem with her choice of location, namely, it doubled as the resident medical facility in both name and purpose. There had been a trio of weary soldiers resting up in the room just a few minutes prior. Granted, chasing them out did more good than harm. They were already fully healed and using their prior injuries as excuses to slack off, but either way, the lyrkress’ sudden commandeering had created a scenario where those in need of treatment would find themselves with a lack of immediate access.

That inconvenience alone was not what called for Arciel’s intervention. The healers could take care of most injuries without additional supplies or facilities, and the medical bay was more a place for the sick than it was for the wounded. As it were, there were no patients in need of such treatment, and thus, no reason to avoid putting the space to use. Nay, the reason for the princess’ summon was instead the direction in which the mission had been taken. The kidnapped confectioners were treated not as guests, but prisoners. When they tried to run, Claire bound them to their assigned beds and sealed them in place with chains of ice.

“I must say, it is precisely at times like these that I have not the slightest clue as to whether I should be impressed or appalled.”

“Neither,” said Claire, as she lazily glanced across the room. “You should be grateful that I dealt with these idiots before they could get themselves in trouble.”

“Wmmasdhf!” the son made a sound, but his voice was silent. None of them could speak, in fact. Claire had muzzled the whole family when she got sick of all their yapping.

“Perhaps, you may have saved them from the queen’s clutches, but I suspect they are hardly any happier to be in ours with matters as they stand.”

“Not my fault.”

The vampire looked up at the lyrkress’ usual partner in crime, only to receive a shake of the head. “Don’t look at me! It’s not my fault either!”

“And whose is it then?”

“Theirs?” said Claire, as she looked at the dogs.

“Not in the slightest,” said Arciel, with another sigh. She turned towards the group soon after and greeted it with a smile. “I am Arciel Vel’khan, imperial blood kraken, and the rightful ruler of this country. I apologize on my friend’s behalf. Her intentions are well placed, but she is hard headed when it comes to having her way.”

“I’m not stubborn.”

“Obstinate or not, I believe that acting on your own in this case may cost an opportunity. We have heard that they planned for a larger expedition to be sent to their shop.” The squid produced a scroll from within her sleeve and handed it to the half-qilin. “The Doyles’ will coincides with our plan. If they are not present at their abode, I suspect that the enemy’s attack will fall through.”

Much to the squid’s chagrin, a faint, devilish smile immediately crossed the lyrkress’ face. “It’s ok. I have a plan.”

___

Claire fought back the urge to yawn as she looked over her status for the hundred and seventeenth time. It had been half a day since she had returned to the confectionery shop, and a full day since she had met the Doyles. Despite her efforts, the restaurant remained open. They had temporarily shut down the service that allowed customers to sit down and order whatever they pleased, but they still had prebaked goods up on display for any interested parties to buy. And oh so many of those parties there were. Claire had assumed that they had brought too much; the obstinate boy that appeared to be the family’s heir had handed her a full ten sacks of baked goods, measuring in at roughly five hundred pounds in all. But by the looks of things, they were sure to run out by evening. Hordes of customers were pouring in and out, with bags of silver in one direction, and delicious confectioneries in the other. The only difference was that they were being served not by the usual dogs, but the soldiers in Arciel’s employ.

That was not to say that there were no dogs present on the premises. The man after which the store was named had volunteered himself after hearing that they would need one of his family members to lure the enemy in. In the meantime, Claire and Natalya shared a seat atop the roof, both bored out of their minds, with only half an attention span between them.

They were not alone in their endeavour. The other soldiers assigned to the job were just as starved for entertainment. Unlike the lyrkress, they were more accustomed to the task, but that was not to say that they were keeping an eagle eye out.

Few if any of the guards were actively processing their surroundings. Most were just standing around, chatting about one random thing or other. Some of the bolder troops had even taken the opportunity to nap while the commander was out for lunch. They were clearly experts at their craft; they didn’t snore or make a noise, and would even awaken immediately if anyone drew too close. Claire could only tell that they were slacking off from the way their heartbeats and breathing patterns slowed when they lowered their helmets.

