Isabelle could only stand in the courtyard and watch as Maviel held Tahsi up in the air by the scruff of his scaly neck and raised one of her terrible curved blades to his jugular vein. Every time Isabelle tried to move to save him—
[You’ve been clutched]
[-2 hp]
It was Maviel’s wicked clutching spell that was keeping Isabelle pinned. What a shitshow. It was all Isabelle could to do twitch her fingers.
Wait! Her fingers! Maybe if Isabelle could just point one of her fingers at Maviel… her left ring finger seemed to be aimed well enough. Yes, it was worth a try. Isabelle didn’t want Tahsi to die, after all, even though the bread-loving bastard had so much hp that Maviel could probably slash his neck clean open and he’d still recover quickly. Isabelle pointed her ring finger at Maviel and thought ‘Cast Shoot Lightning.’
[Mana 95%]
Lightning crackled out of her finger and struck Maviel, but soon after it coursed through the pale lady’s figure it just kind of… fizzled… into nothing!
[200 damage dealt]
Two hundred damage? Since when had Isabelle done only two hundred fucking damage?
[Maviel resisted electrocution]
“Don’t you get it, player?” said Maviel with a cackle. “I’m so much stronger than you that your magic is practically worthless! And my armor has such a strong resistance that it’s barely more than a tickle!”
Isabelle rolled her eyes. Maviel’s ego was something else.
[-2 hp]
This clutching spell that Isabelle had been trapped in really sucked.
“Now, say goodbye to your glutinous little friend!” said Maviel. “Well, okay, he’s not necessarily little, but still! Say goodbye!”
Isabelle didn’t say goodbye. She didn’t say anything at all. Instead, she focused on Maviel with her eyes, pointed her ring finger, and thought ‘Cast Minor Illusion.’
[Mana 87%]
A small pink halo apparated over Maviel’s head as Isabelle pictured Tahsi disappearing.
[You’ve been unclutched]
“Hey, what the fuck?” said Maviel. “Where’d the kobold go? I could’ve sworn he was right here!” Maviel let go of Tahsi and lowered her weapon. She darted around the courtyard in utter disarray, staring in oblivious confusion at the many clones of Tahsi darting around
“Thanks at ton, Isabelle!” said Tahsi. He ran towards Isabelle with a sigh of relief. “I thought I was a goner for a second there.”
“Who said that?” asked Maviel. “And why did their voice sound like my mother’s?”
Isabelle snorted.
“Having fun with that spell?” Tahsi asked her.
“Oh gods!” said Maviel. “Have I really been fighting you in my underwear this whole time?!”
“Yes,” said Isabelle to Tahsi. “I’m having loads of fun.”
“Gods damn it, this is so embarassing!” said Maviel, covering her imagined extremities as her face reddened with blush.
“Okay, so, she can’t see me, right?” asked Tahsi.
“Right,” said Isabelle. “You’re completely and totally invisible to her, at least for the spell’s duration.”
“Guess it’s a good time to try a stealth attack, eh?” asked Tahsi.
Shit, that was a good idea. “Um, Tahsi, how high is your sneak?”
“Level one!” said Tahsi with a big, goofy grin.
“Fuck this, I’ll just use another minor illusion and make myself invisible to her,” said Isabelle. “Now go back and frolic along with all your clones so Maviel doesn’t get any wide ideas when the first spell wears off!” she told Tahsi.
“You got it, Isabelle!” Tahsi dashed into the swarm of Tahsi clones, half of whom were offering the three nasty skeleton monsters bread and the other half of whom were eating some bread themselves.
Now that Isabelle wasn’t clutched in Maviel’s wicked spell any more, she could easily raise her hand and think ‘Cast Minor Illusion.’
[Mana 79%]
[Confuse increased to level 2]
Another pink halo popped over Maviel’s head, right as the other had started to fade.
“What in the fuck is this? First the kobold, and now the player? Clearly some confuse magic fuckery is afoot! Well, don’t worry, player, I’ll get you eventually. You can hide, but you can’t run!” Maviel raised both her hands. A flash of purple light shot out of them and into the air, spreading out over the sky and forming a small dome around the courtyard, trapping Isabelle within a close range of Maviel. “Go ahead, try whatever you want, you silly little player. I can guarantee nothing you can do will be stronger than me. Sure, maybe you can slow your time to fight. And you can confuse me. But I can’t fucking die, and you are oh, so killable.”
Isabelle knew better than to be intimidated by Maviel’s supposed immortality. How’d that worked out for Stelas? He was Isabelle’s head of holding now! Isabelle was confident she’d find a way to beat this lady.
“I’m sure you think you can do a sneak attack on me while I’m under your minor illusion, but I’m sorry to say it’s not going to be that easy for you,” said Maviel. She spread both of her hands out wide. They glowed purple. Three figures made out of glowing, blue-purple light appeared out of thin air and rushed toward Isabelle. “Uh oh. Looks like I found you, player!”
