《Aqua Regalia [Monster Progression LitRPG]》 Chapter 1: Surface Tension ¡°In the world of insects, gravity is negligible. Surface tension is king.¡± Cas recalled that line from an entomology paper she¡¯d read somewhere. She couldn¡¯t remember the author so the memory went uncited for the moment, but that was perhaps forgivable considering she was running for her life. Well, crawling for her life. It was the day ten since she¡¯d gotten her vision, the fifth since the ants had taken an interest in her. The first time had been terrifying. The second time had been nerve wracking. After the tenth chase, however, running away from them had developed into an annoying habit, much like those mandatory work parties she always avoided. Cas never found social obligations to be ¡®fun¡¯, no matter the level of marketing that told her otherwise. Granted, maybe that was the reason she¡¯d never really had any friends¡­ Huh¡­turns out self honesty was easier after you died. Anyway, she found a nice enough stalk of grass and struggled up the blade. Looking back, she was disheartened to find the monster had caught up to her. Granted, the ant chasing her was half her size, but it had a nightmare face decorated with twitching antennae, and gleaming jaws, and - unlike her - it had a lot of friends. Why was it always the popular kids that came after her? ... Cas raced up at a slow pace, keeping barely ahead of the black river of ants. The first insect was too fast, however, and mandibles like scythe blades closed around her. A feeling, more of panic than pain sparked up inside her and Cas rode it, wrenching at her gut and tearing herself free. The ant, jaws gummed up with jelly, halted, glued to the rough surface of the grass-stem. Chancing a look back, a traffic-jam had formed where the last ant had attacked her. Its sisters climbed over the trapped body and became stuck themselves wherever they contacted the glue. Suckers! Cas felt her glee cut short as she approached the tip of the grass blade, however. There, an immense water droplet hung, dragging the frame of the blade down with its watery. ¡®Idiot!¡¯ she berated herself. Of course there¡¯d be dew in the morning! She¡¯d grown careless, thoughtless, and now¡­ That was the strange thing about living life at this scale. All the rules of life were the same, but the emphasis was inverted. The plate of crystal in her center flashed back every ten microseconds or so, glittering like a star. Two inches behind her, the ants clumsily fell over one another, raising their heads silently and probing their air with stabbing antennae. She ignored them for the time being. She still had two seconds before they reached her. Two seconds¡­ two whole seconds. The first animal she¡¯d seen when she gained her vision was a preying mantis, a bright specimen decorated like a flower, which struck out like lightning to capture a bumble-bee. Except¡­ It wasn''t like lightning. Every memory she¡¯d had as a human¡­ they all seemed incongruent to the world as she saw it now. Flashing flies drifted about in lazy circles like they were buzzards, the snapping jaws of the ants closed in slow motion. Even her own movements were ponderous from her own perspective, a slow crawl that moved slower than her mind. The whole world seemed to drift by like molasses when compared to the dying speed of her own thoughts. As it was, she had a lot of time to think. Normally, getting away from the ants was easy. They were hardly faster than she was, and running up a grass blade and dropping off the tip had always been enough to lose their trail. The stunt had never bothered her before, but this was the first time she¡¯d been called to do it in the morning, and that little drop of dew¡­ that insignificant bubble of water she¡¯d ignored for all her human life now seemed more important than the sea. Her own reflection stared back at her, suspended in the bulging surface of the water droplet. Despite this being the first time seeing herself, she¡¯d long guessed that she had a physical body a lot like this. She left a trail, she was affected by physical forces like gravity and couldn¡¯t go through walls, and the ants took slimy chunks out of her enough times that she¡¯d long abandoned the idea that she was just some disembodied consciousness. But¡­ Again she flickered her crystal back, the ants were noiseless beyond the chittering tap of their legs. Moment by moment, they approached in slow-motion. It felt like she was in a nightmare, forced to observe every detail of her impending death. But ahead of her was a different sort of terror, that of uncertainty. She¡­ was scared of the water. At this scale, water wasn¡¯t wet. It was a death trap. It stuck to everything, it stuck to itself, and she¡¯d seen a hundred mites drown in stray droplets! So, what would happen to her if she touched it? Would she even exist, or would she just melt? Why was she still afraid of dying! This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Darker thoughts returned to her, frustration and hate at this wretched body she¡¯d been stuck in against her will. Another glance back. The ants were still far away. Even though she knew it wouldn¡¯t work, desperation forced her to try as she moved to the left of the grass blade, attempting to fall off the side. It didn''t work. All she could do was crawl, and her body - sticky like water and too small to have any substantial weight, simply flowed around the edge of the grass, sticking stubbornly to the stem. She was helpless against her own body, it seemed. Aghh!! She screamed and cursed at herself. ¡°You stupid, useless, disgusting piece of snot!¡± She couldn¡¯t walk, she couldn¡¯t jump, she couldn¡¯t even fall without permission in this body! She had to go off the tip, where the small area would allow her body to escape the hold of her own attraction, but¡­! SCHKSCHKSCHKSCHK! A horrid, chitinous sound reverberated through her body. Suddenly, black mandibles stabbed into her and grabbed hold of her crystal eye. This turned her vision, forcing her to look at the jaws of the ant as it clinked onto her. What? Thoughts of denying this flew from her head as she looked back. The ants had the bright idea of crawling on the underside of the leaf! The first had already reached her, and the rest were too close behind. ¡­ A horrifying feeling of calm passed through Cas. It was the feeling of a person accepting their death, and this was her second time experiencing it. The ants moved slower when walking upside down. She had a fraction of a second longer to live. She noted all this with an otherworldly calm. It was as if the creature she¡¯d inhabited was sharing its cold perspective on death. Slimes like her were a dime-a-dozen after all. They were at the bottom of the food chain and everything ate them. Maybe it was ok if she was dead¡­and for a moment, she felt at peace. It wasn''t anything substantial or poetic, but a kind of animal silence. Maybe it was ok¡­ ¡°No!¡± The thought stamped itself over all others, and she abandoned all tactics. Cas let out a wailing screech that sounded like trickling water, and she ran. She ran and tugged and dragged that half-pint ant along with her, and, inching closer¡­ touched the water. Her vision disappeared, and she fell into a dreamless sleep. Awake, she was greeted with the vision of a cranny, surrounded on all sides by dirt. She tried to move, and she did, crawling up. It was the same as before but she felt heavier somehow. Crawling over the edge of the raving, she was back in the light, once again lost in the sea of grass and stone. Cas thought she was able to see further than before, out to two feet, maybe, she discerned as she noticed a pill bug crawling along in the distance. Again, she tried to move, but it was sluggish, as if she was dragging an anchor. Curious she moved her crystal eye all about: left, right, back, forward, up, and¡­ Her body rippled as she came face to face with the desiccated corpse of the ant, suspended inside her own body just below her crystal. Had¡­ had she not died after all? The sight was surreal. She was alive and carrying the body of her would-be killer. It was something she could¡¯ve taken a year to process, were it not completely overshadowed by the screen that hovered in front of her. The screen that somehow knew her name and told her things she never could¡¯ve believed. Entity: CasClassification: AquaMorph Slime Level: 1 XP: 0.00005/10 Abilities: Vital Stats: Recent Changes: Core Attributes: Circle of Life Ant Defeated! XP Gained: +0.00003 Ant Defeated! XP Gained: +0.00005 Ant Defeated! XP Gained: +0.00003 Death. Famine. War. These were three names of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. She¡¯d studied them once, and Cas had decided that the fourth was perhaps the most out of place. For, you see, Conquest had another name: Glory. Ant Defeated! XP Gained: +0.00004 Ant Defeated! XP Gained: +0.00002 Quite an attractive thought, no? Unlike the others, the name seduced the listener into thinking of their own ambition, rather than of the calamity that was sure to follow. Everyone considered their own victory, but few dared to imagine: what did the face of Conquest look like, when civilization crumbled down to its bedrock? Well, after ten thousand years of human ignorance, Cas alone had the answer, now; and she was surprised to discover that it looked like her! ¡°Mwahahahahaha!¡± Lacking a mouth, she had to imagine herself laughing, and man did she imagine herself having an awesome voice as her shadow fell over the colony fortress, and an army crumbled underneath her heel. The ants had nestled their colony into the cranny of a wall, but, oh, how their desperate machinations to save themselves failed against the face of Conquest! ¡°Mercy? You ask?¡± Cas goaded bitterly, slamming herself into the nook and crawling her flattening body into the entrance. ¡°You dare to ask such a thing! Where was mercy when I was under your heel!¡± Like a flood of rage, she squeezed her body into the cranny, cramming into every nook and cranny of the maze-like passageways, turning herself like a tree-branch as the colony forced her to conform to its alien figure. The sheer war that ensued left her feeling dizzy! She couldn¡¯t see where she¡¯d put herself into, but she could feel the sheer mass of ants that flew into her, and which squeezed past the entrance and covered over her like a blanket only to be absorbed, spraying and stinging her with a caustic solution that rolled over her round figure. +50 Ants Defeated! XP Gained: +0.0019 +50 Ants Defeated! XP Gained: +0.0026 +50 Ants Defeated! XP Gained: +0.0011 Immunity Activation: Acid damage negated due to inherent immunity. ¡®That was new.¡¯ Cas turned her crystal to the new pop-up. Thinking for a moment, Cas reflected on the deeper meaning of this¡­ that she could really go at ¡®em with impunity now! "hehe", she thought, failing to form a shit-eating grin on her featureless face. +29 Ants Defeated! XP Gained: +0.0009 Still¡­ she drew back before reaching the brood chambers. It wouldn¡¯t do to damage her future food supply. Sliding out of the colony she, with a dramatic flourish, looked down on the ant-colony with a level of superiority she¡¯d only seen in Godzilla movies before turning and moving away. Granted, the fact that she was shimming along at a literal snails pace did a lot to destroy the drama of the scene, but that hardly stopped her from making a speech.. Turning to them, a malevolent, alien sheen of cruelty lit up her crystal eye. ¡°Fools!¡± she boomed with a powerful, thunderous voice that only existed in her head. ¡°You dared to attack a god, and even now, as you pay the price, you stand ignorant before me!¡± Turning with a flourish, she leaned slightly to gesture at the destroyed mud crumbles that remained of the colony''s entrance. ¡°Take this as a lesson from your new master! Stamp it on the hearts of your descendants and the graves of your compatriots! You have insulted the great goddess Slime! The water empress! And she has spared you a worse fate than you deserve. For this¡­ insolence¡± she hissed the word like it poisoned her to hear, ¡°your precious queen will have to pay a blood sacrifice of five hundred ants every summer! So it has been decreed!¡± Cas cackled with silent glee. Oh, how evil! How monstrous! She could imagine the queen crying in her brood chambers at this very instance as her children were torn away from her to be sacrificed. ¡°Mwahahahahaha!¡± The ants¡­ kept scrambling around and went back to the business of rebuilding their nest. Cas sighed¡­ Life as a slime was really, really boring.
