Lilyth

The exit door, a nice double-winged full lite door turned out to be a non-functional prop. Half-heartedly, I swung my sword at the “glass”, but the blade bounced off it with a bong!

‘Don’t try jumping through this one, please,’ Caei said in a tired tone.

‘Don’t worry, hon,’ I reassured her. ‘That was a one-off.’

‘Good,’ she stressed and we resumed our search.

That was the plan, at least, because when we turned around, we saw a tall, immobile, feminine alabaster figure standing in the corridor near the staircase. One hand was raised, and the other was on its hip. The figure didn't have any clothes on, which was out of place here.

Well… you would expect murderous SCP-173 knock-offs to be rated “E for Everyone” in a place like this. Won’t anyone think of the children?

Before anyone could do anything, I cast [Shadow Bolt] aiming it at the figure’s head, doing my best not to blink.

My projectile struck true and the doll’s skull shattered into splinters, and the mannequin collapsed onto the floor, breaking apart. No experience notification appeared which told me that either I was wrong about it being a threat or that I hadn't actually killed it.

‘While I don’t mind your quick thinking, care to elaborate why you immediately went for a kill?’ Caeileera asked.

‘Just a moment,’ I replied and walked over to the doll.

It looked like your bog-standard white store display mannequin, but it couldn't have been one, could it?

Been a few weeks since I left Earth, but last I checked those didn't move on their own.

Just to be sure, I struck it several times with my sword. This didn't elicit any response so, eyes around my head, I returned to my companions and told them about the “only move when not watched” monsters popular in our fiction as of late.

‘For people with no magic, you Terrans sure have crazy imaginations,’ Ren summed it up. ‘Still… yeah… fair guess. Can't think of a different reason for why that thing would just appear out of nowhere.’

Aki and Caei also had nothing, so we quickly agreed that “destroy on sight” was the best policy here and began exploring the floor.

The mannequins were… insidious to say the least. Sometimes we would enter a classroom, search through it, leave and see one or more standing in the corridor, just watching.

One time, my search through a cabinet in what looked to be another staff room was interrupted by Aki’s yelp and a thud. I turned around, knives raised, and saw her sitting on the floor, the mannequin in front of her. Ren knocked it over with a slash of her sword, while I hurried over to help my wife.

‘What happened?’ I asked. ‘You okay?’

‘Just hurt my ass and sat on my tail,’ she winced as I helped her up. ‘That thing… was just there when I turned around.’

‘What the fuck?’ Caei muttered. ‘Where did it come from? I heard nothing. Lilyth?’

‘Was focused on this here cabinet,’ I pointed to the container. ‘Give me a moment.’

I took off my top, leaving only the bra on. I braced myself for catcalls from my companions, but they kept silent. I was pleased by this, as I wasn’t terribly happy about having to undress in front of them… but what could you do? I had to have as large a listening surface as possible. I closed my eyes and activated [Enhanced Acoustic Processing]. The world filled with sounds. The faint rustle of my companions’ clothes. The sound of their breathing. The flow of their blood. The fast beating of their hearts.

No such sound came from me. Only the mechanical rising and falling of my chest that facilitated voice production and my camouflage as a person. If I still had doubts about being a monster, this dispelled them completely. I was just a facsimile of an elf. A fake. A sad remnant of what was once a Polish transwoman, that was slowly diminishing with every day.

Is this what Ereshkigal meant by the long-term psychological effects that first day in the Tower?

I still felt like crying, but I had more important things to worry about than self-pity. I had a job to do.

Guiding myself by sound reflections I exited the room and started heading towards the stairs. Suddenly… the air in front of me shifted and before I could react I felt something on my neck.

Something wooden.

I opened my eyes and saw the blank face of the mannequin in front of my own. Its plastic hands started to squeeze my neck with a surprising amount of strength. I let out a choked involuntary scream of surprise and with kicked at the doll, just as it attempted to break my neck. My leg connected and knocked the creature down to the floor.

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Screaming in primal rage, I summoned one of my knives and rammed it into the mannequin’s head.

‘MOTHERFUCKER!’ I yelled, punctuating the strike.

By then my companions were out of the room and rushing towards me.

‘What happened? Aki asked.

‘The fucking thing tried to break my neck!’ I answered and gave them a play-by-play as I massaged my neck.

‘So… it just appeared?’ Caei confirmed.

‘Best I can tell… yes. Even the two-dimensional fucks moved. This thing… one moment wasn’t there, the next… It was strangling me.’

