Lillian had spent years trying to figure out ways to make her gift more potent. She had experimented with everything from sleep deprivation to lucid dreaming. But none of them had any particularly strong effects on her gift.
When lucid dreaming, she got the ability to create whatever she wanted and bring it into the real world, but it never quite worked out the way she wanted it to. She tried to create a sword whose swings would create air elementals to attack the user’s foes. Once she brought it into reality though it shattered upon its first use and the elemental couldn’t quite get the gist of what an enemy was.
During sleep deprivation she ended up having more nightmares and accidentally brought more monsters into reality than usual. Eventually she only had nightmares and the whole project had to be scrapped until she started having normal dreams again.
She had been having a reoccurring nightmare about a demonic monster named Susan since she was fourteen. Susan would pretend to be a kindly woman who gave Lillian powerful items that Lillian used to great effect. For a time, Susan was simply just a woman who gave Lillian things, but one night Lillian asked Susan if she wanted to see the world. And so, Susan was brought into the world for the first time.
Susan shed her skin and turned from a kindly old lady into a demon with bat wings, the face of a fly, and twelve sets of legs sticking out of her from various angles. Susan had nearly destroyed the castle, and it took Ian to come out and stop her.
But Susan kept coming back. She was always waiting in the dream, trying to fool Lillian into bringing her into reality again.
Susan was one of the dreams that made Lillian question whether her dreams were actually happening, just somewhere else. She didn’t really want credit for creating this demon who haunted her so much and was just a general pain in the ass.
Lillian happened to be in a dream involving Susan, maybe it was the stress of finally reaching shore that had gotten to her, but it was a particularly bad one. Susan knew she couldn’t just be herself anymore, since Lillian already knew not to bring her into reality, so she spent the dreams trying to trick Lillian.
In this particular dream, Lillian was in a room filled to the brim with swords. It was like wading in a pool, and every single one cut into Lillian’s dream body. Causing a sensation like pain but was a little too removed from reality to cause any true distress.
Lillian could sense somehow that one of these swords was Susan in disguise, the demon truly was a master of disguise. And Lillian was trying to pinpoint exactly which sword Susan was hiding as, since she didn’t want to bring the demon into reality by accident.
The pool of swords was slowly being filled with her blood and Lillian watched as her essence in the dream was slowly drawn into the center of pile.
Lillian waded through the sharp edges and pointed tips, trying to reach wherever her blood was leaking towards. And she found it in the center. A truly massive sword, larger than Lillian, was being filled with blood.
Ostentatious, check. Gaudy, check. Obviously the most powerful sword, check. Everything about this sword screamed that it was Susan in disguise.
Lillian hefted the sword over her head; it was far lighter than its incredible size would suggest. Then brought it down on the sword closest to her.
Every other sword in the pool of swords looked identical, so Lillian just walked around smashing every single one she could find with the massive bloody sword. After the fifteenth sword was shattered, a shriek erupted from the mound around her, and all the surrounding swords started flying around Lillian.
It was a tornado of swords, and all Lillian could do was hunker down. She placed the massive sword over her and tried to cover as much as her body as she could. Lillian watched as the swords collided together, however instead of clanging off the other, the two would fuse making a slightly larger sword. Until finally one massive sword was left in the center of the pool, with Lillian.
The sword slowly grew a pair of arms, legs, and eyes. It morphed into a human looking thing. Even if she didn’t look like a massive demon with twelve legs, Lillian knew that the figure in front of her was Susan.
A sliver of blood was leaking out of a hole in Susan’s face, a tongue that was far too long came out and licked at it, lapping up the dripping blood.
“How did you know I wasn’t the bloody sword?” The voice emanated from the figure, even though their lips didn’t move.
“Come on Susan, you were making it too obvious. You were trying too hard to make me think you were that sword, which meant you obviously weren’t that sword.”
“The human mind is a fascinating thing, Lillian. I will get you next time, you scamp.”
“You can always try.”
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With that the figure slowly disappeared from the now empty pool of swords. While Lillian with her massive sword in hand took a deep breath and opened her eyes.
The gentle rocking of the boat, the tip-tapping footsteps of people on higher levels of the ship, and chatter coming from the workers who had moved onto the mainland to finish building an outpost for Prince David. All these things were reminders to Lillian that she was back in reality. Despite the truly massive sword she was hugging as if it was a prized stuffed animal, she was back in the real world.
Lillian gave the look to Theo that she was certainly awake, and that the item she had brought out was not a particular danger to anyone. He nodded than sauntered out of the room yawning, probably off to find the gifted cook, and get her to conjure up some coffee.
Lillian took a whiff of her old pillow, getting the nostalgic scent of home stuck in her nostrils before she set about getting ready for the day. She got her clothes on and looked at her sword. This was always the most exciting part of waking up for her. Not breakfast, not what she was wearing, not the sunshine hitting her face. It was figuring out how she was going to get her magic weapon to the dining hall so she could show her friends.
