"Dimensional bubbles are extremely dangerous, lad,” Murdoc pointed out. “Without properly made anchoring, they can become completely inaccessible - lost forever in the Void.”
Dave turned to the old wizard.
"Extradimensional bags have specific enchanted rings or tokens that serve as anchors, allowing access to that pocket space," Murdoc explained, gesturing to Dave's bag. "Without those anchors, the space becomes completely cut off from our reality. Many an adventurer lost their entire fortune by damaging the anchor ring of their dimensional storage."
"So we'd need some kind of anchor point to maintain access to wherever we put Cedez?" Dave pondered.
"Even with a magisteel anchor in place, it's not that simple," Murdoc sighed, running a hand through his gray hair. "After I got Bessie, I thought we could just... leave Shandria. Take Bessie and ride past the first ring of mountains during daylight hours when Cedez was herself."
"What happened?" Dave asked.
"We made it about ninety clicks out," Murdoc's face darkened at the memory. "Then Cedez... changed. Not like her usual, silent and rapid night transformation. She started freaking out, pacing back and forth, begging, clawing at me. When we went further, she began screaming, howling like a banshee. Before I could do anything, she'd torn through Bessie's reinforced door with a Shadow blade and was running and then flying back toward the city, transformed into this writhing mass of winged shadows. It took me a week to find her again, curled up in some alley, barely remembering who she was."
Cedez shuddered against Remicra at the memory. The dragoness squeezed her shoulder reassuringly.
"So she's bound to the city itself," Dave contemplated. “The further she gets from Shandria, the stronger the pull becomes."
"Precisely," Murdoc nodded. "If we gate her to another city, she’d instantly go berserk and fly back as a Shadow and we’d lose her in the clouds. If we put her in a dimensional space, she'll likely destroy everything inside in her panic to get back to Shandria, damaging any anchors we set up. And without those anchors..."
"She'd be trapped forever in the Void," Dave finished grimly.
"Plz no banish fox into Void," Cedez commented.
“So,” Dave said. “It has to be an anchor that she can’t destroy.”
"There's no such thing," Murdoc shook his head. "As a Shadowbeast, she pulls power directly from the city-defending Leviathan. At night, she'll tear through anything in her way - even magisteel walls. Nothing physical can contain that."
Dave looked thoughtfully at Healy, who was perched on his shoulder.
"What if... it's not physical?" he said slowly. "What if the anchor is in another shadow?”
"What do you mean?" Murdoc frowned, confused.
“Shadows don’t attack shadows, right?" Dave said and then pointed at Healy. "Kitlix aren't physical beings - they're crystallized magic. When they bond with someone, they become part of that person's soul structure. What if we used a Kitlix as the anchor?"
Cedez's ears perked up. "You mean... like how Healy is bonded to you?"
"Exactly," Dave nodded. "We'd need a special type though. Something that could handle Shadowmancy. There are Shadow-controlling Kitlix, right?”
"A Noxix," Murdoc said. "A Shadow-aligned Kitlix. But those are incredibly rare. Shadowmancers with Noxix are bound into servitude by Undertown Assassins Guild pretty quickly and are never heard from again.”
“I think that I can make one of those using the soul shards belonging to the Huntsmaws, Stellaris and Castiss,” Dave said as his Kitlix leapt onto his lap with a twinkling sound. “Healy has three attributes already.”
“I like this plan,” Cedez smiled tentatively.
“Actually… Now that I think about it, this might solve my Vexirium problem. I can keep the rational parts of the souls I absorb and push everything else into Healy," Dave explained, scratching his Kitlix behind her crystalline ears. "She's already storing quite a bit of my Intelligence and Wisdom. Maybe she could hold onto the other disparate, foreign memories and skills too, like an external storage device."
"Healy is going to burst if you keep stuffing her with soul shards," Remicra commented. “She’s already looking pretty chonky for a Kitlix.”
"Uh-huh. She's gonna Kitlix up and become a mom soon," Cedez giggled, some of her usual playfulness returning. "Soon you’ll have a whole litter of tiny multi-colored Healys running around! You can give them all equally terrible names. “Strength-aligned 'Beefy', agile 'Zippy', dexterous 'Nimby'..."
Dave groaned.
“Charismatic 'Charmy',” Cedez teased on. “Magical 'Sparky', future-seein’ 'Seery', clever 'Smarty', and wisdom-dispensing 'Wizy'!”
“Wow, these are terrible,” Remicra commented.
"Oh! And the Noxix one can be 'Darky'!"
Remicra winced.
"Moody?" Cedez suggested, wiggling her eyebrows at Remicra. "Gloomy? Broody? Shady!”
