Chapter 81 - The Weaver's Map

The entrance to the instanced zone known as Crabby Crags was sequestered away in a cave hidden along a beach. Obscured by a rocky shoreline dotted with submarine hazards, it was a difficult area to find, let alone access. If an unknowing boatsman was to attempt the trek, he would surely find his livelihood full of holes and dragged into a watery grave. But Claire was no boatsman, and neither was her guide. In and of itself, that distinction meant very little. Swimming was no less hazardous; any stone capable of piercing through a wooden hull was just as capable of tearing through a fair maiden’s flesh.

Despite the supposed danger, both the lyrkress and the fox remained nonchalant. They were so unconcerned, in fact, that they even played a game of tag. Sylvia darted between the pointed rocks with little to no difficulty, her air bubble acting as both a buffer and a shield. The magical orb bounced her away from anything sharp enough to serve as a threat. Claire, on the other hand, simply slithered along the ocean floor as she would any other. Her scales were unaffected by the sharp stones, and she only needed to lift her hooves to keep them out of harm’s reach.

“Okay, this is it!” The fox surfaced at the cave’s far end and placed a paw against a boulder. “All you have to do is walk through this big round rock.” She pushed her forelimb through the stone, which distorted with a series of ripples.

“You’re not coming?”

“Mmmmnn… I kinda want to, but Al’s gonna annoy the crap out of me if I do.”

“Why?”

“Uhhh… oops! I wasn’t supposed to say that. You didn’t hear anything!”

Claire sighed. “Nevermind. It doesn’t matter. I won’t pry.”

“Wait, really?”

“No.”

“Oh…” The fox’s ears drooped, but perked back up after a brief delay. “Wait, did you actually mean that? I can’t really tell.”

“Good,” said Claire, with a faint smile.

The lyrkress climbed up onto the shore, shook off the few drops of water that clung to her body, and wrung out her cloak as best she could. She had no idea how or why, but she was basically waterproof. Any liquid she touched would flow right off of her, regardless of whether it made contact with her skin, her scales, or her hair. If not for her soggy wet cloak and the blade of kelp stuck to her forehead, there would not have been any way to tell that she had just emerged from the sea.

“Why do you have to be so mean all the time?”

“Because it’s fun.” Claire patted the fox on the head with one of her flippers as she pressed a hand against the portal. “You don’t have to come. I won’t take long.”

“Yeah, but I want to.” Sylvia’s ears drooped again. “I’ve never been there before, I kinda wanna see what it’s like, but…”

“But Alfred doesn’t want you to go for some reason?”

“Well, there’s that too, but w—.”

“Then you can just tell him that I made you do it.”

Grabbing ahold of Sylvia with her tail, Claire marched straight through the portal without waiting to hear any protests or complaints. There was a stark difference between the rocky gate and the wormhole that kept Borrok Peak linked to the meadow. The latter was hardly noticeable, lacking even the slightest bit of resistance. It had let her right through as would a veil of silk, both when she had entered the mountain, and when she had returned from it. Crabby Crags’ gate, on the other hand, was anything but subtle. Passing through it was like trudging through sludge. Her hooves were heavy, weighed down by a thousand scrambled vectors, moving in patterns that she failed to understand.

She half expected the sensation to persist even after emerging from the portal’s other end, but it vanished as soon as she broke loose, giving way to a dry, sandy breeze.

Log Entry 1820

Detect Force Magic has reached level 15.

Her eyes adjusting to the light, the lyrkress found herself standing atop a floating platform. A series of thick stone walls was laid out beneath her, arranged to form a maze, a sprawling labyrinth no smaller than a bustling metropolis. She tried examining and subsequently solving it, but the platform she was on began shifting around before she could locate the origin. The next time she blinked, she was on the ground. The rock had given way to a field of sand, an empty beach covered in shells and tiny pools of water.

“Uhm… Claire?” A meek voice came from behind her.

“What?”

“I’m kinda glad you pulled me in with you because this place looks really neat, but you’re squeezing me really hard and I can’t breathe.”

“Right.”

Putting the fox down, the lyrkress returned her gaze to the scene spread out before her. She immediately made note of the four cliffs towering over the labyrinth, sealing it in from all sides. Each rock face featured a far reaching ledge that extended almost directly overhead. Though none of the protrusions touched, they came close enough to form a shadow resembling a cross with its center removed.

Curious, she boosted herself upwards to investigate the strange set of decorations, but a sharp pain shot through the top of her head as she suddenly made contact with something she couldn’t see. The impact threw her tail off course and destroyed all semblance of the control she had. She fell straight down, cradling her head in her hands as she crashed into the sand

Sylvia fought back a giggle. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” A palm still held against her face, the lyrkress pushed herself back off the ground and slowly directed her miserable gaze back towards the sky. “What was that?”

“An invisible ceiling, duh. It’s there to stop you from cheating.”

“Why is it invisible?”

“Probably because Al wanted to see someone do exactly what you just did! He’s kind of a jerk like that, but I can’t blame him because it really is kinda funny.”

“I’m going to punch him next time I see him.” The rogue grumbled as she rubbed the injury and directed her eyes forward.

