I’m better than this. I take a deep breath, try not to let these fuckers rile me more than they have. Yes, I brought them here, but they’re more than capable now. Time to kick them out of the nest.
I transfer out to see what state the apartment is in, and I’m standing on a bowl shaped padded wicker chair with a large quilted woven cushion. The apartment, pretentious in white with red or gold trim, is a lot bigger than I remember it being. Pretty sure it was a weird square courtyard build with windows in the center, but this feels more like a large hall with rooms along the edges. I settle down on the chair to see if it’s comfortable or stable, -- it is, -- then hop down and bump into a ward. There’s tons of people here, there’s weird bug pinata’s everywhere, the room is different, and I’ve been gone for 3 years. Is it someone’s birthday?
-Tch!- I push through the ward, my stomach recoiling, --I did eat a lot of random shit and drink hella wine. I’ll set up the mills and work on making bread. That should help.-- then wander around trying to see if I recognize anyone.
So once I kick them out I have to create and plant my little farm again. I had so much stuff, and I have no idea where it all went. Who were they talking to on the other side? Was the bed and shield to keep me in or keep people out? Did they sell my shit and upgrade the apartment? This place is huge.
It feels less like a multi-room apartment common area, and more like a reception hall. I keep looking, but none of these people look familiar, and there are so many people holding little bug kites with tribal jaws on them. There are a lot of hunans dressed in thick, colorful over robes, and very few people with hunan-forms bearing animal characteristics. Is this a fund-raiser?
Fuck, is this an auction? Are these people here to buy my shit through the --.
I wonder where Trinity is.
“This is it!”
I look up to see Hatchet and another woman looming over me, loudly whispering to one another.
-Do you kn--,- I’m interrupted by the other woman scooping me up and the two racing to a set of large double doors painted bright red.
When they pass through we’re out on an external walkway on a tower in a scenic mountain. It feels like spring, there are more gaudy red trimmed towers in our surroundings, and the women are running like they stole me.
-Are you kidnapping me?- I just woke up, I already have to deal with the four bears, so there’s no way that this is happening again.
“Kidnap who? We’ve got a quest we need you for,” Hatchet snaps, grumbling that if they could do the task themselves they wouldn’t bother trying to find me to help.
-I didn’t sign up for a quest.- I just got out here to evict some other assholes imposing on me and she wants to try? Does she even have merit to burn?
“Shut up,” Hatchet says, the girl carrying me still hasn’t said a word, although her eyes are darting between me and Hatchet and our surroundings.
-Put me down,- I tell the girl.
How much merit do I need in order to see names again? I could check --.
“It wants me to let it go,” the girl whispers. Ooh, boy, she sounds lost.
“Don’t you dare!” Hatchet whisper hisses at the girl as they keep power walking.
Down a level, winding path, -- this place is beautiful. It’s so scenic with the flowering trees, and all the undeveloped land. -- through the wooded foothills, -- my void totally would have looked like this if it didn’t get leveled, -- and out of some random red, free standing doorway, -- I feel disgust as I realize it’s a gate, but the disgust is at myself for some reason? -- and then we’re out in town.
-Wait,- I twist around to see that we’re standing outside Eager Heart. -What the fuck?-
Hatchet slaps me in the face which causes me to turn around and look at her in shock, -- I can literally end her at any time, -- I’ve been nothing but polite so far, -- then, -- while cursing me quietly, -- she throws a piece of cloth over my head. They’re “not” kidnapping me, and she’s trying to hide me so no one sees I’m out why?
What the fuck is happening? Eager Heart looked like some brothel crossed with a mall before. The inside of that place got a massive glow up.
When we get to wherever these two are taking me, I’m soul sucking Hatchet. Dunno if the lady carrying me is smart enough to keep her mouth shut or not, pretty sure she’s not onboard with whatever the hell Hatchet is trying to do, but she’s also just waiting to be told what to do.
Down to the piers while I try to figure out what the hells’ changed for me. A nice long boat ride where quiet girl hugs me close like I’m a bag of unmentionables, -- she’s embarrassed that they kidnapped me or embarrassed that they’re hiding it, or something else? -- and Hatchet runs preemptive interference on a couple of guys who try to flirt with the poor girl.
So I’ve been drinking Qi and leaking for 3 years, but the apartment wasn’t poisoned. If anything it looks like I tried to add it to my void or my void bled over to their void. Huh. Food log… They’ve been feeding me fish and blood, -- tch! -- but nothing poisonous. So they’ve been bleeding for me but they treat me as some random pest instead of a god – lowercase “g”, I know who I am, –? How’s that work? What changed besides me waking up and asking why they got rid of my shit?
I shift to get comfortable and get to see a couple of people recoil. Did they really think I was just a bag of laundry? Tch! Where was I…?