Cas had spent every hour of the past few months formatting her Excel sheet, making it beautiful... worthy. It had no features to do code, but Cas could still organize the data and add color splashes. Not to mention the fact that she could make simple graphs! Level Up! *Level 2 Achieved* New Skill: Partial Hardening. Character Sheet Abilities Vital Stats Core Attributes If Cas could still muster facial expressions, she would¡¯ve cast a suspicious gaze at the status screen blaring in front of her. It was¡­ strange. It was rather plain looking -- more like an excel sheet than anything you¡¯d see in a videogame. In fact, it looked almost exactly like an excel sheet, down to the column markers and sheet tabs. Cas was a biologist at heart, and she was keen to see everything in terms of natural phenomena. So, of course, she found it strange when corporate software popped out of nowhere and told her she had the charisma of a dead fish. Really? Charisma 4? Her? Sending a mental glare at the score, she turned her attention back at the translucent screen, panning her eye across the faint border. It appeared whenever she wanted it, and the information displayed was always consistent, but it was otherwise a mirage. None of the other creatures reacted to it, anyway. Still, the status screen, she decided, was probably real to an extent. It was just information, after all. Probably, there was some part of this world that reacted to creatures differently depending on their ¡®stats¡¯. And ¨C if creatures inhabited a universe that gives them information about themselves ¨C why wouldn¡¯t they evolve the ability to read that interaction somehow? ¡®Know yourself¡¯ and never lose a thousand battles, and all that. Though, why would the status screen look like a combination of a video game and a 2017 excel spreadsheet? And why would it be in English, or even in writing at all? It was vexing, considering how much of the past month she¡¯d spent agonizing over the thought and going nowhere. Maybe it was just presented in a format her mind could comprehend? And, considering she''d spent the the majority of her past life playing videogames and formatting Excel sheets -- it was clear she needed to get new hobbies this time round. There were two other sheets on the status screen. One was labeled ¡®inventory¡¯, the other: ¡®notes¡¯. As expected, the inventory was vast and empty. It made a note whenever she swallowed a rock or anything else that was indigestible, but, otherwise, she¡¯d found no use for it. The notes, on the other hand, were a miniature encyclopedia, and so perfectly formatted it would leave you squealing in amazement! She¡¯d paced across this cave a thousand times, and taken note of everything inside twice over, and oh how she liked to look over her notes. They were so easy to edit, too! She just had to think the words and voila, there they appeared! So much easier than touch typing. The first category was plants. It was the shortest section, considering she never specialized in that field, but she owed a debt of gratitude to all the grass blades that had saved her in her first days here! She considered them all her special friends¡­ Cas sighed, turning a melancholy glare at a nearby shrub. ¡®I really need to get actual friends, Sarah,¡¯ she thought to the plant. Sarah was unhelpful, as always. ... Back to the encyclopedia, the section on plants was a short one. The only thing of note there was that the ¡®grass¡¯ wasn¡¯t actually grass. She may not have been a plant biologist, but she was familiar enough with plant taxonomy to know that grasses had covered seeds and a root system. These grasses were¡­ well, not that at all. They were a mess of features from all over the plant kingdom and more! In fact, none of the plants in this cave were from earth! It was a surprising revelation. At least it confirmed that no ¡®planet of the apes¡¯, ¡®it was earth all along¡¯ shenanigans were about to happen. She hated twists like that! The animals were just as strange. Their forms converged on earth insects, but there were always some small and important details that revealed them to be aliens. The ¡®ants¡¯ had eight legs, the ¡®flies¡¯ didn¡¯t have larvae and hatched as adults, the ¡®beetles¡¯ didn¡¯t have wings and, honestly, she loved it! So many new species! So many new wonderful creatures! And in just such a small cave, too! Honestly, that had been a major part of what kept her sane these past few weeks. She was a slime, a small, insignificant creature that spent its days crawling around a dark cave and staring at a depressing excel sheet. But¡­ in here, in her notes, she was an explorer! She was a researcher. She was a human again, and had a life worth living¡­ Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. And, it honestly moved her when her old friend Marissa hatched a brood. Time flies when you¡¯re tracking the life cycle of an alien bug, and the past month had zipped by as she traced the progression of Marissa¡¯s nest. Sticking to the walls, Cas moved up to crawl along the ceiling of the cave, going to that special, stone outcropping where Marissa had laid out her eggs. There, Cas was happy to discover she''d arrived just in time, observing as - with miniature effort - the little ¡®flies¡¯ kicked their way out of the small, brown eggs and shivered their wings with anticipation. Cas took notes. [Mother died week before hatching. Whether fluke or a design of the species requires more study]. Regardless, the little flies seemed unbothered by the lack of supervision, and ¨C after warming up in the morning sun ¨C one by one, all of them flew away over the course of the hour. Well, all but one. It was a small fly born with deformed wings. Cas had been trained not to put human emotions on animals, but she couldn¡¯t help but see a certain longing in the creatures eyes as it crawled around the edge of the outcropping, looking up at the last of its brethren as they disappeared beyond the limit of its vision. For the next three hours, Cas watched it as the fly crawled around it¡¯s little world, pacing from edge to edge on the stone platform, pausing at the precipice and feeling an instinct to do something it wasn''t capable of. This continued, the fly growing steadily weaker and weaker until, on the third hour, it lay down and stopped moving [Young hatched simultaneously in morning time. Require food within three hours of birth. Little parental care expected.] It was strange how close she¡¯d gotten to these bugs, but¡­ Cas closed her notes, sliding along the ceiling and wall down to the floor. She was tired of seeing bugs for today. And, something about that fly pacing to the edges of its outcrop had inspired her to venture outside the cave. The cave was a barren hole carved into the side of a greystone slab, a damp, dark crack barely large enough to fit a car. Still, it was a haven compared to the outside.
The wind howled deeply underneath the hot, blue sky. Swirls of sand were sent into the air like paints before quickly dispersing. Outside of the cave, the environment quickly became inhospitable for grass, and the soft dirt she¡¯d grown used to turned quickly to sand. Cas flattened herself out a bit to keep from sinking, enjoying the shade the stone cliff provided as she surfed along the miniature sand dunes. ¡°SCREE, SCREE!¡± She wasn¡¯t alone out here, of course. Sharon and Tara were out here as well, and they were at it again. ¡°SCREE!¡± Tara clapped back, rushing against her competitor and executing a devastating body slam with all the force of a pillow fight. Really, she wasn¡¯t sure why they bothered, slimes ¨C as she¡¯d discovered ¨C were far more durable than they were strong. Impossibly durable at times, actually. Slimes were durable, slow, weak, fairly dumb and, out of all things in the cave, they were the topic she spent most of her efforts studying. Cas had always been a keen observer of nature, and she¡¯d picked up a lot in her time. Slimes had no powers beyond the ability to exist, eat, and to change their shape. And, really, that was no understatement. Everything about them revolved around this one trick. They had no limbs, no muscles, no organs, nothing! They were blobs that changed shape and, quite amazingly, they managed to use that trick to do everything! They ate by changing their shape to engulf prey, they moved by changing the shape of their underside in a wave motion, they even communicated by changing the shape of their surface. Scree! Sharon cried in defeat, moving back away from her assailant at a snail''s pace. And, Cas moved a little closer, trying to observe the sharp vibrations that ran across the slime''s surface in time with her call. Sharon was about the size of a soccer-ball, slightly larger than Cas herself. Otherwise, she was quite a plain blob of light-blue jelly. No.. wait. Cas corrected herself, looking closer at the slime as the morning sun-light passed through her. There was a dark band on the edge of her surface, where the light refracted strangely. Tara, catching up to her, slammed herself against Sharon once more and Cas paid attention to the strike like she had money on the fight. Entranced, a strange excitement ran through her at the new discovery, and everything seemed to chug along in slow motion as Tara slammed into Sharon, and the slimes interior jelly compressed, but the exterior band stayed firm. That¡­ reminded her of something. Turning away from the fight, Cas called up her status screen, and pulled up her newest skill. Partial Hardening: Level 1 Gain the ability to partially harden your form. The description, as always, had been unhelpful beyond measure, but ¨C looking at Sharon ¨C Cas had been given some wonderful ideas. Taking control of her eye, she moved the crystal far back against the edge of her form, and focused her vision on a spot inside of her, and there, she -- ¡®clenched her fists¡¯ was perhaps the worst way of describing what she did, but that¡¯s how it felt as she focused on the spot, and observed the slight change in color and refraction that took place inside of her. A small ball of densified jelly appeared inside of her. She relaxed, and it disappeared. Again, she focused, and again it appeared. She looked left, and it moved left, sending tickling sensations throughout her figure. She moved right and it moved right. She tried to harden and soften it and a soft, high pitched, ¡®squee!¡¯ ran through her, the small sound smothered within her gelatinous form. It was a small, quiet, insignificant sound that barely made it outside of her figure and was quickly swallowed up by the immense winds. But¡­ it was the first sound she¡¯d made since she¡¯d gotten here! The first sound she¡¯d controlled that was outside of her own head, and her eye flipped like a coin as she stared at the precious thing inside her that had allowed so many amazing things!
Cas was entranced. She moved the ball in circles, loopty-loops and swirls. She dissolved it, remade it, reshaped it into a thousand different figures of her imagination, and she did so with all the careful attention she¡¯d previously lavished on insects and moss. And she¡¯d learned quite a lot. There was a limited amount of the ¡®hard jelly¡¯ she could make. About a handful inside of her soccer-ball sized figure. It was a lot less than Sharon could muster, but enough to make a lot of noise if she put it up by her surface. The second limitation was that ¡®hardening¡¯ one part of her required softening¡­ everything else. [Note: hardening seems to require gathering up some limited resource. Perhaps trace mineral intake?]. And really, it had gotten quite dangerous. Creating hardened jelly the size of a soft ball transformed the rest of her from Jello to Hand Sanitizer. Honestly, it wasn¡¯t that big of a deal. As long as she only hardened her outer surface, the ¡®armor¡¯ made up for the softness of her insides, and she could keep her shape better than normal, too. Still, the hardened jelly was still¡­ jelly. It barely had the consistency of clay when she focused her heart into it, and, there was something else that had caught her imagination from when she first let out that simple squeak. Cas¡­ had always had trouble speaking her dreams. Maybe she¡¯d been afraid of failure or too content, but, looking back at her previous life more objectively, she¡¯d been far too timid with her expectations. So, it was with that wisdom that Cas ¨C without thinking of the possibility of her idea ¨C simply tried it. She changed her shape, turning into a bag and swallowing a hand-full of air that she kept trapped inside her center. The air-pocket inside quickly rose through her body, trying to escape, and it blurred her vision whenever she tried to look through it, but Cas simply grit and latched onto the opportunity. Squeezing herself around the air pocket, she created a shell of hardened jelly that held it in place. From there, more of the clay-like substance formed a tube, and several, intricate pieces formed themselves. Her floating eye followed the process, watching as she formed the complex vocal chords and floating supports, but ¨C for whatever reason ¨C she proceeded with a confidence that told her she could¡¯ve done this with her eyes closed, as vocal folds formed, the trachea extended, a sharp tongue flopped into existence and licked out against the well formed lips. Really¡­ it was quite a horrifying sight at the end, and the mass of air pockets and complex anatomy she developed inside of herself left her half blind, forcing her eye to peer through a kaleidoscope of complex refraction patterns whenever she wanted to look forward. Still¡­ for some reason, she was certain it would work. She had that familiar feeling as if she¡¯d been naked and had put on her usual clothes once more. As if the familiar memory of her body were guiding the construction. Scree Scree! In the din of the background, she could hear Sharon and Tara screeching. ¡°Heh,¡± she let out a short laugh, imagining they were celebrating her accomplishment. She then paused in shock. She¡¯d actually laughed! She¡¯d actually made that noise! And it even sounded kind of like a human. But¡­ it was a simple sound, did she dare to believe she could speak? She looked at the pocket of air she¡¯d formed inside of her, and she tightened it, ready to do the deed. She was nervous to speak after so long, feeling as if the whole world were waiting. And waiting¡­ And waiting¡­ Scree! Scree! Tara screamed, making way towards the cave entrance. Sharon huffily followed behind her. It wasn¡¯t that Cas lacked confidence or anything of the sort. Put simply¡­ she just couldn¡¯t think of what to say on such a momentous occasion. What would be an appropriate first word for a being such as her? Cas mused. ¡°Let there be light?¡± Hmmm¡­ too humble, maybe. ¡°Call me Cas?¡± Not literary enough. No, no, it had to be something appropriate for a genius like her! Something she could have those ants chisel into stone tablets once they accepted her as their empress. It was possible that Cas had quite a high opinion of herself. Perhaps it was because of this unwavering confidence that Cas completely ignored the scree-ing Slimes as they raced into the cave. Maybe it was this sense of invincibility that allowed Cas to ignore the darting shadow that flew across the sand dunes in a predatory motion. And, it was definitely because of this high opinion, that Cas never revealed that her first words on this world were, with reluctant acceptance: ¡°Ohhhhhhh, I''m an idiot,¡± as the streaking missile of flashing fangs dove down and slammed into her figure. Zanzibat Desert winds whiffed over the sand-dunes like a hair-dryer, and they ran like ice-water over Cas as a chill shivered through her figure. Whether because of her shrill screaming, or her last minute pancake against the ground, or honest to goodness divine intervention, the shadow missed, clipping her top and crashing into the sand behind her with a soft thud. It remained there, still, for two seconds before exploding back up onto four legs with a snarl and puff of sand-powder. It stood there, shaking its head as it staggered a bit. Cas had already dissolved her vocal chords, redirecting those resources elsewhere as she hardened her exterior. Squeals and snarls like a pig exploded over her exterior, as the creature snapped and lunged and circled around her figure. Its frantic, jerky feints kicked up ever more dust and clouded it in a soft haze that obscured everything except its fangs as it snapped and snarled inches away from her. And, throughout all of this, Cas stood frozen, frozen, frozen. She couldn¡¯t move! She realized after two seconds of this. Every thought in her mind was screaming ¡®run¡¯, so why was she still here! Why couldn¡¯t she move? It felt surreal, like a scene straight out of a nightmare. Her own body was transparent to her, except for the blue-tint it shaded the world with, and it truly felt to her like she had no body at the moment, as if she were just some sense of perspective forced to observe this horror. Ragh!Reaaahg! Another snarl and snap as white fangs dug into her, cutting into her armor like daggers into play-dough. Useless! She cursed with a dark undernote. She tried to run, and she felt her underside¡­ It was stiff. Panning her eye down, she saw the cause for her lack of motion. Her underside, normally an undulating wave that crawled her along every surface, had lost it¡¯s flexibility with the addition of an armor. Of course! That was why she couldn¡¯t move. It wasn¡¯t so much a thought as it was an instinct when she removed the hardness from her underside. She just wanted to get away from this thing, and she quickly latched onto the first thing that would give her her agency back! And, just as the fox let go and reared back for another attack, Cas booked it. The fox was a twitching mass of lightning compared to her, however. Noticing her motion, it dashed forward and struck with the precision of a trained action. Before she¡¯d managed to get more than two inches away, it sprang down and dug its nose into the sand beneath her. Digging it against her newly soft underbelly, the fox braced its legs with a practiced motion and reared up tossing its nose back against the sky. Helplessly, Cas saw the world flip. And all the abstract terror and panic of the past few seconds culminated as she stared up through her naked underbelly at the sky, and the dark silhouette and knowing, patient eyes of the fox, her killer, as it sprang its sharp maw forward and dug into her guts with a watery squelch. ¡­ Everything happened all at once, yet Cas could see every minute detail. The whole world was distorted as if every important and deadly detail had been highlighted for her perusal. Through it all, however, all she could pay attention to were those golden eyes. Those, knowing, trickster¡¯s eyes that had gotten the better of her, goading and gloating as if to mock her fearfulness as the fox struck forward and took a chunk and¡­ Kiee! Kiee! Kiee! A sudden, intense relief shivered through her. The fox had already pulled away, squealing and crying and pawing at its own nose. It made pitiful sounds like a squeak toy as it snorted and staggered about it was trying not to fail a sobriety test. Occasionally it stopped and hunched over. Flexing its back and sticking its tongue out in a wretching motion. After two seconds of this spectacle, it quickly turned about and: WHHHAM! A powerful beat of its forelimbs and a large explosion of dust that trailed like a spear after its take off. She saw only a glimpse of its sandy-brown wings as it flapped into the air and shot back over the rock cliff.