"You're starting to give me a headache with these stupid names,” Remicra huffed.
"Aw, come on Remy! Don't be so..." Cedez's grin widened impossibly. "Grouch-yyy!"
The dragoness made a strangled sound somewhere between a laugh and a growl. "I swear, fox, one more 'y' and I'm throwing you off this balcony."
"You wouldn't do that to your best-yyy!" Cedez declared triumphantly.
True to her word, Remicra stood up, lifting Cedez by her scruff again. The foxgirl squealed and wrapped herself around the dragoness's arm.
"No! Dave, save me!" Cedez laughed. "She's being all scary-yyyy!"
"You brought this on yourself," Dave chuckled.
"Traitor-y!" Cedez declared as Remicra swatted her off, dropping her onto the sofa.
Murdoc watched the scene with a smile, his earlier worry melting away at seeing his adopted granddaughter returning to her usual playful self. Bessie’s tentacle menacingly hovering behind him vanished.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"Alright, alright," Dave intervened. "How about we focus on actually making the shadow Kitlix first, before we worry about naming it?"
“That’s your job, so get to it, Mr. Phantomancer. I’ma entertain myself by bugging Remy,” Cedez winked at Dave and threw a red pillow at the dragoness. “Consider this, darling–when Healy gives birth to a Metallomancy Kitlix for you, you can name her…”
"Steely?" Remicra suggested with a deadpan expression, catching the pillow.
"Yes!" Cedez clapped excitedly. "See? The 'y' makes everything cuter!"
"I was being sarcastic," Remicra growled.
"Sure you were, Rem-y-y," Cedez grinned.
"That's it!" Remicra lunged at the fox with the pillow. "Extended 'y' in my nickname is where I draw the line!"
Pillow-crushed Cedez squealed. "Help! The big mean Pathosteely-y-y dragon is trying to smother me out of existence!"
"Considering Remicra's ability to manipulate metal through emotions,” Dave said thoughtfully as he slipped everything into Intelligence and began to mentally separate the Shadow-princess bits out of his soul. “Maybe we should call her Kitlix… 'Feely'?"
Both Remicra and Cedez stared at him from the couch.
"That's... actually far worse than anything I came up with," Cedez laughed. "Well done! I bow to the master of terrible naming conventions.”
"I take back everything nice I ever said about you," Remicra growled at Dave.
“Nice things? What sort of compliments did my Remy-y offer Dave-y??” Cedez giggled from under the pillow. “Did the stoic smith finally admit her feelings for our dashing hero?”
"I will end you," Remicra growled, her scales flushing pink.
Dave tuned out their banter, focusing entirely on the task at hand. He closed his eyes, mentally reaching for the tangled mass of soul fragments within him. With Sherlock’s help, he began to carefully separate out the shadow-aligned, fractured soul shards.
The process felt like untangling a complex knot of dark threads from a tapestry of memories and abilities. As each shadowy strand was isolated, he guided it into Healy.
The Kitlix absorbed each fragment, her crystalline form gradually taking on a darker hue. Spots of shadow began to manifest between the green, cyan, and magenta stars that made up her body.
With each transfer, Dave felt his mind becoming slightly clearer. The alien hunger for magic that had been gnawing at him since absorbing Oraniss began to fade. The discordant whispers of madness grew quieter, making his pulsing head lighter.
He pushed Void-aligned souls into the Kitlix next, adding to the Shadow mix.
Ribbons of shadow and Void began to weave themselves across the entire crystalline matrix of Healy like small, entwined supercell storms with odd multi or one dimensional violet-tinted edges.
“Mrrrrddddd,” Healy formed a mouth and pawed at his face.
Dave stared at Healy’s paw with Healy’s eyes.
[Healy: Vitalix-Infix-Vestix. Soul-Bonded Kitlix LV 34]
[Primary Alignment] - [Vitality: 34]
[Secondary Alignments] - [Intelligence: 6.1976] [Wisdom: 6.1976] [Shadow: 1.7425] [Void: 1.7425]
Checking his own stats he noted that he had fallen back to [34] soul bits, the amount needed to fully utilize Healy’s primary alignment.
“Never seen a talking Kitlix,” Murdoc commented, observing Dave’s familiar. “Or one that could simply take on different alignment like that. Phantomancy is a mighty useful skill.”
“What’s she saying?” Remicra asked, releasing Cedez.
“She’s hungry,” Cedez said. “Abyss! I can sense the Shadow pulsing in her. Not just any Shadow. My shadow. My skill. Wowza. It’s like… she’s… She’s one of us!”