So, that’s foods… Requests…? They’ve requested meat a lot, but I didn’t have any, but I did have fish so I apparently just started dumping fish on them. Oh, wow, tons of minor healing, probably from fish bones and minor injuries. I’ll check more in-depth later, ‘cause this healing thing is new to me. I remember wanting to fix what I broke, but I guess I never turned it off…
The boat makes periodic stops, the people closest to us either running off or scooting farther away as seats free up. It’s kinda funny to see people smile at the two women, sit down, get harangued by Hatchet, then freak out when I make any noise or move at all. The scenery isn’t too distracting, just rocky beach, forest, or thin grass, but we’ve been on this boat long enough for me to fumble around and actually find shit.
Where do I look to see what’s been pulled in and out of my void?
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
-Ack!-
The lady carrying me stands up with no warning, just following Hatchet as she disembarks on a grassy shore. The quiet one apologizes, but Hatchet just keeps marching angrily off into the woods.
-I do not want you to be alarmed, but I don’t know what I’m doing here, and I’m disinclined to assist,- I tell the quiet one directly.
“There’s a legend of a powerful sorceror who was seen in this area, and we think we found the artifact,” the woman says chipperly. In her outside voice, rendering my attempt at stealth utterly moot.
“Shut up!” Hatchet storms back and hisses at the woman before storming away again.
-She’s not very intelligent if she thinks she’s going to keep this hidden.-
I can be subtle. I said she’s not going to be able to hide her actions, not that she was going to be killed an eaten. By me. And possibly the bears. I don’t know if they know they eat hunans.
That brings up another point. Will I get in trouble for feeding them hunan flesh? Or is it fine as long as they don’t go on murderous rampages?
Why’d I make fish? I had some deer examples, and I made fish. It worked out, but how much would things have changed if I’d made deer? But why didn’t I make deer? Or boars for that matter. Could’ve introduced the bears to pork chops and bacon.
Why the hell am I thinking about doing anything for those literal home wreckers?
-Hey!- I kick, miss, and fall into a miasma filled hole as Hatchet grabs the fabric from the quiet lady and shakes me out. She didn’t try to catch me or anything.
“Hurry and clear the miasma!” Hatchet snaps as I look up at her.
I turn and walk down a small tunnel as she whisper shouts threats at me. I’m not doing shit. I’m gonna eat her eventually, she’s not getting back on that boat, but until then, what was worth her life?
I remember a time when she feared me and had a healthy respect for how dangerous I was. What in the hells happened?
[Purification (Miasma Abosrption) Succcessful]
[Successful Use 30/100]
[Qi 10]
[Karma 1000]
[Current Condensed Qi: 1,831,167/23,817,578]
[Current Qi: 1,812,052/957,945,100]
[Current Karma: 95,270,312/107,275,977]
[Max Will: 9,579,451]
[Mortal Wallet: 12E,692K,180P,687R,179Da,155De,105k]
[Spirit Wallet: 0Dr,0Ph,0Th,1325Di,126Co,10680St]
I pick up a weird plaque set into the ground, the miasma seeming to pour from it, sucking on the miasma it pumps out while not doing anything to the dense fog of the crap already filling this small area.
-Hmm?- I keep drinking my No mist and wonder when I got credit for Mias--.
There was that whole thing with the failed mega-meditation place. Ate a whole forest sea of miasma and a moon-sized geode of the stuff, nevermind the jelly, and I just kinda “meh” the whole experience.
When’d I start paying attention to my notifications? I think after I drank Howl. He cares. I need to find out how to go through his shit better.
-The fuck?-
I just notice -- as I’m sitting and waiting to see what Hatchet does to force my cooperation, -- that there’s something in the ground, poking up through the dirt. I scrape the dirt away to find a knife that appears to be made of metal shaped like it’s a snapped bone, two knobs on one end, an uneven chipped blade on the other.
-And banked,- I say as I store it.
[Dig Succcessful]
[Successful Use 1/100]
[Qi -3]
[Karma -5]
[Current Condensed Qi: 1831167/23817576]
[Current Qi: 1812049/957945100]
[Current Karma: 95270307/107275977]
[Max Will: 9,579,451]
[Mortal Wallet: 12E,692K,180P,687R,179Da,155De,105k]
[Spirit Wallet: 0Dr,0Ph,0Th,1325Di,126Co,10680St]
I dig around, banking the miasma plaque, and find what I guess was a weird metal stone display stand, which I also bank. I have no idea how this tunnel stayed uncollapsed when the earth is this soft and easy to dig through, although there are a lot of roots I’m easily clawing through, so maybe nevermind?