Sharon and Tara had been uncharacteristically quiet since the attack, leaving her with no distractions except her own thoughts and the ever-present unease of having almost been killed. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. Cas couldn¡¯t really take a breather, so she distracted herself by reading, looking back over her encyclopedia¡¯s section on slimes. It was a short section, however, and left her with sparse entertainment as she booked back through the paragraphs and chapters for the thirteenth time It had become clear: despite being her primary point of interest, she¡¯d learned basically nothing about slimes. Ugh! Rolling her eye, she closed her window in disgust. She didn¡¯t even know Slimes had predators, and -- considering the latest attack -- that was kind of important information! Why had that thing even attacked her? It knew how to kill slimes. It knew to bait her into moving before going for her underbelly, yet¡­ it somehow didn¡¯t expect her to be so unpalatable. Could it be? Again, she panned up and looked at her absorption skill. Absorption: Level 4 Absorb and store components within yourself. Like all her skill blurbs, it was obvious to the point of tautology, but¡­ it did remind her of something. You see, as a biologist, Cas was often relegated to being a purveyor of animal fun-facts whenever she found herself at a casual party. One of her go-to facts, one that led to a lot of debate and google searches was this: Poison dart frogs¡­ weren¡¯t actually poisonous¡­ technically speaking. You see, they actually cheated by eating poisonous beetles and stealing all their hard work. It was for this reason that pet dart frogs - being fed meal-worms rather than cyanide bugs - were quite benign. Now, maybe that was just a technicality, and maybe the fact wasn¡¯t even that fun in the first place. Even so, Cas did know one thing: she was the only slime in this cave with enough smarts to track the Ants¡¯ to their hidden colony, and she¡¯d been eating a lot of ants lately. With that in mind, she imagined that eating her had felt quite a lot like drinking rubbing alcohol, or piss, or budweiser. In any case, quite a shock for the unsuspecting fox! Hehe! Still, the fact that her status screen didn¡¯t give her this information outright was... a point of interest, to put it politely. ¡­ The fox came back like a shadow at mid-day, a sly figure that slunk like rope as it ventured into the cave. By now, Cas was feeling a lot more brave. Electing to take a look, she shape changed, growing a stalk which peeked over the rock she¡¯d been hiding behind. Floating her eye up into that stalk, she panned her crystal across the cave and focused to get her first good view at the creature. It was a shock in more ways than one. A mixture of fox and bat and bird and reptile, it somehow reflected the appearance of a a dozen different animals while looking nothing at all like any of them. It trundled along on spindly legs with an awkward gait, stepping its knuckles along the stone cavern as if unused to the stable surface, it flashed its gaze around as if seeing through everything. It had bright eyes, and ruddy brown fur and a dark stripe that ran along its back. Despite all that, the strangest thing was how Cas knew exactly what it was. A flush of color went through her body, tensing as her figure hardened in a defensive posture. Because, she recognized it immediately for what it was. It was a Zanzibat from Siablo III. The videogame... ¡®Wut?'' Fox It was funny. The animal looked so normal. It seemed undeserving of the histrionics it inspired in her. It was a small, ruddy thing who¡¯s only distinguishing characteristic was the dark stripe that ran along its spine. Spindly limbs and ape-like shoulders held its body high off the ground. Delicate finger-bones clenched its wing membranes along its wrist like a folded umbrella. Stalking it from across the cave and following its every change and twitch of expression, Cas paid attention to the fox like nothing else. It was in this intense frenzy of attention that she noticed, tracing the furred edges of its black lips, a subtle, dark, dampness that wet the fur. Naturally, it had gone to drink water, to wash out whatever toxic slime had caused it to flee in the first place. But that explanation only filled her mind with an even more wondrous question: Where was the Oasis?
The sheer face of the great rock held no perch. Four hundred feet below, the tower had more character. There, weathered by wind and sand, subtle cracks and chips pock-marked its surface, and occasionally she¡¯d even seen flies and other small insects making their home in such places. She almost felt sorry for them before remembering that she lived in a large crack at the base of this thing, at which point she decided to stop feeling sorry for them and start feeling for herself. Still, the cave was better than her LA apartment in some ways, spacious, remote, and good neighbors, too, considering there¡¯d only been one murder attempt against her. Up at this altitude, the rock was quite clean of sand and life. The harsh winds only grew harsher as they screamed up the sheer surface ¨C blasting against Cas and shaking her body with their force and turbulence, as if trying to push her off to the depths below. Cas looked down at all this with a surprising lack of vertigo. She wasn¡¯t sure if it was because of the strangeness of the sight, or because her biology didn¡¯t fear heights, but either way, she felt quite at home on the cliff face. Five hundred feet below, the desert had an unreal, painterly look. The distance obscured the coarse features, and the sun washed away all details that remained. The world outside was now rendered from three, simple shapes: The base was composed of the desert, stretching out to the horizon, above that was the clear sky. And, in the midst of it all, the black shadow of the mountain ¨C hour by hour ¨C struck across the empty terrain like a magnificent sun-dial. A terrifying gust of wind came, and she instinctively flattened herself against the stone, stretching into a thin carpet barely wide enough to contain her eye. Why go to all this trouble? Well, as she¡¯d planned her search for the oasis, a dim memory recalled itself. You see, on a spherical earth, there was one common rule: ¡°if you want to see far, go high.¡± It was the same concept as having a crows nest on a ship, or having lighthouses erected on towers. Raising yourself up, allowed one to ¡®peek¡¯ over the horizon. Working through some half-remembered calculations - Cas sketched the numbers in the sand outside her cave and figured five hundred feet up would let her out see for¡­ about thirty miles. She knew that mandatory math course had to be good for something. Guessing vaguely the direction of the Oasis by watching the fox¡¯s flight patterns, Cas took a long walk to the other side of the tower, and began her search there. ... It had been a long search indeed. The sundial struck 12, and her trip around the stone moved her onto the sunny-side of the baking rock just in time to greet the noon-day sun. Crawling up vertical surfaces was a simple matter for her. Still, it slowed her crawling speed to¡­ well, a crawl, and she¡¯d barely made any progress in her orbit around the stone when the trouble became obvious. Zero Damage Taken! Maximum HP updated! Cas glanced at the message. It had been mysterious the first time it¡¯d popped up, but repetition and understanding stole even that bit of charm away from it. Zero Damage Taken! Maximum HP updated! Frankly, she didn¡¯t really need the pop up to understand her situation. She could feel her body withering away in the heat. Zero Damage Taken! Maximum HP updated! Zero Damage Taken! Maximum HP updated! Zero Damage Taken! Maximum HP updated! She could have shut off all announcements, but the fear of missing important information kept her vigilant. Zero Damage Taken! Maximum HP updated! Zero Damage Taken! Maximum HP updated! ''Yes, yes! Sun bad, evaporation killls, hydrate, I get it already!'' she yelled at the pop-ups. Zero Damage Taken! Maximum HP updated! Zero Damage Taken! Maximum HP updated! Zero Damage Taken! Maximum HP updated! Zero Damage Taken! Maximum HP updated! Zero Damage Taken! Maximum HP updated! Zero Damage Taken! Maximum HP updated! Cas took a moment to be grateful for the fact that this body allowed her to roll her eye. ¡­ The day came and went, the sun fell behind the horizon, and twilight cast a cool shadow across the earth. No luck regarding the oasis, however. The second day was worse. And by the time the third day came to a close, Cas had shrunk to half her size and a quarter of her remaining hope. There was something about the situation; the continual, rewardless effort, the physical discomfort, the fact that she¡¯d died and lost everything and was now a carpet of paste spread across a wall¡­ it tore away at her earlier excitement. Taking a moment, she looked into the air. A shot of the sky was the opening scene of Siablo III. In the game, it was dark with endless demonic armies, and magic, and monsters. It had been very cinematic, as she recalled. Cas couldn¡¯t help but suppress a shiver, now, as she looked out at the very real and alien sky, pregnant with horrible potential. She felt terror at the very real lack of progress she seemed to be making. She couldn¡¯t stay in her cave doing nothing, just a sitting duck waiting for¡­ That thought was cut short, however. Cas looked back down, and a flash of life blasted her depression away. There it was! Cas bobbed up into a rounder shape, moving her eye up from the surface to get early glimpses, trying to temper her excitement as the island of trees peeked across the curved edge of the mountain. And, for the first time in a long time, she remembered how refreshing a beautiful sight could be.
The shimmering palm fronds were in the center of her memories. Occasionally, she took a moment to reminisce about the sight, but the majority of her attention was spent drinking dew and planning. Cas had developed a habit of thinking out loud in her past life, and she relished the opportunity to partake in that old hobby as she regrew her mouth, and paced about her cave, muttering to herself about the sun. You see, getting to the oasis was a simple problem with a simple solution: Just¡­ walk over there, obviously. Except, here was the problem: Cas couldn''t walk, and crawling ten miles across shifting sand dunes ¨C even assuming she didn¡¯t get lost ¨C would take her... long enough to evaporate twice over. Questions and conundrums.
5 Damage Taken! Maximum HP updated! This was interesting¡­ Cas laughed, surprising herself at how identical she sounded to her human self, down to the involuntary nerd-snort that came at the end of the expression. She didn¡¯t know what inspired her to try it, maybe it was the fact that hardening darkened whatever parts of her it affected, but she¡¯d never expected this level of result. Cas stood in the sun, counting the seconds and reaching a full hour before the next update. 5 Damage Taken! Maximum HP updated! She¡¯d grown¡­ very patient in the midst of her solitary confinement, and waiting through another three hours to get more data was a genuinely exciting thing for her. In the end, she discovered that, when hardened, she took 5 damage in addition to lowering her maximum hp by 5. Not nearly enough to make the trek, but she was glad for the development. Because, all her worried pacing and complex plans were now swept away by a far simpler task: improve hardening and crawl her happy self over there!
The following days and weeks were spent practicing hardening. Her favorite method was to create her voice box, say something rude, dissolve her voice box, and repeat. ¡°Lemon Lime!¡± She shouted, disappearing the complicated chords and resonance chambers, and recreating her anatomy before screaming in her guttural reinterpretation of the cool-aid man: ¡°OH, YEAH!" ... ¡°Laaaa Laaa Laaaaa!¡± ... "Hey, Hey, Hey, Goood Bye!" ... ¡°Ahhh!¡± The fox had made a habit of disappearing from the cave whenever she started these practice sessions.