Healy turned her head, staring at Cedez.
“You can… see me?” Cedez asked tentatively.
“Mrrrrrrrr,” Healy replied.
“She could see you before,” Dave pointed out. “She jumped on your lap earlier. She can see you even better now. I purposefully filled her with Shadow.”
Leaping off Dave Healy pawed at Cedez.
“Eeeeeeee! She can see me! A Kitlix can see me!” Cedez squished Healy, grinning wide. “I’m on it, darling! Hold on!”
Clinging to Healy, Cedez leaped off the couch and yelled for Hyrei. The maid landed on the balcony with a hum of wind, skirts fluttering.
“Yes?” The owlgirl asked.
"Behold!" Cedez declared, holding up Healy to the maid’s face. "A Shadow-Vitality-Intelligence-Wisdom Kitlix!"
“Uhhh,” Hyrei blinked with big yellow eyes at the crystalline critter. “What?”
"She can see me!" Cedez shook Healy in front of the maid. "She has my Shadowmancy! We need mana crystals to feed her so that she can multiply!”
“If, she can multiply,” Remicra commented.
“No ifs. She wants to multiply,” Cedez insisted. “I can feel what she feels through the Shadow. She's absolutely gonna multiply… after nightfall.”
Hyrei looked at Murdoc with a somewhat confused expression.
"Here," Murdoc received a jingling bag from a transparent tentacle and handed it to Hyrei. "Get as many mana crystals as you can from the market." The owlgirl accepted the coins with a nod and took off with a gust of wind, leaping off the balcony and rushing towards the Adventurers Guild.
"You can feel her needs too?” Dave asked.
"Yep!" Cedez confirmed, still holding onto Healy. “It’s like she’s MY Kitlix! This is amazing!”
"So there's a connection between the Leviathan and Kitlix reproduction?" Dave asked.
"Most magical creatures in Shandria become more active at night, when the Leviathan descends,” Murdoc explained. “Nightingale's presence releases magic throughout the entire city. That's why Kitlix tend to multiply during nighttime - the ambient magic is strongest then, the Aetheric density highest. The Divine Beast and her flock maintain the city's magical ecosystem.”
“So then Nightingale creates all new Kitlix from magic tools and such?" Dave asked.
“Yepperoni,” Cedez nodded.
“What about Agrilopods?” Dave wondered about the gargantuan farm-walkers. “They’re pretty massive, no? How come the Shadows don’t eat them? Also, what happens to Bessie at night?”
“Agrilopods and Bessie are herbivores. During the night, the colossi walkers are guided into giant half-buried leviathan skulls and rib cages owned by the Agromancer Guilds. The old leviathan bones are covered in red Night runes,” Murdoc clarified. “Nightingale's predatory presence terrifies Agrilopods so they simply hunker down for the night - it's pure survival instinct. Bessie’s shell is fully covered in the same runes–she simply hides inside at night, breathing in the increased ambient mana.”
“What about predators like Wyverns?”
“Night predators and hunters like wyverns become attracted by the release of ambient mana,” Murdoc said. “They fly to Shandria and become snacks for the flock, increasing Nightingale's power.”
“I’m surprised there’s anything left alive around Shandria,” Dave commented.
“Monsters don’t take their sweet ass time to date or breed like people,” Cedez said. “They multiply simply by eating each other. Plus, Celestorms constantly manifest new ones into existence from the Astral Abyss.”
“Every night Nightingale cleans up the infestations in the vicinity of ninety clicks around Shandria, but every day even more of them appear all around Arx born in dungeons from the innards of Sentinels,” Murdoc added.
“So then the Felislice and the Prismatic Beetles came from a metal dungeon,” Dave said.
“Yes,” Remicra nodded. “They both had very distinctive steel in them.”
“Oh! I know exactly where the bugs came from," Dave said. "A lake in the mountains, about five hours walking."
"You should check with the Guild’s dungeon map. If it's unregistered, you could make a bit of coin selling the location. Or..." Murdoc glanced at Remicra, "keep it to yourself, since you’ve got a smith on hand.”
Remicra’s scales flickered with gold at the prospect. "More metal would be... useful. Especially since those bastards cleared out my entire stockroom." Her tail swished behind her irritably. "They didn't even leave me a single iron ingot."
"We could go check it out sometime," Dave suggested. “We would need some kind of non-metal armor though… the damn flesh-eating beetles can sense metal.”
"Ooh, already planning a date to a metal dungeon lake!" Cedez grinned, vigorously petting Healy. "How romantic!"
"Not a date," Remicra flushed pink. "Just... resource acquisition."
"Sure, sure," Cedez winked.