[Dig Succcessful]
[Successful Use 2/100]
[Qi -3]
[Karma -5]
[Current Condensed Qi: 1831167/23817575]
[Current Qi: 1812046/957945100]
[Current Karma: 95270302/107275977]
[Max Will: 9,579,451]
[Mortal Wallet: 12E,692K,180P,687R,179Da,155De,105k]
[Spirit Wallet: 0Dr,0Ph,0Th,1325Di,126Co,10680St]
-Now what?-
I stop what I’m doing, wondering why I’m getting notifications sporadically and why the numbers feel off. Is it all the money? What’s my current Will? Part of me -- a part of me that feels like sweaty spreadsheet nerd, i.e. Silent Howl, -- tells me that my numbers occasionally dip and rise by small amounts from naturally existing or when someone’s remoting into me, which would be fascinating if it was only natural living.
-Pretty sure some asshole is spying on me without my permission, though,- I grumble to myself, further hollowing out my little burrow. -Come again?-
I’m sitting and looking around what I’m totally thinking of as the living room, wondering when the fuck I started this little project, and it finally occurs to me that the shouting I’m hearing outside has a lot more bass in it.
-Tch, I was supposed to in the forest with a straw that bitch...- I shake my head in disappointment that I didn’t do a subtle kill her in the woods, and no one find out for years.
I move up a slope I dug out, -- how long was I down here? -- to the exit, and look up. There’s a bald man with dots on his head, wearing black robes with a yellow and white checker fabric folded over as a sash, holding a script paper, and part of me thinks I shouldn’t be sitting here staring at him.
He shouts, flinging the script paper which hits me in the face, my forehead tingling as it explodes into sparks and then I’m pulled out of the hole, flung into the air and I land straddling a small crowd.
That’s why.
I sit down and look at my death claws. They’re serrated again. Looking kinda vicious. At least they’re not hooks anymore. I look down and poke myself on the tree tops of the trees I’m not crushing under me thinking that I’m sitting on leaf litter and sticks. I open my wings, the sky fills with eyes.
I can simultaneously see that the sky fills with shimmering prisms of essence, -- turning all oil slick and miasma-y – but I don’t see eyes in the air. Is this my new field of influence? I don’t have to silk spray any more?
-Sweet,- I close my wings, flex my forelimbs, then look down to see who all is here. -Oh,- I feel myself crunching down as I take on my hunan form. Ack!
“That was unpleasant,” I grumble, straightening my robes and stretching.
“Eclipsed Rainbow?”
I look up to see Freckles looking at me with his mouth hanging open.
“Sup,” I blink at him.
They came for me, right? Or are they here for Hatchet? Speaking of, where the fuck is she? I look around trying to spy her in the crowd and see the quiet girl before I catch Hatchet ducking away into the crowd.
“You’re huge!” Freckles crows, flinging his hands up and flinching as he nearly knocks a few people out.
“I told you I was,” I say as I tuck my hands into my sleeves and move towards where Hatchet is trying to hide behind people. “Hatchet dumped me into a miasma hole, among other things. She’s not allowed to leave,” I tell him before the bald man with script papers jabs me in the face with another paper. “Yeah, I have no idea how the last one worked,” I tell him before moving around him, snatching the paper from him and eating it. Snack things.
“Hatchet?” Freckles stammers as I move past Quiet, she smiles and waves chipperly as I walk past her, so I give a little wave back.
“Um…” I poke at Memory ‘o Silent Howl who offers up a name and a face that’s pale and uncertain. “‘Singing Swallow’? This lady helped,” I say, jabbing a thumb at Quiet and wondering why Hatchet is smart enough to hide in the crowd instead of running away, but dumb enough to piss me off in the first place.
“Flowers At Sunset?” Freckles looks heartbroken. No way he doesn’t know how simple this girl is. “You tried to kill Sandy?”
“The fuck? No!” I whip around and stare at him, brows furrowed in horror. “Hatchet kidnapped me for something, and used –. Flowers, was it?” I look to the girl who was shaking her head no at Freckles before nodding her head in the affirmative to my question. “Kept hitting me and telling this girl not to talk to me. I’m gonna eat Hatchet. That’s not open for discussion.”
“Eclipsed Rainbow, she stole you from us, she was going to die regardless of if you did it or not,” Freckles says seriously and I wonder who the fuck he thinks he is. Stole me from them?
“Stole me? You don’t own me! I’m a member of your group, not a treasure, not a toy, not a pet,” I glare at him in disapproval and disappointment.
“Sorry, but when your essence began to leak out and affect Eager Heart we had to send for an Exorcist,” Freckles grimaces apologetically. I’m not gonna like this. “They said you were an Imperial Treasure, from the Rising Sun Empire. You’ve been registered as Running River’s property.”
“What did you just say to me.”
I don’t like my chances of kicking his ass --. I stop as it occurs to me that, one, I have a pass to kill Hatchet, and two, I don’t need to fight Freckles. I need to find Nate.