Luuko was pissed. She was just quietly sleeping on a counter, minding her own business, and out came a freaking SWAT team, wrecking her new bed!
Well, Isaphela did that, but it wasn’t her fault. That was self-defense.
They had no idea she was a polysomnomancer, but that made her no less furious for their intrusion.
Thankfully, the fight had resulted in a decisive victory for the long-haired girl in front of her, yet that dumb anti-magic field thingie had made her slightly magical sleep end. Through some strange magical interaction, she had been rendered extremely awake, more so than she knew was possible.
‘Sirla’ stood in the middle of the room, having a pleasant chat with Drade. While she did that, her hair moved people into piles seemingly of its own accord, tendrils wrapping around feet and bodies and moving them into place.
Drade was, as usual, mostly deadpan. Mostly. Luuko noticed a slight smile on his face as he talked to Sirla. He looked pretty cute when he actually acted human.
Her friends and the Blackmarket enchanters were in one pile, the SWAT team was in another, with dream catchers on their heads, and the civilians were only a little sleepy, not moved from where they were left.
Luuko began crawling out of the wreckage, preparing to sneak up on Sirla for fun.
“So anyway, what are we going to do with these buggers?” Sirla said, pointing at the SWAT members.
“Ehh, I guess it’s Luuko’s job to clear them out,” Drade said.
“That’s the person behind me, right?” Sirla’s hair suddenly grasped Luuko from behind her and dragged her into her sight.
“How’d you know she was there? I was sure you’d be comedically surprised by her,” Drade said.
“I’m like an electric eel. I can see charges, which lets me detect movement.”
“Cool. And make sure to use those baggies to heal their potentially dangerous concussions.” Drade moved to Luuko. “How are you doing, Luuko? You look rattled.” Drade acted aloof to most things, but if there was one thing he undoubtedly cared about, whether out of duty or passion, it was other people.
“A headache, but that’s all,” Luuko said, stretching with vitality.
“Good to hear. I’m gonna need your help for a moment, ok?”
“Sure.” She said, rubbing her head.
“Ok, the first order of business...Sirla?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m gonna need you to be a lap pillow.”
“Sure.” Sirla blinked a few times, her hair falling into a resting position. Then, it quickly expanded into a massive ball of negatively charged fluff, making her look like a sea urchin. “W-wait what? I said I’d help you, not coddle you!”
“For Luuko.”
“Ok...why?”
“So I can fall asleep, of course!” Luuko said, smiling at the staticmancer. “I, after all, appreciate the finer things in life. Specifically lap-pillows.” Her pillow was also wrecked by the counter’s fall, so she needed someone to fill in for it.
“Yes, I got that, but why?”
“It’s purely for practical purposes, I swear...” Luuko said, looking at Sirla with an almost lustful expression.
“The fact that your mouth is drooling is making me question many other things besides the practicality of my lap.”
Luuko shrugged, “I need to fall asleep so I can use my magic.”
Sirla blinked. “Magic?”
Drade responded for Luuko, “She can mind control sleeping people when she is asleep.”
“She...what?! She can use magic too?”
“Yes.”
Sirla looked back to Luuko. “But...how will that help us?”
Drade clicked his tongue. “Ever heard the plot twist: It was all a dream?”
After some good deal of convincing, Sirla reluctantly consented to be used as a pillow, and Luuko eagerly used that for her pleasure. While they did that, Drade had intuitively figured out how Mrs.Wilderbeck’s pendulum worked and used it to alter the sleeping SWAT member’s memories so they would think the raid had been on the wrong shop.
“Her sleeping face is so questionable it’s making me feel scummy,” Sirla commented.
Drade was busy texting the other ‘Friends’ that the search was over, and they could go back to their regularly scheduled morning. “Why’s that?”
Sirla looked at the drooling, unbelievably happy girl in her lap. Apparently, Sirla was the lap of luxury. “Uhh, she looks like she’s in euphoria. It’s making me uncomfortable...And are we sure she’s asleep? The bodies aren’t moving at all.”
Drade took a good long look at Luuko’s face, then looked back to his phone. “Knowing her, she’s probably asleep, but purposefully being useless so she can be in your lap for longer.”
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Sirla pulled on Luuko’s ear impatiently.
“Owowow...fine...” she said vaguely, still asleep, before doing as she was told.
The bodies began to move and filed out of the door. Outside, the sleepies with dream catchers on their heads walked to the gas station secret hideout.
Sirla put her face near Luuko’s ear and menacingly spoke into it, “And if you’re making them walk slowly on purpose, you’re getting the floor treatment, you got that?”
The sleepies wasted no time in their haste.
In the end, the Blackmarket dealers couldn’t stay where they had been located for the past few months, just in case the guildies realized what had happened, but as thanks for defending their market, they decided to give Drade what he needed for the last phase of Plan-B.
Sirla had left, saying she’d left her restaurant without a cook for far too long already, the bystanders had been evacuated, the shop basically closing for the day, and Luuko was explaining what had happened afterward to the other Schoolers.
Drade sat on one side of the counter as Kayle showed him what he needed.
“It’s an HDMI cable. It can connect to any magical device, and depending on its compatibility, It’ll transfer video, sound, and whatever else you need.” Kayle held out the seemingly ordinary HDMI cable with a black block on one end.
He handed it to Drade, and he looked at it, puzzled. “How do I use it?”
“Well, that’s where the second part comes in. It’s a little makeshift, but I think it should do.” The enchanter put a small mirror on the counter, propped up like a picture. “This is a mirror of illusion detection. It sees through illusions and stuff. Just put the cable next to it, and...” he put the mirror beside the block end of the cable, and it turned black suddenly, like a phone under a magnet. “Do it like so, and it’ll transmit everything it sees, just as good as any camera. It works with a bunch of other enchanted items too, though some of them have...strange effects.”