Eventually, she¡¯d gotten so practiced at creating a voice box that she could do it without thinking. This came with a new skill: Skill Learned: Create Voice Box As well as several updates. Hardening XP Cap Reached Level 2 -> 3 Shape Change XP Cap Reached Level 2 -> 3 The updates lacked information, as always. The things she could do with her body, as well as the things she just felt she could do were more than enough to make up for the deficiency of the text. For instance¡­stilts! Eight, small baubles of hardened jelly protruded from her underside. With much practice and focused effort, Cas looked down at her hardened belly and¡­ flexed it in the middle like she was trying to do the worm. To her immense surprise, the shape change worked, and the rear set of stilts dragged forward and hooked into the ground. Another intention, and her belly unfurled, springing her front stilts forward. She paused in shock at the movement, trying to take it all in, trying to appreciate the magnificence of her achievement. ... ¡°Wheee!¡± she yelled out as she raced across the stone floor on her clattering peg-legs, running around in circles, and battering the sleeping fox with the doppler effect whirrs of her unending siren call. At least, she did so until the air pocket inside of her emptied. At which point, she took another deep breath and started the whole process all over again. The fox, once again, took it¡¯s leave. Cas was too happy to notice. She could walk! Well, not walk, exactly, she was still technically crawling. But now, she was crawling like a caterpillar, rather than a slug!
¡°This is bigger than the moon landing! Don¡¯t you see?¡± Cas spoke to the slime, trying to convince it of the importance of her achievement. Towering over it on her stilts, she felt like a motivational speaker on a high stage, trying to convert the slime to the new way of walking. Sharon, much like Tara, seemed far more interested in suckling on the moss. Cas continued practicing her hardening, but her skills made the practice Rote. This left her with enough free time and mental energy to dedicate to her only remaining hobby: studying slimes. She¡¯d made studying the creatures a priority after learning that she was in Siablo. And, staring at the notes her encyclopedia, she¡¯d figured out¡­ that she knew absolutely nothing. Plato said that was the root of wisdom, right? Praise from a philosopher was a sad consolation prize, however, and Cas dove back into her notes and observations.
As with all creatures, the first thing Cas studied was their life cycle. That was where she was stuck. Other than Sharon and Tara, there were around fifty other slimes in the cave. The largest of them were no bigger than a small marble, and they generally spent their days hiding in the various nooks and traversing the small tunnels that dotted the cave. It was quite a gulf in size between the small slimes and Tara, who was about the size of a beach-ball. Generally, whenever there were a lot of large creatures, and a lot of small creatures, but no medium sized creatures in a population, it implied massive amounts of cannibalism. That theory was largely unconfirmed, excepting that one time Cas accidentally ate a small slime, thinking it had been a water droplet¡­ Still, Cas generally kept her distance from Sharon and Tara, not looking to to partake in their usual spats. However, her new kicks and super-speed made her far more comfortable with approaching closer. Grunts and warbles filled the cave with threats, and Sharon and tara, hardening their shells, once again conducted their usual sumo matches. Closer now than she¡¯d ever been, peering an eye stalk inches away from their point of contact, Cas was now certain: ¡®Yep,¡¯ she thought, ¡®they definitely weren¡¯t having sex.¡¯ No material was exchanged, no spores, no eggs, not even a hint of a slime trail or anything that could split off into a slime. Microscopic larvae were a possibility, but Cas woke up as a droplet sized thing. Besides, the new slimes always seemed to spawn from tunnels and ceiling crannies that neither Sharon nor Tara had ever reached. Cas had even tried to do some mitosis. Using shape change, she stalked out a small ball of herself and allowed it to drop away from her, watching to see if it might grow into a new creature like a discarded starfish. Needless to say, this method of reproduction was about as unsuccessful as her attempts during college. Leaving frustrated, Cas went back to the repetitive hum of practicing her hardening. It bothered her how little she¡¯d been able to discover. There were always about fifty slimes in the cave, and Sharon and Tara never intentionally ate them. The ants, it seemed, always took care to cull the ones that grew to any substantial size. This didn¡¯t make any sense because - by her calculation - around forty pounds of new slimes were being generated every month, and Sharon and Tara together weighed around eighty all together. In short, Sharon and Tara didn¡¯t lay eggs, didn¡¯t release spores, and they couldn¡¯t have been splitting off into clones because there was more new mass of slimes being generated in this cave than they had put together! In fact, nothing made sense for the amount of new slimes that were coming into the cave. Slimes were mostly water, and no amount of dew could explain the sheer number of them that came into existence every morning¡­ so, unless they were generating matter from nothing, where did these new slimes even get the water to begin existing?
The problem with having nothing to do was that you could never really take a break. Boredom assaulted her, and Cas could do nothing but be bored as she practiced her hardening. She¡¯d started paying more attention to the process of creating her vocal chords. It was her theory that intentional practice would lead to faster level-ups. She dissolved her vocal chords without a clever line, however, having run out of things to say weeks ago. Hardening XP Cap Reached Level 3 -> 3 Shape Change XP Cap Reached Level 5 -> 6 Cas scowled at the update. Habitually, she opened the Hardening page on her sheet. It wasn''t that she was expecting to see anything new, but she just felt a need to witness the sheer stupidity of the message once again. Glancing her eye up, she read over the familiar letters. Hardening: Level 3 XP: 80,000 XP to next level: 5,000 Cas, on the next round of recreating her vocal chords, decided to use them. ¡°Ok, honey,¡± she said, speaking to the character screen with a note of condescension it didn¡¯t deserve. ¡°You see, I need to be getting to that Oasis sometime this year, so ¨C if it wouldn¡¯t be too much trouble ¨C could you please explain how 80,000 XP isn¡¯t enough to reach the next level, when the level cap is five!?¡± The screen flickered plaintively, but no explanation was forthcoming. Cas was beginning to grow very frustrated.
Cas remembered something from her childhood. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. On her street, two houses down, there¡¯d been an old lady everyone in the neighborhood called Grandma. Whenever she was asked, she claimed to be eighty years old, even if she looked a hundred-and-one. Cas, ever the precocious child, had once asked the woman why she always sat out on the porch, instead of heading inside and watching TV, or something. Grandma only laughed and told her. ¡°Well, real life is more interesting, honey.¡± ¡°Really?¡± Cas cocked her head, looking up at the woman in disbelief. ¡°Oh, yes,¡± the woman answered, taking on an effortlessly wisened posture. ¡°You wouldn¡¯t notice it because you go to school during all the fun hours, but the world is a wonderful, magical place, and all the most interesting things in the world happen right here,¡± she gestured to the strip of asphalt that ran in front of her house. ¡°Like what?¡± Cas asked, skeptical but curious. ¡°Well,¡± Grandma took a long drag from her cigarette, ¡°Samantha¡¯s crack-head son got his ass beat yesterday¡­ about time, I¡¯d say¡­ ¡°Don¡¯t tell Samantha I told you that, though.¡± Grandma smiled, and gave her a cookie. ¡­ Cas recalled those words fondly, as that crack-head Zanzibat tore away at Sharon. The slime was calm under the assault, sitting stilly as the Zanzibat chipped away at it¡¯s armor. Whatever tear or small dent the Zanzibat managed to make in the hardened exterior quickly regenerated, but the fox was sly, and carefully threw aside any strip of the clay-like substance it managed to gather in it¡¯s mouth. Eventually, a small pile of hardened slime sat next to the attacking fox, and Sharon seemed unable to maintain the thickness of it¡¯s amor as it lost more and more material. The exterior shell became eroded over the onslaught, until it was a simple thin film spread across a jelly interior. Seeing this, the fox reared back and dove forward into the grizzly scene that followed. If Cas had eye-lids, they would have been wide open as the fox dove its head into the slime and thrashed. Leaning back, the fox swallowed whatever chunks of jelly it managed to gather like a pelican, throwing itself back in and gulping down it¡¯s new meal in a series of messy bites and desperate gulps that left behind a thin stain more than a creature. It all happened in a few seconds, and the fox, muzzle dripping with slime, walked away from the mess with a most dignified manner. Tara, hidden in the far corner, seemed unperturbed by the scene as she continued gathering her moss. Cas, on the other hand, felt a pang of loss hit her as she approached the scene. The fox hadn¡¯t even eaten all of her! A large mass of slime remained next to the discarded slivers of armor. In the middle of it, the crystal eye was broken into three pieces, mixed into the soup of gelatin that mixed itself around in swirls¡­ Wait, what? Cas did a double-take as the slime remnants moved, and every remaining part seemed to move independently. The scattered remnants -- resurrecting themselves -- moved together like some disjointed army and reconstructed into a mini Sharon that sat looking like a princess. Cas documented the following process incessantly. Sharon, looking cute as a button at half her size, went on to work with little delay. Moving to the discarded armor pile, she reconstituted the hard bits of herself and regained her armor. Her broken eye-shards dissolved, and it was a fascinating process over the next few hours as a clean, crystal plate grew into existence like rock-candy. And, of course, the very next order of business was immediate, as she ran over and began tackling Tara, who now quickly bodied her. Sharon nevertheless seemed impertinently aggressive about taking on her old rival.
The next few weeks were a flash of inspiration and diagrams as Cas worked in a frenzy to document every thought and discovery. This was a familiar feeling, but also a new one for this body, as excitement left her shaking with anticipation to get the next sentence out onto her encyclopedia. Ok¡­ so, it was a food chain, and quite a simple one at that. As far as Cas had gathered, it went something like this: 1. Slimes came out of nowhere and fed the ants and watered the moss. 2. The moss and slimes fed the ants and other insects. 3. And the moss and ants, in turn, fed Sharon and Tara. 4. The fox, currently the apex predator, trimmed Sharon and Tara down to size once every four weeks or so. It was a weird and ouroboric ecosystem, with slimes feeding themselves, but it only strengthened her suspicion that the new slimes were coming from elsewhere. It didn¡¯t make sense that slimes would be able to make enough energy to feed themselves with their offspring. In the afterglow of having figured it out, Cas¡¯s mood was squashed as a pop-up came to inform her. Hardening XP Cap Reached Level 3 -> 3
Weeks turned to months, the plants withered and retracted their flowers, and Cas guessed that fall had come upon them. The cave was quieter than usual. The fox had made fewer and fewer visits as summer came to a close, and eventually it had stopped returning entirely. Beyond that, the eco-system in the cave was quite static. Fewer new slimes came, but still enough to keep everything chugging along. Going outside, the sun was still¡­ hot as hell. Hardening was still at level three, and any experiments with moving through the sand were even more hopeless than her worst imaginings. The first, caterpillar step onto the dune taught her many hard lessons. She wasn¡¯t sinking, but the sand seemed to crawl up her stilts and her body, burying her if she stayed in place for too long. Constant motion was required, and every third step seemed to trap her in the baking, burning substance of the desert. Five Damage Taken! Maximum HP updated! Eight Damage Taken! Maximum HP updated! Two Damage Taken! Maximum HP updated! The declarations came in rapid succession, along with the waves of searing heat the sand sizzled into her.
Cursing, Cas limped back to her cave, and spent the next few months sucking on dew. She¡¯d grown a lot larger by the time Winter came. Moving over on stilts the size of chair-legs, Cas felt the cave thudding with every step as she raced over and cornered Tara against a cave wall. She had no mirrors to use in this world, but Sharon and Tara¡¯s watery bodies, in the right light, made for a fine enough tools of self reflection. Looking into the distorted image in Tara¡¯s surface, Cas couldn¡¯t help but feel like she was cornering the class nerd for homework answers¡­ so this was how that felt¡­ There wasn''t much of interest in the reflection. Turning away from the cowering slime, Cas went back to her perch. The past few months -- what she called her ''Arnold'' era -- had been dedicated to getting big, and she¡¯d managed that quite well. Moving on stilts, it had been child''s play to collect the majority of the morning dew and moss growths before Sharon and Tara had a chance. What hadn¡¯t been child''s play, was maintaining her sanity as she watched her hardness levels continue to plateau. Once again, Cas stared at the infuriatingly familiar tab. Entity: Cas Classification: AquaMorph Slime Level: 4 XP: 220/400 Abilities: Skills Create Voicebox Create Stilts Vital Stats: Core Attributes: Cas had spent the past year grinding hardening, and it was still at level three! And you know the funniest part? Her armor had decreased to 4, and Charisma increased to 8! ¡°What!¡± She shouted at the incorporeal thing. At her new size, her voice boomed, and a flurry of insects rose up into flight across the cave. Getting larger had gotten her nowhere! She was slower, completely unable to traverse the sand, lost her ability to climb walls, and she couldn¡¯t even make good armor anymore! She even felt unhealthy... if such a word could be used to describe her. She felt like she was drowning in her own body. And, worst of all¡­ they knew! Cas looked over at Sharon and Tara, who ¨C now that she paid attention to it ¨C were careful to control their water intake, and seemed reluctant to grow too quickly. Outsmarted by slimes, just great.