Her knowledge, however, resulted in little but silence. She was not their commanding officer, nor a part of the chain at all for that matter. Matthias was the only party member stuck obeying orders. Still, Claire had decided to play nice for as long as they respected her autonomy. She was half the reason they were short a platoon’s worth of men, and while waiting around seemed like a waste of time, hunting bosses was just as inefficient given how long it took for them to spawn. There was also her deal with Arciel, which more or less drove her to play along for as long as it took to instate the squid as queen.

Lia was much easier to convince. She had been reluctant at first, but changed her tune as soon as she was slapped with a bag of gold. Her eyes had lit up like a lake beneath the stars when she saw the amount inside, and she had remained quiet and obedient ever since. The funds had come largely as a loan from the Penhorn pirates. The twin captains were among the wealthiest individuals in the land. They had dozens of noble families on their payroll, and owned nearly a quarter of the capital’s land. One was likely to assume, given their profession, that it was through plunder that they achieved their wealth, but such an egregious amount could not have simply been stolen. Both twins were high priestesses to the god of commerce, with some even claiming that they were born of his seed. Whatever the case, the cat’s price had been paid.

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“We should probably let him down. He’s been up there for hours.” The feline in question smiled awkwardly as she focused her eyes on the dog in the sky. He was not free-floating, but rather suspended from the fishing rod hanging off the building’s roof.

“P-please do!” stuttered the signpost. “I’ve been needing to use the restroom, and my pants are digging far too deep into my sides!” The line’s hook ran right through his waistline. Certainly not the most convenient ordeal for someone that had eaten a hearty breakfast.

“He’ll be fine,” said the lyrkress. She was under the impression that he said something or other about an upcoming, preventable accident, but she dismissed it as a figment of her imagination. There was no such thing as talking bait, after all.

“Right…” Lia flashed the man an apologetic smile before leaning on the other girl’s shoulder. “It’s just… hard to enjoy the scenery while he’s there, you know?”

“Then stop trying.” Much to the cat’s displeasure, Claire grabbed her by the face and unceremoniously peeled her right off.

The bait took the ensuing silence as an opportunity to say something or other, but Claire silenced him with a look before returning her eyes to her status screen for the nth time.

It was with her own sheet fresh in her mind that she thought back to her father’s scuffle with Allegra. She had always known that the Grand Magus was a force to be reckoned with, when unleashed upon the battlefield, but the cottontail had exceeded her expectations by far.

The lyrkress’ memory of it wasn’t perfect; the fake’s eyes weren’t as sharp as hers, and they hadn’t been close enough for her to see all the details she would have liked, but she inserted herself into her tutor’s position nonetheless and considered the possibilities.

His greatest weakness was akin to that of any other centaurian offshoot. His underside was chock full of mission-critical components, and he was sure to suffer a fatal wound so long as his opponent proved themselves capable of obliterating his guts. Allegra had proven that getting under him was a viable strategy. It was the sort of approach that only a smaller creature could take, and it just so happened that Claire had all the right forms to pull it off.

She played the scenario out in her head, imitating Allegra’s attacks and movements with her vectors and lizard considered. She put together a rough plan and considered a number of contingencies, but she was unable to visualise their outcomes. A pair of obnoxious sounds pulled her from her simulation each time. One was akin to a faint, hollow scratching, while the other somehow resembled a patissier’s voice. Whatever the case, she tried plugging her ears with ice, but the situation hardly improved. Some sounds were muted as expected, but others, the deeper ones in particular, she suddenly heard in more vivid detail. The waves almost seemed to enter through her lower body and echo straight into the back of her head.

The discovery was one that came with a twitch. She jumped out of her seat, silencing most of the noises until she made contact with the ground again. Natalya looked at her curiously, but she ignored the cat and closed her eyes to better focus on the sounds. The beating hearts of those around her were clearer than usual, and so too was everything coming from beneath her feet. It was like she could feel the raccoons scavenging in the dumpster behind the restaurant, the people walking beneath her feet.