“Well, I doubt it’ll go well, but I’m not gonna try and stop you. Make sure you give him an extra good slug if you manage to get close enough! Al kinda deserves it,” said the fox, as she stared into the space behind her. “Oh, and be careful of the monsters here. They’re kinda souped-up.”

Claire shrugged, got to her feet, and walked down the passageway. It was the only way she could go. All the other directions were sealed off by large slabs of stone.

For a corridor within a labyrinth, the hall was incredibly spacious, spanning ten meters across. The lyrkress appreciated all the extra room, but she was already annoyed by the consequences that accompanied it. The nearest intersection looked to be a few hundred meters away; finding an exit was going to involve a lot of walking, and she was already starting to dread the experience.

The second corridor was even longer than the first, but it wasn’t as depressingly desolate. Unlike the empty canvas that was its predecessor, the lengthier hallway was filled with rocky formations, many of which stood at twice her height. Her ears had already picked up on the monsters hiding behind them. She couldn’t quite identify them from their clicking and clacking, but she was relieved nonetheless. At the very least, she was confident that they weren’t deer.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Sylvia waltzed straight into the corridor, but Claire magically reeled her back before she was spotted. Signalled for her companion to keep, the lyrkress poked her head out from around the corner and looked for its occupants. It didn’t take long for one of the creatures to step out and reveal itself. The monster was a large red crustacean that stood at roughly two meters tall. It sported ten segmented legs, a broad, spiked carapace, and a single tall, stalked eye.

It was a crab—and 2% catgirl, whatever that meant.

Eyepatch aside, the only odd thing about the brachyuran was its lack of claws. One of its forelimbs was an organic cannon, while the other featured a large meat hook made of reinforced shell. Claire had every intention of attacking the crustacean and converting it to experience, but she could hear at least two more scattered throughout the area. Discerning the precise headcount with her ears alone proved surprisingly difficult because of the way their clicks and clacks echoed off the walls, but she could tell that all the others were fairly far away. Still, she had no intention of rushing the isolated target down. She had no idea how powerful it was, and Sylvia’s warning still echoed in the back of her mind. At the very least, she wanted to catch it off guard and confirm that her attacks could overwhelm its defences.

That was why she started experimenting with her cloak. Focusing on the magic garment, she changed its colour to match the light brown stone that made up the maze’s walls. It was decent camouflage, and she doubted that the crabs would be able to detect her, but she wasn’t satisfied. The mantle wasn’t stiff or jagged enough to fool anything with more than half a brain. At least not yet.

Her hand against the wall, she continued tweaking the leather, modifying its texture to better match that of the earthen partition. Her shoulders grew heavier as it continued to transform; the coarser and grittier it got, the more she felt like she was being weighed down. She thought it was just her imagination at first, but the weight soon became too prominent to be denied. And it was only then that she finally understood.

The cloak wasn’t emulating stone.

It was becoming it.

Claire expected the cloak to stop transforming after it took on a few rock-like properties, but at her directive, it continued to change until it was fully petrified, converted to pure stone. Its new form was impractical. The rock-solid overcoat’s new material was far heavier than sodden leather. Its weight, she could deal with. She had enough strength to spare, and lugging around a few dozen extra pounds was a minor inconvenience at worst. What she couldn’t deal with was her newfound lack of mobility. The former leather refused to conform to her movements. It stayed perfectly still and failed to budge so much as a fraction of an inch, no matter where she pushed or how she pulled. There was no way for her to free the arm trapped within the cloak’s folds without smashing it open.

In a way, the experiment was a success. She had learned that the cloak was even more adaptable than she previously thought. Its ability to change, to become what it wasn’t, was incredible to say the least. There were a countless number of ways to apply the runecloak’s unique property and she was going to have to find some time to sit down and further consider its use. Coincidentally, the present was not that time. Because the crab had caught her in its gaze. It had yet to figure out what exactly she was, but it was curiously walking in her direction. Unlike the crabs that she had read about in books, it wasn’t skittering sideways, but rather approaching her head on, walking forwards as would any other animal.

Half panicked, she didn’t manage to unpetrify her runecloak until the monster realised she was a foe. The crustacean fired a dozen spiked projectiles from its arm cannon, each roughly twice the size of her head. The hail of stone almost hit her dead on, but she managed to pull her head back around the corner just in the nick of time.

Claire thought herself free to take a breather and come up with a plan as the creature approached, only to open her eyes wide when its legs suddenly started pounding away at the sand. A moment later, it appeared in front of her with its hook raised and its launcher pointed straight at her face.

She almost couldn’t believe how fast it was. Over two hundred meters had been covered in the blink of an eye.

Its second set of attacks came just as abruptly as its first.

Another barrage of stone.

The lyrkress was barely able to react. She ducked beneath the first rock, weaved around the second, and nearly slithered past the third. It barely grazed her arm, but the limb was immediately rendered unusable. Her flesh was torn apart by the stone’s jagged blades; she could see all the way down the freshly exposed bone.