Before Isabelle could react, each figure struck her in the gut with a long, sharp blade-arm.
[-4 hp]
[-2 hp]
[-3 hp]
Isabelle wasn’t feeling too well. She had to be getting fairly low on the hp scale. She needed to act, and to act fast. Could her ring of fire protect her against these shadowy attackers? Only one way to find out. Isabelle thought, ‘Cast Ring of Fire.’
[Mana 71%]
In a poof of flames she was surrounded by the ring of fire. The figures screeched in agony, quickly apparating into nothing.
[Critical hit]
[Critical hit]
[Critical hit]
[3065 damage dealt]
[2989 damage dealt]
[2911 damage dealt]
[1209 fire damage dealt]
[1189 fire damage dealt]
[1506 fire damage dealt]
[‘Shadow Atronach’ is dead]
[‘Shadow Atronach’ is dead]
[‘Shadow Atronach’ is dead]
[Destroy increased to level 9]
Isabell regretfully noticed that they didn’t leave behind any bodies, so there was nothing to loot this time. What bullshit that was.
“Damn!” said Maviel. “I really need to level up my summoning, you never should’ve been able to kill those off so quick. But, hah! Your ring of fire gives away your location! You might as well have never cast that minor illusion on me, at this point, because I know exactly where you are!” Maviel promptly ran diagonally across the courtyard, in the completely wrong direction, and smashed into the dome wall. She jittered and shook as energy coursed through her body from the dome wall she’d put in place to trap Isabelle.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
[7835 damage dealt]
[6592 electrocution damage dealt]
[Confuse increased to level 3]
[Achievement unlocked: make an enemy do damage on themselves]
Isabelle smirked. What Maviel hadn’t realized was that, while her Shadow Atronaches did know where Isabelle was and ran towards her, she was still under the minor illusion. All Isabelle had had to do was imagine that Maviel thought she was over in the other direction, and also imagine that Maviel was further away from the edge of the dome than she thought, and boom! If Isabelle could keep this up, maybe she’d be able to stop this fight with Maviel without having to really be concerned, which was a nice feeling. Still, Isabelle wasnted to be assured that she wasn’t going to get one hitted, so she thought ‘Cast Quick Heal.’
[+20 hp]
[Mana 45%]
Isabelle was feeling better already. Much, much better.
“What the fuck have you done to my mind?” asked Maviel. “You can’t possibly be that good at confuse already! Do you know what my fucking level is?! You’re a goddamned 23, you should be putty in my hands! Putty in my fucking hands!”
Isabelle was starting to wonder if Maviel got a debuff from being angry or something. Regardless, Maviel raised both her hands and fired blast of blast of electricity magic at her own dome, nowhere close to aiming in Isabelle’s direction. Isabelle chuckled.
“What’s so fucking funny?” asked Maviel. “I’m terrifiyng, you know! I’m bona fide mother fucking terrifying!”
Isabelle chuckled again.
“That’s fucking it. I’m gonna show you how fucking terrifying I am!” said Maviel. Her eyes went pale, and then they rolled into the back of her head. Her mouth opened wide, wide, and wider. Her teeth grew into long, sharp fangs. Her jaw unhinged and widened, stretching out like some sort of giant snake mouth. Her shoulders twitched and shot out and up, and her arms split into threes. Acid bubbled up from within her eye sockets and dribbled over the ground. A long, dark purple, tongue slithered out of her gaping maw and snaked its way through the air. “I can taste you, Isabelle,” said Maviel.
Isabelle thought Maviel’s transformation, while quite gross, was also quite stupid, because it didn’t seem to have any bearing on the minor illusion she’d cast. Case in point, she’d managed to use it to convince Maviel to lick her own butt with the previously described long, dark purple tongue.
Tahsi, or at least one of Tahsi’s many clones, stopped distracting the skeleton monsters for a second to laugh and point at Maviel. Sir Jingles, who’d been cowering under Stefano the horse, laughed as well. Then, Jingles walked over to Lugano the horse and pulled Stelas’ severed head out of the burlap sack dangling from the side of Lugano and directed his attention to Maviel’s anus-licking transformation.
“Oh, wow, that’s fucking hilarious!” said Stelas. “You know, I’d never met Maviel, and I’d always heard she was terrifying, but this is just silly. Of course, it doesn’t mean that your party is going to win against her. You may laugh now, but this lady is one of the most powerful NPCs in Beaubinte, and you really ought to take this confrontation seriously. Why, I’m sure the whole reason she’s even here in the first place is because she heard of the wretched thing you’ve done to me, Stelas Stelford. Said wretched thing being, of course, walloping off my head and carrying it around as some sort of… what… a fucking pet or something?”
“Head of holding!” said Isabelle for clarification.