Spring was in full view, now, and the air was hazy with a myriad of flies and pollen particles. The variety was interesting, but she was most curious about an insect that looked like a flying, pearl necklace. Grey in color, often eight to ten links long, it swam through the air like a darting snake, its large head leading the smaller links of its body. It was perpetually in the air, never landing, and never staying in the cave for longer than a minute after hatching, but Cas was enchanted with it. The other, more ¡®normal¡¯ insects, she ignored like everything else. The daisy-chain fly was weird enough to briefly capture her interest, but the other thousand creatures of the cave might as well have been backdrop. They flew too fast, left too soon and died too early for her to give a damn. Speaking frankly, the novelty of studying insects had worn off long ago. She¡¯d been content before she discovered the Oasis, but the dashed hope of ever getting there made everything taste like chalk. Cas was no longer even bored. She ate out of habit, studied out of habit, and moved like a corpse through every situation. Honestly, she wasn¡¯t even sure why she¡¯d decided to grow large in the first place? What was she even thinking! She couldn¡¯t make it two miles in the desert without dying! What was growing a little larger supposed to accomplish? Prolong her life for another hour? Berating herself felt strangely comforting at times, but now it left her feeling sick as a too-honest answer came to mind: Why had she done this? She just wanted something to do, Cas supposed. Cas... felt a chill run through her, as she thought of what the rest of her life in this cave might look like.
The first year passed without fanfare, and a full year could tell you a lot about any system. The moss-grasses had each grown a new bulb. Like tree rings, each blade sprouted a new, cup-like projection that seemed to collect water and produce pollen¡­ maybe. The best part: when cut off, the grass would regrow with it¡¯s original number of bulbs intact! This told her a lot of things, the most important of which was that this was a young eco-system. Cas had guessed as much from the lack of rooted plants, but she was surprised to discover that the oldest plant in here was only five years old! Strange, but Cas couldn¡¯t muster up any excitement over the discovery as she noted it down. She¡¯d shrunk a little from passive water loss, but still dwarfed Tara, who was now the larger of the two other slimes. HrahRRRR! A dangerous snarl, turned her eye. There, hackles raised and snout peeled back, was the fox! It seemed like a stranger after so long, but ¨C she guessed that it thought the same about her. Cas was hardly recognizable with her new size, after all. Cas reared back, observing the fox more closely. It seemed excited to see such a large, sparsely armored buffet, and hardly took a moment to pause before darting in and having a bite¡­ and the immediately recoiling. Kiey! Kiey! Kiey! It squealed with a pitiful sound, retching back with a reared and shaking head before darting out of the cave mouth, a desperate flap of its wings taking it to the skies
Cas was a monster. In her short tenure in this cave, she¡¯d destroyed ant civilization multiple times, eaten babies and poisoned the local wild-life. Worst of all, she still had a good opinion of herself! Cas chuckled to hersellf in the late night, remembering the almost hurt and dour expression the fox returned to the cave with after washing out its mouth. ¡°Hehehe!¡± she chuckled to herself, ruminating over the event. The fox¡¯s eager attack, it¡¯s retreat, it¡¯s whelps, and even the continual gagging as it stretched out its swollen and pock-marked tongue. Cas had always disdained gossip in her past life, but now she thought she understood all those bored housewives, because this fox attack was the most interesting thing to happen to her in a year, and she wasn¡¯t about to let it¡¯s objective pointlessness stop her from constantly thinking about it! And then, she thought of something clever. ¡­ Something Cas hadn¡¯t appreciated. If this world was a videogame, having an eye embedded inside your own body was a cheat code for introspection. And her body... was quite an amazing sight once she paid close attention to it. For the longest time, she''d ignored it, treating it like an invisible lens. Paying a little attention, however, showed that this body was a mechanism of the most amazing processes. And it was quite an amazing process she was witnessing, now. She¡­ hardened, and compressed and squeezed herself into a medium sized ball in the center of her giant body. Her eye looked about in the midst of this, watching as glitters and glimmers of minerals and oily-slick streams of nutrients converged to her center. This process was more thorough than usual and, as hours passed, her outer layers -- deprived of everything but their water -- broke, splashing onto the ground in a loud mess. And, eventually, she stood in the midst of this puddling water and repeated the process, cutting her size in half again, and again twice more. ¡­ It was in the midst of this that Cas remembered Grandma¡¯s words of advice to her when she went off to college: ¡°Cas, you¡¯re a bright girl, a nice girl, and I wish you all the best, but you¡¯re absolutely insane and you need to stop thinking so much before you burn down another shed.¡± Cas had laughed at the advice. To this day, she never once considered that Grandma might have been serious in her admonition. The fox, as it woke up and saw the slime standing inches from it''s snout, might have been inclined to to agree with Grandma, as the slime warbled out a tiny war-cry and leapt into its mouth.
Cas jumped into the cavern of teeth with reckless abandon, though she was quick to slide out and stick to the creatures chin once she¡¯d coated its tongue in that toxic substance. Her smaller size seemed to have concentrated whatever toxins the fox found so disagreeable. Cas gathered this by it¡¯s greater than usual vigor as it howled and darted out. Stuck onto the creature¡¯s chin, Cas looked out with genuine joy as the desperate fox spread its wings and rose like a kite, whisked up by the screaming winds that ran up the sides of the plateau. The flight was a long one, maybe twenty minutes filled with the fox retching and coughing and drooling all over her¡­ honestly not the worst air-line experience she¡¯d had. They were also a magical twenty minutes, though. She watched the Oasis in full view in the distance, getting closer as the fox ate up the miles and desert dunes beneath its wings. Miles high, with nothing but the whistling air passing by, it was a long, contemplative moment Cas wasn¡¯t certain she could have enjoyed in her past life. A year of loneliness in a cave had left her with a far greater ability for appreciation. Nearing the end of the trip, as the fox banked and began it¡¯s hurried descent. It was at this moment, feeling the jolt of freefall, that Cas realized she hadn¡¯t thought this through entirely. How was she going to get back, for instance? What if there were predators at the oasis? Where was she even going to go from there? Wasn¡¯t the Oasis just another trap? At least the cave had a roof! These thoughts rushed by without much care. Cas was committed to this now, and honestly¡­ she felt happy instead of worried at those premonitions of danger. She felt as if she¡¯d died in that cave, and this was the start of her resurrection. The fox, desperation tinging its burning throat and pained howls never ceasing, dove straight for the center of a pitiful lake that formed the center of the Oasis. Cas, not eager to find out what dunking her body in water would do, hardened the parts of her that stuck to the fox. The hardened bits being far less sticky, she was quickly peeled away from the fox fur, and the rushing wind whispered in her ears as she fell towards the oncoming Oasis.. Cas didn¡¯t fear great heights. She¡¯d fallen from the mountain many times before, and her small, hardened body easily absorbed the small shocks as she bounced on the sand, bounded onto grass, and bumped softly into the base of a tree. And, watching her with wide, amazed, eyes, was a small girl with tufted fox ears swinging atop her head like semaphore flags.
Cas had never been so desperate for social interaction. Elated was an understatement for the emotion Cas was feeling. To think she¡¯d meet a Nemorian girl so soon! They were her favorite playable race! An actual fox girl! All the paranoid thoughts she should have had, all the observations she should have made, all of those meant nothing as she paced forward toward the girl and reached out a short stalk. Tears were not forthcoming, but the desperate feeling she had was all the same. She wanted to scream, she wanted to whoop with joy, but all she did was approach and reach out a stalk. Afraid to scare the girl away, desperate for some confirmation that she was real, Cas stopped two feet from the girl, looking up at her with a glinting, crystal eye. The girl stood still, looking dumbly down at Cas with a slack-jawed expression. ¡°Nemora! Sama sama Kari te so!¡± An adult voice called from the distance. The girl turned back. ¡°Shoho!¡± she yelled back, whipping immediately back to Cas, as if afraid to lose sight of her. he girl knelt down and called softly out to Cas, "Mari!" reaching a hand out. Cas approached. In the distance, a chant started: ¡°Shaaaaah, KaKa KaKa So Re Do! Shaaaah, KaKa KaKa Darine-to!¡± It was the sound of several men chanting in time with a drum, but Cas didn''t see it as anything more than an abstract in the background. The girl Infront of her was real and, as she approached, Cas reached out a stalk to gently caress her hand. The girl giggled softly as she felt the stalk touch her finger tips. The giggle turning into a sweet laugh as she reached out to pat the top of Cas¡¯s dome. Soon, the laughing stopped, however. ¡°Shaaaaaaah! Kaka KaKa Soredo!¡± The girl peeled her hand back, her arm shaking. She looked down at her appendage, which was quickly swelling with small lumps. ¡°Shaaaaaaah! Kaka KaKa Dari-¡± ¡°Ahhhhh!¡± The girl screamed like a whistle. Crying, she scrambled back from the slime, clutching her hand with tear stained eyes. The music stopped abruptly, and seconds later four men leapt into the clearing looking about with intense expressions and bladed weapons. A short silence followed as an older man with a grey beard approached the girl, looking down at her with concern. ¡°Kari! Noguho da?¡± he spoke with sharp concern. The girl, too focused on her pain to reply, glanced up for the slightest instance at Cas. Immediately, all present followed her look and there were now five sets eyes staring down at her. Cas was an empathetic person. She found it easy to put herself in the shoes of others. And, she¡¯d put herself in a lot of other people¡¯s shoes over the course of her life. She¡¯d empathized with her mother, despite her failings. She understood the mind of a naive, trust-fund brat and turned her annoying roommate into her best friend. She¡¯d even learned empathy for those bored housewives who did nothing but gossip all day. However, in all her life, and death, and dreams, never for a moment had Cas believed she¡¯d one day learn to empathize with Samantha¡¯s crack-head son. Why is that? There were moments Cas liked to call ''awkward''. Cas was very familiar with them, having been an awkward person. She''d also made a study of those moments, because she was an awkward person. These were the moments when you tried to walk past someone on the road, but kept going the same way. These were the few seconds when you accidentally made eye-contact with the other person in the other room. And, of these moments, Cas found -- through scientific inquiry and linear regression -- that the mathematically most awkward possible moment was when you bumped into someone else''s kid. You know, those awkward few seconds when you''re torn between apologizing to the child and parent at the same time, all while holding in your laughter at the clumsy child that couldn''t take a hip-check without tripping over their Sketchers. Yeah... and this level of awkwardness went up by a factor of a thousand whenever the opposing family didn''t speak English. The worst part, though? It was the fact that the adults laughed. The grey bearded gentleman let out an obvious chuckle, kneeling down beside the girl and trying to get her to join in as he took her wrist and blew on her hand soothingly. "Mano, mano," he consoled her gently, breifly glancing up at another man to sternly say: "Noredo no." The other man nodded and shifted his axe blade in his hand. Cas, of course, didn''t speak the language -- but she sensed that the men didn''t seem to take the actions of a slime personally... much like people on earth didn''t have personal grudges against wasps nests before drowning them in gasoline. Cas backed away with rapid stilts, but the man easily closed the distance in two strides, taking up the axe in two hands. Cas backed herself up against the base of the tree, looking at the matte blade held high above her. Something about the routine posture he took, as well as the look in his eye told Cas the people here had experience taking care of slimes. Running was no option, and her hardening was level three... so Cas scrambled and did something desperate. Splitting apart in the center, she caught a sphere of air and vocalized: "Mano, mano!" she shouted, clear across the clearing. "Noredo-no!" The man stoppled like Cas had just hit the pause button. Everyone else in the clearing, too, stared at her.