‘So… they appear when no one is looking and hunt isolated targets…’ Aki pondered, tapping her chin with a fingernail. ‘From now on… we will stay together. No one goes out on their own.’

‘Eyes around our heads too,’ I agreed while putting my clothes back on.

I decided to stow the sad remnants of my armour in my bag. As it was unlikely to be of help here, there was no point in getting it damaged any further.

Then I handed the Blade of the Black Rose to Caeileera.

‘Just in case,’ I said. ‘You can keep it really.’

‘Are you sure?’ she asked with a mix of surprise and gratitude visible on her face.

‘Yes. You need a weapon. I have my knives. I am fighting with them most of the time anyway.’

A message appeared before my eyes.

Do you want to transfer the soulbond of the item: The Blade of the Black Rose to: Caeileera”?

Yes/No

Yes, I thought.

Caeileera accepted the transfer. Item: The Blade of the Black Rose is no longer bound to you.

‘Thank you,’ she muttered and hugged me.

I couldn't help but notice Aki smirk upon seeing that. I had no doubt she had a different kind of sword-passing in mind.

Aki

I led our merry gang around the floor looking for an exit. Or rather, I had Lilyth lead us around and only provided her with general directions.

I noticed that she was well on her way to being the woman who led us through the Tower of Trials. I also felt much stronger than I did in days if not weeks.

A few days of rest can do wonders, eh?

Lilyth’s spirits were still really diminished by her experiences with Kojiro, no surprises there. I was hoping her embracing her new body would help her get through that, but I realised it would be a while before it had results. Caei did ask me to be less insistent on that front while Lilyth was checking out the wall paintings situation. After hearing about her freakout… I agreed. I would need to apologise to Lilyth later. I expected she would be like me… eager to explore the new capabilities available to her. I kept forgetting she wasn’t born to this so we would need to take it slowly.

I will need to thank my alabaster beauty for that one.

Caei was getting really good at being the emotional centre of our operations, and I was appreciating her more and more about this. In a way… what I wanted in the hospital was finally happening. I could go to Lilyth to help me think through issues and to Caei to feel through them.

It really took us a while to become an actual team.

Yeah… previously we had been just a bunch of individuals thrown together by desperation.

Still are, I guess. But we are also… more.

‘I guess we should find the exit immediately,’ Caei sighed as we were looking for a way out.

‘No,’ I shook my head. ‘I think if we come across a way to stop… those things we should go for it. There is no telling what they will do once we try to leave.’

‘Yeah,’ Lilyth agreed. ‘At first, they just watched, then one tried to attack you…’

I shuddered upon the realisation that I could have died without anybody even noticing.

‘... And then I had my… encounter with one,’ my cutie finished.

‘They have been progressively upping the ante,’ Ren agreed.

Lilyth turned around to respond, her eyes widened and she leapt forward while yelling:

‘CAEI!’

I looked towards where my alabaster beauty was and saw that another of the mannequins was standing behind her, a rusty knife raised over my wife’s head, ready to be plunged into Caei’s body.

As if in slow motion, I began watching the knife begin its descent, only for Lilyth to catch it on her hand. I involuntarily winced seeing that. Lilyth then kicked the doll's legs from under it, ripped the knife from her body and sunk it into the mannequin's head.

I was so entranced by the fight that I stopped paying attention to my surroundings. And that moment of inattention was all it took.

Suddenly, a pair of wooden hands wrapped around my neck and started holding it in a vice-like grip, cutting off my ability to breathe. I felt intense pain as my bones and cartilage were crushed, then, I heard something crack, there was a feeling of weightlessness and, as darkness enveloped me, the floor rushed to greet me. My last thought was:

Is this it?

I woke up a bit later in one of the classrooms. My neck was intensely sore, but to my surprise, I was still among the living. Lilyth noticed I was up, because he almost pounced towards me, but stopped herself and just knelt by me and took my hand into hers.

‘You’re okay!’ she sobbed.

‘Wh-wha…’ I tried to say but it hurt to talk.

‘Try not to move or talk,’ Caei said in a hollow voice. ‘Your neck… sustained a lot of damage. It wasn't broken, but a lot of things got crushed. I fixed things… but… I am not sure whether everything is fully healed.

‘It h-hurts,’ I croaked.

‘Then that answers the conundrum we had,’ Ren sighed.

‘Barricade yourselves,’ Lilyth said. ‘If I am not back in a few hours or you don’t hear from me…’

‘We’ll try making a break for it,’ Caei confirmed and then turned towards me. ‘Lilyth will try to deal with whatever is responsible for those.’

‘I’ll make them pay,’ my other wife promised.