“Yea, yea, whatever,” said Stelas. “My point is this: yes, it is hilarious to see Maviel all done up in her big scary transformation licking her own butthole, though I do question why this ‘Jingles’ cat thinks it’s so funny that he had to show me when he was doing the very same thing only moments earlier.”
“Hey, don’t be an asshole,” said Sir Jingles to Stelas.
“Why? Why shouldn’t I be an asshole? Are you afraid that you might lick me or something?” asked Stelas.
“Get a room, you two,” said a Tahsi.
“Yea, really, ew,” said another Tahsi.
“I wonder if I can talk to myself,” said a third Tahsi.
“Oh, hey me,” said the first Tahsi.
“Hey buddy,” said the fourth Tahsi.
“Looks like we can talk to each other, huh?” asked the second Tahsi.
“Yea, I guess we can talk to each other,” said the third Tahsi. “How cool is that?”
“Pretty cool,” said the fourth Tahsi. He equipped some bread and took a chomp. “If only we could share bread.”
“Why?” asked the first Tahsi. “We don’t need to share bread. We’re false Tahsi clones! We’ve all got an equally crazy amount of bread in our fake inventories!”
“Yea, sure,” said the second Tahsi. “But, as a Tahsi, one of my biggest passions is offering bread to people. How can I do that when I’m the only one who can eat my bread?”
“Wow, that’s so depressing,” said the third Tahsi. “I never thought of it like that.”
“Yea,” said the first Tahsi. “Makes me not want to even eat bread any more.”
“Oh, come on, Tahsi, don’t say that,” said a fifth Tahsi. “You know that’s not true.”
“Fuck it, you’re right,” said the first Tahsi. He equipped some bread and shoved it down his gullet. “Fucking delicious, that is.”
Isabelle was almost mesmerized watching the clones of her kobold party member jabber and bicker amongst one another, it was like she was watching some bizarre variety skit show back in her old life. However, Isabelle’s mana was getting low and she still had a fight, or at least a semblance of a fight, on her hands. She went ahead and deactivated her ring of fire.
[Mana 22%]
Isabelle was getting a little concerned that the minor illusion she’d cast was about to wear off, seeing as the halo above Maviel’s head was starting to fade and flicker. Sure, Maviel herself didn’t really seem aware of what all was happening, but who could tell whether that would last. Sure, if Maviel’s voice could be believed she almost seemed convinced that herself and Isabelle were having some sort of intimate moment, the details of which seemed quite distracting and probably obscene, but if the spell ended Isabelle knew she’d be in deep shit fast. So, she raised her hand, pointed at Maviel and thought, ‘Cast Minor Illusion.’
[Mana 14%]
“Oh baby,” said Maviel. “You really know your way around there.”
Isabelle covered her face in her palm. How else could she even react? The assumption that Maviel’s subconscious had made about Isabelle being interested in cavorting with the super gross transformation of an Overlord’s henchperson was troubling to the core, but it was also remarkably hilarious, and Isabelle could sense her face reddening with every moment.
“Is it bad if I’m kinda enjoying watching this?” asked a Tahsi through a mouthful of bread.
“Yes,” said Isabelle, Sir Jingles, Stelas’ severed head, and even another Tahsi, all in unison.
“Well shit,” said the Tahsi. He took another bite of bread. “Still gonna watch it, though.”
“Hey, Isabelle?” asked another Tahsi. “It’s me, the actual Tahsi.”
Isabelle pinched Tahsi’s claw. “So it is,” she said. “What do you want? Besides apparently to watch Maviel french her own butt, I mean.”
“That clone of me doesn’t speak for me!” said Tahsi. “Anyway, I was just wondering if, seeing as this whole situation seems somewhat handled, maybe I could go run after Frimri and make sure the Overlord doesn’t murder her to death or anything?”
“Tahsi, you can just say murder her, there’s no reason to say the ‘to death’ part, it’s implied,” said Isabelle. “But, seriously, I wouldn’t call this handled.”
Tahsi looked at Maviel. “Okay, since the situation seems somewhat tongued. Well, more than somewhat.”
“Tahsi, stop watching her!” said Isabelle. “It’s gross enough that she seems to be enjoying it. It’s even grosser that she thinks it’s me. And it’s super, super gross that you’re watching.”
“Sorry,” said Tahsi. He closed his eyes and looked away, only to squint his eyes open and peek again. “It’s just fascinating. But, on to the important thing, I’d like to go save Frimri’s life, please.”
“Tahsi, can I level with you?” asked Isabelle.
“No,” said Tahsi. “Mainly because we’re still in combat mode. If we weren’t, we could probably level together though. I’m sure I’ve leveled up from this encounter, and I’d be damn near shocked if you hadn’t, too.”
“Tahsi, I wasn’t talking about literally leveling,” said Isabelle. “I was asking if I could level with you. Like, metaphorically.”