Cas -- one who normally shunned socialization and all things extraverted -- was now dancing like her life depended on it. "Shaaaaaaah! Kaka KaKa Soredo" A jumble of amazed ooh''s and excited jeers washed over from the crowd whenever she repeated the simplest phrases. Cas almost found it condescending, in a way. ¡°Shere dama koro!" a man shouted up from the suggestion box, repeating with his hand in amplifier position, "Shere dama koro!¡± The phrase drew a row of laughter from everyone, apparently at the expense of a man in a brown cloak, who was left out of the laughter by his own embarrassed and annoyed expression. Not keen to make enemies on her first day, Cas took this opportunity to stop her parrot act and try to establish some communication. Having picked up some basic grammar rules and what she believed to be a name, she struck out a stalk and pointed at the girl with the bandaged hand -- who so far had been as taken as anyone else with Cas''s show, quick to forget her injury. Her excited expression was washed away in a blanket of confusion as he Slime addressed her: "Kari!" the slime said what she believed to be the girl''s name, adding on -- very intentionally -- "My name is Cas! Casss!" she repeated, pointing the stalk at herself. "Kari!" she pointed back at the girl. "Cas," she added softly rounding the limb back onto herself. "I''m sorry to bother you all, and I''m sorry, Kari for burning you earlier, but I''m actually a person just like all of you, and I''d be happy to entertain you all later, but I''d been hoping that we could establish some channel of communication!" Cas knew there was no way in hell anyone was understanding her, but understanding wasn''t the point of her lecture. She just wanted to establish the rhythym of language in her words. She couldn''t communicate much of note to them at the moment, but she could at least let them know she knew how to talk. The crowd fell silent at this, cocked brows and curious looks everywhere for a long moment before a voice shouted: "Shere dama koro!" And another bout of laughter took over the crowd. The group in attendance consisted of about fifty people, entire families assembled in what was objectively a small group but a gathering which Cas guessed to be the entire population of the small town. It was a town so small that she could see down the road to the very edge of it, and it was at this end of the road that she saw an old woman with a crooked back pacing at the edge of the street. The woman had been notable for her age, as well as the fact that she was apparently the only person in the entire village who elected to skip Cas''s fanfare. It was when Cas started speaking English that the woman stopped in her tracks, whipping her head about to stare at her with an intensity that burned. Cas felt the pressure of those old eyes from a hundred feet off, and the atmosphere only grew heavier as the woman approached on stocky steps. "Uhm.." Cas stuttered, hardly paying attention to new requests and half heartedly repeated whatever final phrases she''d managed to remember. The crowd booed, but their dissapointment was short-lived as the woman approached and a chill note took over the atmosphere. The villagers almost immediately took on a respectful posture, parting for the woman and doing everything possible to avoid engaging with the woman. Old eyes and a displeased look were the trademark of the new figure, as grey fox ears stuck atop her head like whitling plants. "Semaro!" the woman called out in a postured voice. The old man with the grey beard was the one to answer: "Sorena!" taking a courteous bow. Raising her walking stick to the air, the woman spoke to the man without taking her eyes off Cas: "Narik sahira, soreti korima ven nemo seru." You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. The woman''s voice was authoritative, and the villagers immediately began to disperse at the proclamation. The man, with a weary look in his eye, only nodded in affirmation as he took the bucket and carefully approached towards Cas'' pedestal.
"The bucket," was what Cas called the improvised hemp bag they stuffed over her face whenever they decided to transport her. Strangely enough, Cas didn''t feel at all claustrophobic in the space, feeling almost sorry when she was dumped out onto a padded carpet. Morning became noon quickly in the spring, and already the sun was glowing through tent walls and illuminating the space with an even light. The interior was dense with artifacts. Twelve layers of carpeting covered every inch of the floor, and shelves of baubles, clay jars and various dried herbs. Along the tent walls and supporting poles, various subjects of embroidery with intricate geometric patterns hung. Looking at such designs, Cas had never noticed her lack of color vision so much. Her slime''s eye was good enough to see by, but it had no sense of color at all. Everything looked black and white. Of course, Cas had been too busy surviving off ants to really care when she''d first woken up, and by the time she had the free time to complain -- she''d surprisingly gotten used to it. Color hardly came up as a point of survival for a slime that could subsist on moss and bugs. However, it was in this place designed with intention, and decoration, and aesthetics in mind that Cas felt her deficiency hit the hardest. Everything looked jumbled and hard to distinguish, and the powerful fragrance of dried spices and dense herbs only told her stories of how much she must''ve been missing. She had no time to reminisce about her memories of color, however. The woman said something harsh to a figure behind her, and suddenly a pair of women''s sandals stepped next to her, and Cas saw the bucket floating above her just a moment before the waterfall drenched over her. Strange enough though, Cas didn''t get wet, rather she grew, the water disappearing into her body -- most of it -- as she ballooned up like one of those sponge dinosaurs. Size Upgrade: Small -> Medium! Max HP Updated Internally, Cas felt the eight-bit chime that hit whenever Mario ate the mushroom. The brief moment of levity was threatened as the old woman approached closer and sat cross legged in front of her. She carried a woven satchel on her waist, setting it down to her side and letting it fall apart to reveal... another slime. Curious, Cas thought, noticing that the other slime -- a bit larger than her, and filled with some sparkling essence -- looked, different. More curious was the old lady, as she leant down, stuck a reed straw into the top of the creature, and slurped. Her cheeks bulged with the weight of the slime material, and she leant back up, swallowing. Eyes glaring with an intense glow, she raised her hand. The air became laden with static and ozone. Cas felt her metaphorical hackles raise. It was as if every inch of space, every molecule of air had suddenly become overloaded with energy, a calamitous potential that was teetering, balanced, on the edge of a magic pin. The old woman, caressing strings of brilliant light at her fingertips, lowered her hand and that energy came crashing down with it. GABOM! It was a soft explosion. The suddenness of it jolted Cas''s interior, more surprising than painful. The woman, unperturbed, spoke: "Kara, soreti, naga koru da or nemu fira dama kari paro sere?" Cas jumped back from her character screen as it popped up with a new tab that had no label, but which presented words in Sans-Serif: "So, monster, do you truly speak or have I been beguiled by an idiot parrot?" Cas, taking a moment to discard the thousand questions, and noticing the hint of impatience on the womans'' features, replied carefully: "I can speak." At that, the woman spoke. Her reply came too immediately to be a response, sounding more like a rehearsed statement. In her native language, the woman''s words took on a metered, poetic rhythm, as she closed her eyes and chanted with a loud voice. Such appreciation was beyond Cas, however, who''s attention was glued to the far more prosaic translation that scrolled past her screen. "Goddess of wisdom, Guide our words, Let truth be spoken, Bring peace to all." Cas braced herself at the heavy words, and was almost disappointed at the absence of magical energy that followed. Instead, the woman simply took a deep breath, and opened her fluttering eyes, looking down at the slime and answering as if nothing had transpired. "Oh?" the woman''s eyes widened in appreciation, "and where might a creature like you learn to speak?" "I come from another world," Cas answered briefly. "There, I learned the language. May I ask: are you the Nemorian people" "Another world?" The woman hummed, tapping her reed on the lip of a clay bowl, clearing it of slime material. She paused when she heard the word ''Nemorian'', twisting an even more suspicious squint at the slime. "You should improve your lies, monster," a harsh, chiding note in her voice, "only the outsiders have ever called us that Name... quite a strange term for an otherworlder to pick up in this desert, wouldn''t you agree? Or do you mean to tell me you''ve somehow crossed the great expanse?" Despite herself, Cas felt panicked at the accusation. There was something intense about this interrogation that left her choice of words feeling critical. "I apologize for the confusion," Cas answered stoically, taking a moment to refill her air-sac, buying a few seconds to think. "I was curious about the extent of my knowledge as well. You see, on my world, we have stories of this land, even though no one has ever seen or heard of this place. I was merely asking in order to determine whether those tales were true. It''s quite strange find yourself in a land only heard of in stories, you must agree." The elder woman replied dismissively: "The worlds cast shadows upon one another as they traverse the planes... sometimes those shadows are reflected in people''s dreams and imaginations. Many of my prophecies are quite uselessly meant for other worlds," the woman lightened, taking a more conversational tone. Dipping the reed into a water bowl, she swirled it about. Cas obliged her friendliness. "I''m aware of the mechanics of worlds and shadows," Cas lied. For some reason, she felt desperately that she shouldn''t show any incompetence. "However, those stories are mixed in with falsehoods. I''m making it a priority of mine to learn as much about this new world as possible." The woman laughed. "Oh, you needn''t worry about gathering more knowledge." Cas perked. "Why is that?" The woman, drying the reed with a cloth, paid more attention to her task than to her answer: "because you''ll be killed, of course." Lord of the Rings Cas had never taken to shyness, and she''d been even less inclined to mince words. She''d been the type to correct a bad order at a restaurant, tell her friends they were full of shit and express herself quite loudly when things didn''t go her way. Paradoxically, Cas reacted most intensely to the things she cared about the least. When things became serious, her first instinct was to grow cold, and she''d never felt so numb as she did now. "Why should I be killed?" Cas surprised herself with the composure of her words, and the woman joined in to surprise her with the answer. "Because you''re a monster," she answered with an obvious chuckle. "Don''t tell me you expected to find yourself amongst friends here." Engaged with packing away her slime and other accoutrements, the woman had already lost most of her interest in the slime, addressing the veiled girl that stood on the far-side of the tent. "Help me up would you! And get that fool chief over here! Let him know my business with this thing is done!" The girl ran over and took the old woman by the arm, lifting her up. Cas saw the routine posture the woman took, and the lack of care the girl had to even look in her direction, and that icy, tundric, feeling that froze her in place only grew colder, and pressed harder for her to stay still as a thousand roiling emotions built up inside her, ready to explode. They... they were really just going to kill her. Of course they were... What hurt more than the death sentence was perhaps her own sense of self importance. Cas had gone through so much. She''d died, lived, escaped, and the rocking realization that the rest of the world didn''t even bother to spare a glance in her direction before wiping her out... hurt. Again, that fire in her belly, that explosive, compressed energy flared. It wanted to burst out and ask for this lady''s manager, heck, it wanted to email the vice-president of this entire world! It was unfair! But Cas had been slapped too many times for making a grocery-store outburst, and she was quite skilled in directing that fire into more useful avenues, so -- with nothing to lose and death harrying her silence, she spoke with a carelessness that belied her thougtfulness. The next words from her mouth were spoken in real-time, in tandem with flashes of thought so random that the end result surprised Cas herself, even as she spoke them: "I don''t think that would be in your best interest," Cas spoke. The lady simply kept packing away her things, so Cas, again with the most bored expression, added: "I don''t think the goddess of wisdom would be happy with your actions, either." The elder whipped a deadly look over at her, speaking mechanically. "Why do you feel so comfortable speaking the goddesses name?" For the first time, a clear expression rounded about the woman''s features. It was an expression of great distaste addled in amongst a little curiosity, looking offended. Cas didn''t care what offended the woman at this point. She could hardly have her killed twice, after all. Still, she tempered her bravado, adopting an appropriate level of polite reverence as she continued: "I feel comfortable invoking her name because she is a goddess of good, and truth. I can answer to her call with my head held high. Can you answer why you think it''s appropriate to kill me?" Cas asked as if it were the most natural question in the world, channeling all the energy of a smarmy debate team captain she once knew. "Because you''re literally a monster..." the woman furrowed her brow as if deflecting stupidity. Welp, she had her there, Cas admitted, but didn''t show it, only replying -- in the most obvious tone, "obviously, I''m not a monster. My powers of speech should speak to that much." The woman had a frustrated edge to her voice, but Cas was relieved when she sat back down, apparently determined to see this argument through. "A talking monster is still a monster." The elder spoke bluntly and with few attempts at justifying her reasoning. "A talking monster, wouldn''t show respect to the goddess of wisdom, unless you believe she answers the calls of monsters with open arms," Cas challenged. "As we''ve established, I''m a creature from another world, whatever body I happen to inhabit now is of no consequence." "There are monsters on other words as well." The woman spoke in a tired voice. "Am I to believe that that a benevolent creature would choose the form of a monster in this world?" "Yes," Cas answered simply, running over the woman''s surprised expression to continue: "or, would you rather I kill some innocent soul and inhabit their body. The fact of the matter is, monsters are the perfect vessels, as I believe they''re the only targets the goddess would forgive the killing of. Besides, if I were determined to cross the plain for the banal reason of committing monstrous acts, I believe a human form would be far better suited to that task. Humans are far more capable of committing evil than most slimes, I''m sure you''d agree, and I''d get far less scrutiny in either case." The woman had a dangerous poker face, but the increasing time she took to think told volumes. She moved, at last, to retort, but Cas cut off her reply before she had time to gather any opposing thoughts. "I''ll be perfectly honest," Cas continued, speaking with an eloquence she''d never thought herself capable, "I''m not happy about the new form I''ve had to inhabit, but this isn''t a sacrifice I''d make lightly. My mission, my sacred oath, requires that I serve the good, and if this is the fate I must endure in order to fulfill that task, then I ask only that you don''t get in my way." Perfectly honestly. The only thing Cas knew about "The goddess of wisdom" was that she existed -- on account of the old woman having invoked her five minutes ago to start their conversation. She vaguely remembered that the Nemorian''s in game worshiped a god or two, but Cas wasn''t one for lore logs, and hardly watched the cut-scenes in either case, so she settled on ''sacred oath'' as something the goddess might charge people with... at least, it seemed more proper than the ''job description'' that had almost slipped from her out of habit. Cas spoke each word in rapid fire succession, and her arguments -- however convincing they may have been -- seemed to at least bewilder the old woman into asking more questions. "Sacred oath?" her fox ears canted in a curious notion, "mission? What exactly are you speaking of?" "That, I''m not clear of," Cas admitted, "but your village... I can see it''s been through rough times." Cas kept her observation vague and formulaic, but it wasn''t all sophistry. The first thing she''d noticed in the town was how... well worn everything looked. The axe handles the men had were worn through until they had indentations, and the metal on their heads pock marked. The people looked healthy enough, but were gaunt to a man. Thin people were expected in any place, of course, but to not have a single well fed merchant or trader, to not have a single person that didn''t eat their evening meal like a desperate orphan... well, it certainly painted a town in dire straights. And that painting -- to tell by the uncomfortable expression on the woman''s face -- seemed an accurate one. "Our village... has gone through hard times, as have the other five tribes." Bingo! Cas, still locked in that chill cage of shock, was kept from expressing her full desperation as she answered: "Allow me one year," Cas answered simply. "If I haven''t solved your issue by then... kill me." The woman only answered with a suspicious eyebrow. "A worrying prospect," she said. "Why worry?" Cas retorted, surprising herself with how little frustration showed in her voice. "As I said, if destruction was my goal, there are a myriad monstrous forms better suited to that task, don''t you agree? As I am, I''m incapable of doing anything too troublesome. Besides, even if I did manage to outrun a snail, I don''t exactly have any avenue of escape in this desert. I''d just burn to death out there." The woman paused shrewdly, thinking carefully and wagging her head as if readjusting billiard balls in her mind. "And... you say that you can solve our water issue?" "I''m certain I can," Cas lied. "I was called upon to right an evil in this world, after all. Besides, you have nothing to lose in this situation. If I fix your problem, good, and if I don''t, you can kill me as you were planning to. It''s an excellent deal on your end." Cas tried to present a winning smile, unsure of how it looked with her artificial lips. "The devil makes deals that are hard to refuse," the woman seemed convinced of something at this point. Whether it was of Cas''s arguments or her execution was unclear, however. "I don''t understand your confidence," she continued, "why are you willing to make such terms with us? We could decide to kill you even if you fixed our problem, after all." Cas, for the first time in the conversation, thought a moment for how to answer that, eventually settling on the obvious: "Then you wouldn''t be a woman of your word --" Cas said, glinting her crystall eye up at the woman " -- and that''ll be that." Cas, for once, surprised herself with how comfortably she accepted that prospect.