It was a little too big to fit in the ladder-wells of the ship, but Lillian believed with enough perseverance and skill she could make anything happen.
She found a Wood gifted person, one of the few kept on the crew to make sure that there was no permanent damage to the ship. And had them fix everything she broke as she walked through the halls with reckless abandon.
Was it wasteful? Absolutely. But what was the point of having awesome magic weapons if you couldn’t bring them everywhere with you.
As she arrived at the dining hall, she brandished her sword. Everyone turned to look at her, their eyes searching for how such a small person could carry such a massive sword. Once they saw it was Lillian though, they all just shrugged and moved on with their day. Theo just rolled his eyes when he saw her spectacular entrance, then went back to his cup of coffee.
Alas, everything was ruined when Joy saw her, he started giggling and asked, “are you compensating for something, Lillian?”
Everyone burst into laughter at her expense. It was embarrassing, so she did the most reasonable thing a lady with a giant sword could do. Start chasing the nuisance who had ruined her awesome entrance.
Joy was too fast though; she could never quite catch up to him. Not that she was trying particularly hard. It was all good fun, and the crew needed a good laugh, today was the day they had all been waiting for.
The ship had finally arrived at the Frozen continent, and now the hard part of the operation began. They would be searching for the Kingmaker, as well as trying to find the person who was causing such a ruckus in the capital.
The prince had brought an entire team of people with earth and ice gifts to help create their base of operations, and the team had been working all night. They were finally done, and the mission would begin.
Not before Lillian had her breakfast though. She got the food gifted chef to make her a cinnamon roll and a few eggs, over-easy not scrambled. The chef had one of the greatest gifts Lillian had ever seen, she could create food near instantaneously. She had to give something up of equal size, but buckets of seawater magically turned into bread and cheese and omelets. It was a glorious gift.
But Lillian was going to enjoy this meal, it was probably going to be her last good meal for a while. The chef would be staying at the prince’s command center, so no magical breakfasts for Lillian during her missions. It was all going to be rations, and no one liked rations.
Lillian wasn’t so negligent in her duties that she ate as slowly as possible, savoring every last bite. Unlike someone whose name starts with a J and rhymes with destroy, who sat there staring longingly at the chef, as if wishing he could ask her to go with him into the winter wastelands. But Lillian did have a wonderful meal that she enjoyed immensely.
She cleaned her dishes since that was the proper thing to do. No reason to let anyone else do work she was properly capable of, and while she was there, she cleaned the mug and plate that Theo had left.
Finally, she grabbed her massive and awesome sword in her left hand and the scruff of Joy’s neck in the other, then lugged them both up to the top of the ship. She might’ve heard a few cries and complaints from him, but nothing a few whacks with her new sword didn’t fix.
Once the two had reached the top of the ship, they saw a castle. And it was incredible.
Just the night before, it had been a barren wasteland of snow and barely anything else. But now, a massive structure loomed over their ship. Plenty of magical gifts must have gone into the castle to make it go up so quickly, but it sure was awe-inspiring.
Even the great poet Joy deigned to open his mouth and speak about the majesty that was the castle, “shit, that’s big.”
To which Lillian responded with the only proper answer, “that’s what she said.”
They looked at each other and continued looking. Daring the other to break eye contact. It was an age-old battle fought between hardened veterans of the field; awkward eye contact was a deadly place for the unprepared.
But Lillian took her rightful victory, after she found another nifty use for her giant magic sword. Hitting Joy upside the head with it makes him blink. Oh, what would she do without her magic sword? The unfortunate answer to that question was probably still hit Joy upside the head with whatever is closest to her.
The two found their missing member, he was staring off into the ocean. Probably trying to find a new scene to make out of ice, it was a little disconcerting having Theo be so intense about his art. But Lillian and Joy wouldn’t say anything, they were just excited that Theo was doing something just for enjoyment.
The trio stood on the edge of the ship, staring at the ladder that led down to the ground. The prince had Theo and a few earth gifted rig up a bridge that connected the ship to the mainland, so that way they didn’t have to crash the boat onto the land.
No one said a word as they stared down at the ladder. Endless possibilities awaited them here in the frozen wastes, and this ladder was a metaphorical last step before they would be forced to brave the dangers they may face.
That may have been what the more introspective members of the group thought, but Lillian was just contemplating how to get her sword down the most gracefully.
Once she did, she chucked her sword onto the bridge and climbed to the bottom. Where she picked up her sword and then yelled Theo, “what’s taking you so long?”
Joy was already halfway down the ladder, while Theo jumped a little and started shimmying his way down as well. There was no time to waste after all.