“I’m so confused,” said Tahsi. He equipped some bread and took a large bite. “Want any?”
“No, thanks though,” said Isabelle. She looked over to Maviel and noticed that the pink halo above her head was flickering again. Good thing her mana was recharging. Isabelle raised a hand and thought ‘Cast Minor Illusion.’
[Mana 85%]
Maviel continued her disgusting self-tonguing in peace, seemingly unaware of the world around her save for her own soft, blissful cries of Isabelle’s name. This, of course, made Isabelle terribly uncomfortable.
“At least she’s dealt with for now,” said Isabelle with a sigh. “Now, Tahsi. What I was trying to say is, well, I understand that you want to save Frimri from the Overlord. And, hell, I do too. If anyone’s killing that dragon, it’s going to be me, I mean just think of everything I can craft out of her—”
“Isabelle, you take that back right the fuck now or I’m leaving your party!” said Tahsi. He turned his back to her and took a bite of bread. “Oh, and if you want any bread, it’s too bad!”
[Speechcraft attempt: deceive]
Isabelle felt a little embarassed. “Look, Tahsi I was only joking—”
[Speechcraft had mixed results]
“Were you?” he asked. “May I remind you this is the mother of little Tahsi Junior we’re talking about here.”
“Okay, fine maybe I wasn’t joking. But Tahsi, what I was actually trying to say to you is that I’m not sure you’re powerful enough to fight the Overlord. Even though your stats are higher than mine. Hell, Tahsi, I don’t even think I’m powerful enough to fight the Overlord. And that’s what I was really getting at,” said Isabelle. “Honestly, Tahsi, I’ve been thinking through this combat encounter and I’m wondering if we should just use this opportunity to escape.”
“What?!” said Stelas’ severed head, which Sir Jingles had placed back inside its burlap sack. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”
“Why do you care, Stelas?” asked Isabelle. “Aren’t you dying for us to fail, anyway?”
“I’m not dying for anything, Isabelle,” said Stelas. “I’m in the Overlord’s party, I can’t fucking die. Really, what I was trying to express is that I was sorely disappointed at the idea that you wouldn’t go up to the Overlord and get slaughtered by him is all.”
“Okay, then,” said Isabelle. “Now, Tahsi, I want you to hear what I’m saying. There’s a nonzero part of me that thinks we should get the fuck out of here, now. That we should run for our fucking lives and get the hell away before we meet this Overlord and have to fight him. And I want you to consider that it might be the right move to make. We’re just not powerful enough.”
“I for one agree with Isabelle!” said Sir Jingles. “She’s got the right idea, and I’m all for it.”
“You can’t be fucking serious!” said Tahsi. He turned around, a chunk of bread hanging out of his mouth. “Isabelle, I have lost my whole life in a matter of days with you.”
Isabelle opened her mouth to start apologizing, but Tahsi held up a finger.
“But you know what? I’ve gotten a whole new one. I feel like I’m someone who matters, instead of just the goofy baker. And if I’m still a goofy baker, at least I feel like a goofy baker who matters. And I don’t want to give that up, Isabelle. I don’t want to run away. I want to face the Overlord!”
“Jesus Christ, Tahsi,” said Isabelle.
“No idea what the hell that means,” said Tahsi. “Seriously, Isabelle, pick up some Beaubinte-specific swears one of these days, eh?”
Isabelle stood there, feeling like Tahsi had surely just succeeded in a persuasion check against her. After all, against all odds, she actually did want to go fight the Overlord now. She didn’t want to give up.
“What in the fucking hell are you doing, Maviel?” asked a deep, gravelly voice.
Isabelle froze. All of Tahsi’s clones froze, and so did the skeleton monsters that Tahsi’s clones had been distracting. Stelas’ head had been complaining about the itchiness of the burlap sack, but he went silent on hearing this voice. The horses stopped scuffing their hoofs into the ground of the courtyard. Maviel did not react, and continued to indulge in her spell-induced delusions.
“Maviel, seriously, what the fuck is this?” asked the voice. A large, muscular man in a flowing, velvet cape walked into the courtyard. He wore a shrouded hood covering his face, though Isabelle could see long, white hair flowing out from it. “Oh my gods, you’ve been tricked by a minor illusion, haven’t you?” The man groaned and raised his right hand. The pink halo over Maviel’s head faded into the air. “Stop making a fool of yourself!”
Maviel froze, realizing what was happening. She quickly transformed back to her normal form and coughed a few times. “Oh, Overlord, darling, terribly sorry about that. Terribly sorry.”
Isabelle’s eyes went wide. This was the Overlord?
“Gods,” said the Overlord. “I’m sorry too.” The Overlord turned to look at Isabelle and her party through his hood. “Now. What’s all this, then?”
Isabelle swallowed air with nervousness.