Something Cas said seemed to have impressed the elder woman, considering she was still alive. Though, to this day, she wasn''t quite sure whether that was her argumentation or just her general gumption. That was an important question, because Cas did think it had a bearing on whether she was going to be betrayed and killed in six months time... assuming she didn''t get killed for failing to solve the water crisis, that is. So far, Cas had made little progress tackling the issue, but she hardly blamed her self. Her first priority -- as well as what she''d spent the first six month''s doing -- was language acquisition. Cas was surprised at how quickly one could pick up a language when surrounded by native speakers, and Cas had more than enough practice partners after her initial arrival. Probably too many actually, as she was -- for a few months -- quite the star attraction in the town. Crowds generally formed around her after work hours, and she''d been the centerpiece to many weaving sessions at the local ladies living rooms, generally drawing laughs whenever she made an embarrassing grammar mistake. She drew a lot of laughs. Cas was honestly surprised at her level of popularity, considering she was technically a monster -- both in game mechanics terms as well as apparently this world''s rules as well. Apparently, however, slimes were considered more nuisances than actual ''monsters'' considering the only way for someone to get killed by a slime was to fall into one and then fall asleep. Slimes were, in general, considered boring, unless they could talk, that was. Even regular folks from the other five villages made the pilgrimage to meet the amazing talking slime... and the more she spoke the more impressed people became! The novelty more than wore off, however, and come the Fall season everyone dropped her like a one-hit-wonder. Everyone, that was, except: "Kari here!" the excitable girl popped up in her usual fashion -- out of nowhere. "Where we going today?" she asked, scooping Cas up in a cloth bag and hefting her up into a hug that left Cas hanging inches beneath the girl''s chin. "Be careful with the cloth," Cas chided, "your face might accidentally touch me." The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Kari only skipped along the main road with a carefree attitude. "You know," she said, a touch blamefully, "elder Korivena says you wouldn''t be so poisonous if you didn''t eat so many ants." Cas resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the girl''s nagging. "Well, honey, what''s done is done. Take a left here, we have to go to the fixer''s place first." Cas had been given a substantial amount of freedom after her release. She''d been expecting a guard or two... or at least to be kept locked up in a cage at night, but it seemed no one around here was concerned about her running away. It took her a good twenty minutes to crawl across the village, after all, and she generally required a ride from the walking people whenever she wanted to get anywhere quick. At first, people had been happy to oblige, but -- as her popularity waned -- as had people''s willingness to spend time carrying a toxic ball of gelatin. Of course, in this regard, Kari was also happy to keep helping, skipping along the desert sands -- her red robes flowing behind her in the desert wind as her sandaled feet deftly traversed across the uneven waves of sand that surrounded the village. She was a strange girl, Cas appreciated, fixing her eye up to stare at the gentle smile which seemed ever-present on the girl''s face. She''d been her biggest fan since day one, and that enthusiasm had waned not a bit since then. Of course, Cas guessed it wasn''t just because of her amazing personality. Despite being pretty, sociable, and quite gentle, the girl had few friends... actually, Cas hadn''t seen her speaking to a single child her own age. All the village children knew each other, and got together on the daily to organize some large -- town wide-- game of mischief that the adults would look upon with curses of displeasure and laughter in equal measure. Kari, was never at these games. In fact, the only time the girl ever appeared near the other children was when they were all crowded around Cas herself, sometimes asking questions, other times throwing rocks, at which time Kari was often the one who leapt to her defense. Kari never interacted with the other girls when they worked on their weaving either, because she didn''t work. In short, the girl seemed the type to make friends more easily with animals, and Cas was the most interesting animal around. In turn, Cas needed someone to carry her about, so she put up with the intensely inquisitive girl. It was a convenient relationship, though Cas often found herself curious enough to ask questions that went beyond convenience. "Kari," Cas said. "Uh hum?" "What color am I?" Cas asked. "Huh?" "What color am I?" Cas asked. "Uhm... Sariku," the girl answered, sounding more confused at having done so. Cas almost sighed out of herself. "Uhm... could you tell me some other things that have that color?" Cas asked patiently. The girl leapt to the task with an excitement that belied her earlier confusion, listing off in a sing song manner, "Well, tamari powder, some rocks, the sky, water-" "That''s enough," Cas interrupted, "I think I have an idea." This just as the fixer''s place came into view. It was a quite unremarkable mud building with a cloth door. Stepping inside was an eclectic workshop, hastily cleaned in a last-minute attempt to be presentable to guests. The village chief, as well as Korivena -- the elder woman -- sat ready, both looking quite unhappy. "You''ve kept us waiting," Korivena greeted. "My apologies," Cas attempted a bow as soon as her body was place on the table, "I''m rather dependent on others for transportation. In either case, I trusted the decision would be made between you two." "The decision will be made by myself alone," Nemaris, the village chief, grey beard set in a stubborn lock, glanced over at Korivena as if daring her to challenge the decision. "The Oasis is your responsibility," Korivena acquiesced, "though I would have expected a man with such a responsibility to act with more care." Ignoring the jab, Nemaris turned his full attention onto Cas. "I''m prepared to allow the harvesting of the tree. However, I''m quite unable to understand why you''ve requested that we cut down a tree if you have no intention of using the wood." "I don''t need the wood itself," Cas answered, voice bright. "I need to look at the tree rings in order to divine something of the nature of this drought." "Superstitious nonsense," the Korivena scoffed. "I''d charge to read your tea leaves if you were so gullible. Nemaris, are you truly going to-" "Yes, I am," he answered, voice tight with exasperation. "Fixer, the men aren''t working today, yes?... Have them bring the saw from Nemovar village, let them know they''re to harvest the tree by tommorow. Ensure they leave the stump in tact." He stood up at that and made to leave. "So gullible," Korivena chided, a meanspirited lilt to her voice. "The proper ways have been handed down to us. It is not time to harvest that tree, not ten years too late." Nemaris simply deflated at that. He said in a quiet voice, "we both know that Oasis doesn''t have ten years left in it." "So we''re to just abandon all tradition in some frantic-" "Enough!" Nemaris'' voice filled the small space. Kari flinched back -- obviously surprised that the gentle man could be so imposing. "My decision is final! If you wish to discuss this topic further... don''t." he finished off coolly and walked away, shouting behind him to the fixer. "Remember my words. I entrust everything to you!" Korivena, cowed by the retort, simply flinched her eyes askance and left with an ugly look.
If you were surprised by the intensity of argument had over a tree, one that didn''t have the words ''the sacred..." prepending it, well, so would''ve Cas until she spent a proper month in this place. ''Remote'' would have been an understatement to describe this place. This series of five villages were in the heart of the Naraven desert. And, several hundred years ago, the demon queen Zarventh Raxui had begun her invasion of the world and the calamitous changes that reverberated throughout the land expanded the desert so that it ate up half the continent. In the game, the entire tragedy had played out in three seconds, shown by the expanding field of brown that crawled across the map. Never for a moment had Cas appreciated that -- for the people actually living in the desert -- it was the end of the world. It had been centuries since these villages had any contact with the outside world, and the state of things showed that reality in even the most minute details of the village life. Maintaining civilization around a single Oasis required prudence and frugality that bordered on the pathological. It required scheduling tree-cuttings decades in advance. It required having five villages share a single saw, and it generally made the whole world feel like the neighborhood block. The fixer was a product of his environment. More than that, he was a necessary species, embodying most purely the things demanded of the people who survived here. Kari had long since left, huffing as she grew bored of the adult conversation they engaged in as the fixer sharpened the saw. It was evening by the time the saw had arrived, and the fixer worked by lamp-light, eyes keenly placed on the edge of the saw-blade as he ran the file over it. Beneath his work station, a white piece of cloth had been laid out, reflecting brilliantly in the dim light. At first, Cas had been confused as to it''s purpose until she saw, over the hours of gradual sharpening, a smoky film of metal particles dashing across it''s surface. The fixer was collecting the metal dust, she realized, her shock at the realization briefly putting her on the back foot of their running argument. "All''s I''m saying is that you can''t know," the fixer continued, his hands moving with a mechanical evenness and his voice not much more expressive. "Even if the desert didn''t cover the whole world, who''s to say the ocean didn''t rise up and swallow what was left up? Yep, I sure this is the last city left on this world... and that Oasis there is the last green place, though even that''s in doubt, now." "By that logic, you can''t know either, can you?" Cas retorted. "For all you know, the rest of the world could be carrying on just fine." "Hmmm..." the fixer considered. His even temper made him a consummate debater. "Say, if that''s the case, then how come no one from the outside world has come to this village in all this time. No one''s seen an outsider since my grandfather''s, grandfather''s, grandfather." The fixer paused his work to do the generational math, shaking his head briefly in agreement with himself. "Maybe the outside of the desert is just too far away?" Cas suggested. "Too far... hmm, more like never-ending. I can assure you that." Cas took that to be the end of the conversation, and they moved onto other topics of interest as the fixer worked through the night and Cas worked to keep him awake and entertained. She felt a bit of responsibility for his all-nighter, after all.