“Looks good.” Drade seemed to be actively looking at different parts of the device, studying the intricacies of its magic circuits by tracking the flow of magic through the two. His findings proved it did exactly what the enchanter said. He nodded. “Thanks a lot for this.”
“Not a problem at all. Ever since I was excommunicated from the guild, I’ve hardly been able to make a living. If it weren’t for you, I might have just given up my passion without a fight. I should really be thanking you.”
“You’re welcome, then. I think that’s everything I needed. I hope to do business with you in the future.” He handed the enchanter his personal card then walked to the Schoolers. “And thanks to you all too.”
Felix scratched his head. “It was really nothing. We weren’t even needed in the end...”
Sara had woken from unconsciousness but quickly fell back asleep on Felix’s shoulder, the sunset’s glow illuminating her dynamically from the window.
“Still, you tried your best, and you didn’t even need to.” Drade’s eyes fell, seeming melancholic just before he stood straight. “I’ve been blessed with allies like you all and the friends, but not everyone gets that...and I can’t take that for granted. So thank you.”
Drade walked out of the shop with the two magic items in hand.
Luuko watched, wide-eyed, as he did. “I haven’t seen him that emotional in a while.”
Felix looked at her, confused. “That’s emotional for him?”
“When he stands tall, that shows he’s meek. Don’t worry, if you knew him as well as I do -not to say I know him very well, myself- you tend to notice that he’s...different.”
“Huh.” Felix affectionately patted Sara’s bright hair, leaning against the wall with resignation.
“Oooh! can I use your lap-”
“No, I’m not letting two girls use me as a pillow.”
Drade let out another long sigh as he walked down the street, his day finally over.
Things had worked out. They would have the party once Plan-B was done for real, but for the time being, Drade was finished with his task, and the plan would be ahead of schedule.
Drade had fully expected Tiamat to swoop from the sky and attack him, the universe fighting against his will at each turn, as usual. It was rare for anything he did to actually go to plan.
However, for once, the gates of chaos were merciful.
Maybe he’d have time to play some Bite and Smite 2 with Uffield before the day ended.
-2 days later-
It was Uffield’s birthday. Drade had been at school for most of the day, and she was almost bored from the anticipation alone, even while playing Bite and Smite 2. He had told her to make her way to her Friend’s place at 3:00 PM since they had a surprise set up for her, so she had to wait.
Once the time came, she put on her favorite polka-dot blanket and made her way down the elevator, through the streets, and to their Friend’s place.
The passerbys didn’t notice her inhuman form due to strange otherworldly machinations.
The Friend’s headquarters was a run-down school Drade had bought for her Friends, funded by their dad. Apparently, it had been burned down almost a decade earlier.
As she approached it, she saw Drade wait for her with a big smile, waving at her with giddiness, waiting to let her in. Before she came too close, though, he yelled out to her, “Hey, sis! Close your eyes or...whatever, or it’ll ruin the surprise!”
“Ok, ok!” She said, closing some eldritch equivalent of her eyes, though she could still see everything within a few feet even when she did so. She walked next to Drade. “So, can I come in?”
“Just one sec, sis.” He opened the door then yelled inside. “You all ready?”
She couldn’t tell what the response was since her eyes doubled as ears, but Drade nodded to her and opened the door.
As Uffield walked in, she saw all her friends nearby, including her best friend, Faio, who leaped atop her. “Uffy! We’ve been preparing for soooo long to show this to you! I hope you like it!” She was the same age as Uffield, fourteen...no, now Uffield was 15!
She also happened not to have stab wounds, if anyone wondered.
Drade led them all to a door to what would have been the computer room.
“You’ve heard of those people on the internet, right? What were they called...”
Her best friend, still sitting on top of her indescribable form, spoke for Drade, “V-Tubers!”
Drade opened the door. “Yeah, V-Tubers. Well, Faio and I talked once, and she told me about them and their virtual avatars. Then, I realized it would be perfect for you! You can’t stream live since you’re...you know, an eldritch being and all, but you always said it was your dream to be a super popular streamer, so -oh, and you can open your eyes now.”
When Uffield did, she saw what was there. It was a computer connected to an HDMI cable and mirror.
“So, I got the whole gang together...” He patted on a carpet in front of the computer, and Uffield ‘sat down’ on it. “Just press the spacebar, and it’ll start.” He flipped the blanket off of Uffield’s ‘head,’ and I’ll elect not to describe the strangeness underneath. “Then, we looked at your expressions and made an entirely new program to translate them onto a virtual model for you!”
Uffield pressed the spacebar with a tentacle, and the application showed something she was so happy to see...
A digital avatar popped up on the screen. She looked straight out of an anime, with black hair built of tentacles, eyes that glittered like stardust, pale skin, creepy tentacles protruding from her back, and purple clothes.
Uffield couldn’t describe how cute the avatar looked!
Sniffling noises came from the entity, as it made eldritch facial expressions, which were reflected onto the avatar in human emotions as they changed. Happiness, surprise, love, tears, it was all there. All the avatar’s expressions were filled with the love, care, and effort of all her friends put together. Cutting-edge tech, all designed to make the eldritch entity happy!
“Y-you shouldn’t have...all of you...” She turned to face the whole group, who could sort-of comprehend her crying face. “You know you really shouldn’t have!” Tentacles came from underneath the blanket and wrapped themselves around the group as a whole, dragging them in like a bulldozer to hug them close to her ‘body’ in a group hug to remember, with her best friend laying atop her, and Batman taking a picture of them all.
Plan-Birthday was complete, and let Uffieldufkyalluphanimwartailophanathaz finally make her dream a reality!
And it was the best day of her life.