Gritting her teeth, Claire bit back the pain and tried to launch a counterattack, but the crab was one step ahead of her. It swung its arm and propelled its meat hook forwards before she could finish casting her spell. The limb carrying the pointed object extended unnaturally, growing to over ten times its original length as it lodged itself in her shoulder and reeled her straight towards the crustacean’s gaping maw.

With her unbroken hand, she brought her mace down on the creature’s eye and delivered an envenomed phantom strike. That alone wasn’t enough to stop it from consuming her, but kicking it in the face was. Her hooves broke through both pairs of jaws. The pain led the crab to trash about and throw her into the nearest wall. Its hook ripped through her flesh as it was torn away, spraying blood through the air.

Though its wounds were less grievous, the crab monster took much longer to recover. It gurgled, clicked, and clacked as wads of cotton spewed from its wounds. Seeing an opportunity in the creature’s anguish, the bloodthief picked herself up off the ground and broke into a head-on charge. She dodged past the incoming meat hook and smashed its eye with another enchanted blow, but the creature wasn’t reacting to her venom. Neither soarspore poison nor rocket fuel seemed to have any effect.

She shifted gears and moved to strike at its legs, but found herself a victim of its gun. There was a wet squish followed by a series of cracks as a jagged cannonball landed right beneath her waistline. Fire coursed through her system. Her hips screamed, her bones gave way to the stone, and her left leg stopped responding. It didn’t listen to her, no matter what commands she issued. But she ignored it and pushed on.

Using her tail to guide her movement, she forced her way past the monster’s side and smashed her mace into one of its legs, right where the limb was connected to its torso. It started skittering away, using its speed to get a better angle on her. But it hadn’t been quick enough to act. A sharpened glare paralyzed it before it could create any meaningful distance.

Shifting her body into a legless form, she shot a series of ice bolts from the shard in her chest and slithered up its side. It tried to shake her off the moment it regained its mobility, but it couldn’t get away, not before she wrapped her body around its claw-turned-meat hook and snapped it right off. A third strike to the eye followed, finally destroying the surprisingly durable organ. But even blinded, the crab remained a threat.

Cotton seeped from its missing appendages as it flailed its cannon and fired projectile after projectile. Even without its only visual aid, it still seemed to have a rough idea of where she was, but its shots lacked their prior precision. They were loosed haphazardly, fired effectively at random.

And yet, Claire struggled to evade them.

Transforming into a lamia hadn’t fixed the wound in her side. The part of her body that kept her humanoid and monstrous halves connected was still battered and broken. Though certainly not a non-factor, it wasn’t the pain that slowed her, but rather, the sorry state of her spine.

Her midsection was a critical weakness. It was the place her backbone was most exposed. And she had accidentally left it exposed. Worse yet, she had stressed it when she robbed the crab of its hook. The attack was one that required her to squeeze her injured back muscles with all the force she could muster, which in turn worsened the damage that had already been dealt.

Her nerves were no longer fully responsive, often failing to carry the signals that they were meant to deliver.

Force magic was the only thing that kept her from falling to the blinded decapod’s barrage. She summoned Shoulderhorse and ordered it to eat anything that came too close for comfort. Surprisingly, the pony’s defence didn’t immediately drain her mana. But paralyzing gaze did.

Another fully empowered stare took over a thousand points from her pool and froze the crab for another half second. Just enough time to slither up to it and bludgeon its cannon shut. She could feel her energy returning as her mace tore through the crustacean’s shell. It was a drop in the bucket with her totals considered, a mere five health and fifty mana, but a welcome addition nonetheless, even with the battle on the verge of concluding.

The brachyuran was out of tricks. Both its weapons were gone. There was no longer any way for it to attack.

Or at least that was what she thought.

Naturally, she was wrong.

Because it was an earth mage.

And mages didn’t need their catalysts.

Tapping its remaining legs against the ground, the red-shelled mage unleashed a series of tremors that rippled from its location. Each was accompanied by a wave of magic, magic that wormed its way into the jagged boulders strewn across the battlefield.

Claire continued bashing at its legs, but not even stealing its mana was enough to break its focus. The crab’s magic continued raising the rocks into the sky.

A final tap, a final pulse of energy, activated the spell’s second verse.

And called every single one of the magical constructs to the target the crab’s hook had magnetically charged.

Eyes wide, Claire tried her best to dodge her way out of the geoclasmic wave. But the rocks gave chase, no matter how she twisted and turned. They were locked onto her, and came from every direction. She couldn’t evade them all. Her flesh was pulverised and her bones were broken as they made contact. The only saving grace was that they were aimed at her shoulder and not her core. One of the rocks tore the joint straight out of its socket and led its successors astray.

Even with the remaining projectiles flying past her, the halfbreed was by no means doing well. Her head was spinning. A particularly large stone had left a cut on her temple and nearly knocked her unconscious. Blood was streaming from her skull, courtesy of a missing ear, and the end of her tail was paralyzed outright.

She could barely move.

But the snake on her shoulder could.

Having replaced its equine counterpart, the spirit that had cost the halfbreed the last dredges of her mana charged through the air and punched a hole straight through the crab’s core.

Its heart completely destroyed, the crustacean fell forward, dead, with cotton erupting from every orifice.