It was strange. The scales that covered her skin were twitching, shaking. She couldn’t tell if she was feeling the sound or hearing it, but whatever the case, the scratching was clearer. It was coming from somewhere nearby, barely a hair’s breadth away. Her eyes snapped open when her bones caught wind of a distorted voice coming from deep underground.

It was akin to the scraping of metal on stone, something clawing away at something else, digging through the dirt. It was accompanied by both men and women, speaking something or other of freedom. None of her business, no doubt. It was up to the jail warden to fix his own walls.

She began humming a tune as she opened her eyes again, just in time to see a trio of dumb animals delivering themselves through the air. In their paws, jaws, and flippers, the buckets upon buckets of fish that they had caught for lunch.

___

The weather that night was nice and clear. The clouds were present but sparse, and there was not a single flake of snow anywhere in sight. Claire was still up on the roof; her body held a pious pose while her head was well above the clouds. It was in Griselda’s realm to be exact, where it lingered alongside the giant floating rock bestowed upon her by the goddess.

What had once been an ordinary, grey moonstone had transformed into a mess of magic and divinity. There were blues, golds, reds, and blacks running through it, streaks of energy burned straight into its core. It had largely retained its wedge-like shape, but its dimples had been replaced by thick, knife-like spikes so hostile to the touch that they even lashed out against their owner. There were cracks running along its surface, especially the blackened parts, revealing the complicated magical circuits that lived beneath its shell.

While she didn’t visit the rock every night, it had more or less become a routine of hers to toy with it whenever she had extra resources to throw around. And though she was on duty, the lyrkress saw no reason to keep everything topped up.

The rock’s appearance was not a sign of progress; it was not success that drove Claire to seek the stone each night, but rather the lack thereof. In a way, the moonstone was like a stubborn child. It refused to bend to her will, even after she had invested something in the vein of three million points of mana into its manipulation. The divinity she added to the mixture only made things worse. It was precisely the godly energy that drove the celestial body to reject her.

Something about the yellow-hued substance changed when she filled the vessel. It was still hers; she could feel it even after its absorption, but it refused to do anything but run wild. She could force it to fuse with her magic if she focused, but without interference on her part, it would eventually degrade, become chaotic, and separate of its own accord. Claire didn’t quite understand why; the energy defaulted to its orderly variant whenever she accessed it, but its behaviour appeared to suggest that order was by no means its natural state.

Whatever the case, the lyrkress cared little. What she did was the same; she would pump it full of divinity and move it around, with the alignment varying with her mood. At most, she could force it to cycle. The rock was more efficient than her body, and it could circulate the mana and divinity without loss even with the ice and chaos-aligned energies in active conflict. Seizing full control, however, was impossible. She couldn’t use it as a catalyst in the casting of spells, nor did it serve as a battery that allowed free extraction of the magic invested. It was more of a septic tank, a place of disposal where its contents would be left to fester.

Despite her reputation for offering guidance, the moon gave no advice, nor did Claire ask. Her refusal was a matter of pride. She wanted to grasp it by herself, just as she had learned to manipulate her mana without any input from her tutor. And while she had not quite made any real progress, neither had she been at a complete standstill. Through her continued experimentation, she had determined that it was easier to control when she focused on the shard in her chest. The bone that erupted from her breast was an effective wand, but with her body left behind, she was unable to use it.

Regardless of the tooling available, the most effective method she had found so far was akin to a child flailing around her limbs; her divinity could be imbued into her attacks. Weaving it into her breath made it more effective. But few of her other spells experienced any of the same. True ice could tolerate it, but the standard variants would explode if infused with too much.

Her spirit animals, on the other hand, took to the energy with little issue. Shoulderhorse and Shouldersnake used it more naturally than she did, and even Headhydra had developed a penchant for its manipulation. It made no sense for their caster to be left behind, but she suspected it had something to do with her mage class’ Llystletein origin. The shoulder-idiots had always existed in the past, but it wasn’t until they were corrupted by Alfred’s influence that they had materialised themselves outside of her mind.

“I don’t get it.”

She breathed a sigh, shook her head, and returned to her body. She had already poured all her divinity into the rock. Any further practice would have to wait until her stores returned.