His grandfather''s, grandfathers, grandfather... seven generations, and the people she''d seen around here had their kids at around twenty, so... that''d be a hundred and fifty years or just about. Cas did the math and struggled over the history. That would put her, around the time of the start of the game. Granted, a lot happened in a short time once the game started, so it could either be a total warzone out there or... an even bigger total warzone, depending on the calendar date. Cas sometimes felt grateful for the cosmic luck that had plopped her in such an unassuming place. Siablo III was not a fun world, at least not for anyone that liked their organs to stay on the inside. Her thoughts were caught off by a triumphal cheer and a heavy creek of splintering wood, as a shadow raced by and a thunderous crash brought the live-wood down onto the dirt. The adjoining crowd avoided her, rushing to the scene as the onlookers celebrated and the workmen immediately set about disassembling the structure. Studying the rare axe handle had given Cas a good idea of what to expect from the interior of the trees. Still, she was curious to see the real deal, and -- far too interested to wait -- went immediately up to the trunk, weaving her way past the crowd, climbing up onto the short platform and turning her attention down at the surface of the thing. Dense rings alternated in light and dark bands, which she guessed to be alternating growth periods hinting at the spring and fall. And, counting from the edge- "What are we looking at?" Kari asked, bending at the waist and placing hands on her knees to support her inquisitive look. "Not right now, please," Cas motioned for the girl to be quiet, studying he rings. Kari harrumphed with displeasure, and the pang of guilt Cas felt was buried under ten miles of professional interest as she studied the ring pattern. It was... a remarkably consistent ring pattern once the early growth spurt had been worked through. Growing up next to an Oasis with a constant water supply would do that. As expected, however, that consistency withered at the edge, as the rings grew thinner and more stingy with their growth periods. Leaning an eyestalk forward, Cas floated her crystal up to the very border of the appendage. Using her enhanced shape change, Cas merely imagined the world growing larger, and the tip of the stalk bulged like a magnifying glass, bringing everything into far clearer view as the delicate mess of stacked rings filled her vision. From there it was easy to count but hard to believe. Looking at tree rings would have given a more accurate count of when the drought started. Trees would be affected by less water in the soil far before humans noticed the shrinking Oasis. Cas, for her part, never really had any expectations for when the drought date would have been. However, she did find it curious that the rings started shrinking exactly five years ago... the same season that the first moss-plants in her cave started growing. Hows the weather? Around the fallen tree, a festival had sprouted, one which Cas had unwillingly found herself as a centerpiece. Being the only tolerable place in the Area, the Oasis was already a natural hang-out spot for everyone in the community. In fact it was the hang out spot, playing triple duty as a play-ground, religious center, and make-out point -- as Cas had discovered after stumbling upon the odd couple or twelve. And, right now, it was burning man. It seemed the entire village had been invited to the trees funeral, and people from the other four villages crashed as a dense crowd gathered, watching as the five work men sweated and worked to disassemble the tree. It was not a quiet affair. The women had brought their work with them, spreading out into cliques of weaving circles, apparently expecting a long celebration, while -- throughout the day, men came from their fields to bear witness to the work being done. By late evening the crowd had grown so that no square foot of the Oasis was without a person, and the air had grown hot from the compact of bodies that surrounded the chopped up trunk of the tree. The immediate crowd around the worksite was composed mainly of older men, all of them shouting either encouragement or back-seating advice on the proper way to perform plant surgery. Squeezing past their figures, young children raced to the trunk, greedily snatching up whatever bits of bark or leaf litter fell from the shuttering saw and turning it in to some of the older women in exchange for some jerky. Girls, too, took part in the illicit marketplace that had sprung up about the tree, dashing in past the workmen who -- too exhausted to file a complaint -- simply ignored the giggling children as they stole away green leaves and other make-up components from the fallen beast. Usually, picking even a single leaf out of the Oasis without permission was a grave taboo. Standards relaxed during a celebration, however, and everyone joyfully skirted the limits of those standards whilst keeping an eye out so that their neighbors didn''t do the same. Cas, for her part, simply wandered about the tree stump, occasionally climbing atop it to double check the rings with a hmm and haw of divination. She had no real reason for doing this. She''d found out everything she needed to know within a minute of the cut down... but a small crowd had gathered about her for the past few hours. Their faces were full of wonder and grave expectation, one which pressured Cas to make her work seem more important than it actually was. And Cas, being a scientist that had to apply for grants, was intimately familiar with making her work seem like the most important thing in the universe. In her estimation, she pulled off that three hour long star dance better than the best witches. "Whoo, yeah!" To tell by her cheers, as well as the forcefulness by which she forced the rest of the crows to half-heartedly golf-clap, Kari seemed to agree with Cas more than Cas agreed with herself.
Beyond simply wanting to take part in the festivities, Cas had good reason for playing up her divination. Her life was still in the hands of these villagers, after all. In fact, it was likely to be in the hands of these villagers forever, considering she was effectively trapped here with them. With that in mind, she was careful to present herself as useful. It wasn''t lying, it was advertising. Besides, she told herself she actually was working to help them, sometimes that work just needed to be shown off, after all. Still, she was surprised when the village elder called her up to give a statement to the crowd. It was late into the evening when the party concluded. By now, the tree and all it''s parts had been split off and assigned to the various villagers, all the gathered food had been eaten, and Cas was amazed at how clearly she could see all the faces arranged before her despite the sparce moonlight. Color blindness conferred it''s own advantages. If it weren''t for the river of stars stretching across the sky, Cas would hardly have been surprised to call this daylight. Still, in this case, being able to see every face and skeptical look with such accuracy did little to help her stage fright. Either noticing her hesitance, or simply trying to control the conversation, the elder man smiled and spoke jovially: "Oracle!" he shouted, turning to speak more to the crowd than to her, "Sage of the eternal mire! Guardian from beyond the Veil! Fate has brought you to us to solve our troubles! As we all know, our waters are dissapearing." At that, a nervous silence passed over the crowd. Expected, but Nemaris continued with the confidence of a man who''s problems were already solved. "As we all know, our Oasis is dying!" This time, his bravado seemed to transfer to the ground, and that veiled nervousness that passed over every face turned into something more hopeful. Cas had to hand it to the man, he knew how to work a crowd. "For this reason, we have harvested this great tree so that it may tell you it''s secrets! And you have discovered those secrets! So, I ask you, Oracle, is this drought a trouble we can overcome?" The question, despite being addressed to her, was directed to the crowd, loud and bombastic and unafraid of the answer which she might give. "Yes," answered Cas simply, and the crowd cheered.
Cas had no idea whether this drought was fixable. She didn''t want to lie! The cheif took her aside before the speech and prepared all her answers. She''d gone along with it to not cause any panic but... she''d never expected to feel this bad about it. "Oh, you at the water to our eyes, the wind to cool our troubled brows. May Sorena give you ten thousand gifts, a hundred thousand blessings, and beauty enough to match every star! I tell you even that wouldn''t be enough to match my gratitude. Being a mother, I suffer twice, once for myself, and again for my children, and that night has been the first one I''ve been able to rest at ease, you''ve cooled my heart, great sage! I am at my knees in debt to you!" "Uhm... you can just call me Cas, from now on." "Oh, great Sage, Cas! My gravest apologies," the woman seemed on the verge of tears, swaying under the heavy emotions she''d carried up to this point. "No need!" Cas got ahead of the diatribe, looking out behind the woman to the gathered crowd of ecstatic village members. To some extent, the villager''s thanks and gratitude had become performative. Each person tried to outdo the last in the reverie of their relief, and tried carefully to show off how thankful they were for the assurance of their mutual safety. Despite the exaggeration, it was genuine emotion that compelled everyone. Whether the goddess wanted to bestow ten thousand gifts was up for debate, but the villagers -- each one coming in turn -- all but packed her house like it was a candy store. Yes, her house. It''d been the first gift she received, though the villagers seemed to see it more as an empty gift box. It was a simple, four walled room with two windows, a door, and piles of random crap stacked at every corner. Dried meats, herbs, flour, garlands of weeds, some small trinkets and enough embroidery to cover every wall twice over, turning the barren walls of the space into a viewing port for so many refined patterns that it made Cas miss her color vision. In truth, it was somehow quite exhausting to receive guests, but the strongly worded advice Nemaris had given her on the importance of making sure to receive every villagers present kept her as the ever graceful host of the procession. She smiled, chatted, received blessings, and traded enough small talk to make her sick of the weather report. All this went on until, eventually, she''d done it! She''d met with every villager! Which begged the question: why weren''t they leaving. Cas stood in the midst of crowd, looking up at them despite her high perch. "Welp..." she said, wishing she had legs to stand up on, "I guess that''s it, right?" The foremost woman in the crowd stepped forward. A patient bow ducked her underneath all attempts at refusing her advances, and brought the tassels of her head shawl down to dangle Infront of her strained, winning smile. "Of course," she said, with a voice like silk. "We actually must beg your forgiveness to leave you. However, we all simply wanted to ask on thing of you before doing so... regarding the current situation." "Uhm... the weather?" Cas asked dumbly, begging for the small talk to come back. "The drought," came the reply simply. Cas was thankful for her natural poker face as she looked up at the surrounding mob. The lead woman held a pleasant face, but worry and anxious curiosity pattered her lips as she spoke. That was the strange thing about the villagers. Being so few, and so tightly knit, they were the equivalent of a gated community back on earth. Everyone dressed the same, thought the same, and even spoke with that same, elegant accent and beautiful diction. It had surprised Cas when the homeless transient worker from the neighboring village spoke to her with the same, refined manner that the village chief showed in all his dealings. Still, the village chief had his own unique manner that distinguished him, enough that everyone immediately turned around when they heard his stern cough coming from the door. The evening sun hugged him with light, stretching Nemaris'' shadow into the empty space that had parted before him. Smiling at her with a reassuring face, he turned his stern, well humored scowl onto the rest of the lot. "I hope we aren''t bothering our seer. She''s been very tired from her divining session. I''d been worried that you might have forgotten my instructions not to press questions until the answers were ready, so I thought I''d come by." "Oh... of course," and other such similar mumblings went through the quickly dispersing crowd, all of them paying their respects to the chief and sending farewells to Cas while walking backwards. Eventually, the hanging cloth fell back over the door and Cas was left alone with the chief. Walking over to the windows, Nemaris peeked out to check for any strays, walked stealthily back to her place and took a silent seat on the floor next to her. For the first time, Cas noticed how young the chief looked for a man with so many gray hairs. Even that youth seemed wasted on the crumpled figure that leant his whole weight back against a wall and hid his face behind curtains of falling hair. "Don''t worry," Cas assured, trying to cheer the man up, "You came just in time." "I''d know if they found out," Nemaris sighed. "Don''t be so scared of their questions," he assured. "They don''t distrust you, they just want more information...they just want someone to tell them everything will be ok before they can allow themselves to believe." Nemaris stared at the ground between his feet. "Granted," he let out a dark chuckle, "they wouldn''t exactly be wrong to doubt." Cas prepared to spit out some half-hearted ''it''s ok'', but the chief stopped her. Letting out a long sigh he rubbed his face down with both hands and stood to leave. Pausing at the door, curtain held open with one hand, he looked back to say, "I''ll keep them off your back, just do the best you know how." And Cas could tell, in that brief moment between them, he''d been struggling not to ask her if everything would be ok.
Nemaris was a truly kind man, who shouldered everything by himself. It was for that reason that everyone respected his words and obeyed his command to leave Cas to her work. Everyone, that was, except the children, who formed a wild tornado of glee and annoying screams about her as she worked. Cas was in the middle of conducting a field study around the Oasis. Ie... she wandered around, hoping to find something interesting, not that the girls seemed to appreciate the scientific process as they skipped around with the best intentions, kicking dust up around their ankles and into Cas''s face. The youngest of the girls, a fair-haired child with inquisitive eyes, wandered away from the impromptu game they''d formed to come squat over Cas. "Mommy said you were going to heal the Oasis, is that true?" the youngest girl asked, resting her chin in her hands. Cas kept up her steady crawl along the sandy edge of the oasis. A curious note floated up into her voice as she answered the girl. "Hmm, I don''t know, did your mommy tell you to ask me that?" she accused lightly, turning her crystal to send an accusing glance at her questioner. The girl looked abashed, light eyes swived suspiciously into a side-glance. "Uhmmm.... no," she squeaked out, pausing there for a second before leaping up and running back to her friend group. Cas laughed at the reaction. She''d certainly become a lot more popular since the festival, though that did come with some bother from the local paparazzi. Still, being well liked was a good problem to have. Looking over at the girl''s, who''d now huddled close together in a suspicious formation. Cas grew suspicious as their conspiring whispers reached her over desert air. Suddenly, they all turned around in unison, marching in formation with badly hidden giggles and excited glances at one another. The leader of the group was an imperious girl with dark hair and bright eyes, and notably she walked with her hands behind her back, leading the group until she was but two feet away. Unlike the others, she wore a full length shawl decorated with tassels and with wide cuffs -- in the style of the adults, unlike the plainer ware of her compatriots. The smile plastered over her face held all the wonder of a child, however, as she quickly pulled her hands out in front and presented... Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. Cas glanced graciously at the embroidered rug. "It''s... amazing," she answered, not having the heart to tell the girl that she already had a dozen like it. "I''ll hang it up on my wall for everyone to see!" The girls only giggled at her... rude. "It''s not a rug!" they all exclaimed in unison. As if to demonstrate, the lead girl pushed her fingers through the fabric, spreading it out into the bowl and pulling open the eye slit to reveal it''s tailored shape. "A shawl!" Cas exclaimed, and the girls immediately pounced upon her, capping the fabric over her figure. Recollecting herself from the ambush, Cas looked around herself to see... shawl. It was strange how used she''d gotten to being able to see around herself just with a flick of her eye. Pointing her crystal through the single eye-slit, however, and seeing the beaming expressions awaiting her answer, Cas found it hard to say anything other than: "I love it!" "Squeee!" the girls squealed in unison, hopping in place. "What''s going on!" A familiar voice called out from the side, and the girls all but paused in mid-air. Laboriously, Cas turned her entire body around to see Kari standing with her hands on her hips, looking over at her with a scowl. "Cas, I was looking everywhere for you! I was going to pick you up from your place remember!" Kari, being her unofficial chauffer, had also gotten a bump to her status after the festival. The kids, at least, made far more of an effort to include her, anyway. "Oh, sorry! We meant to call after you, but we couldn''t find you at your place. We told the neighbors to let you know if they saw you," the lead girl offered apologetically. "Wanna play with us now that you''re here, though? We''re about to set up a marble course." Gently, she pointed over at a half constructed ditch in the sand. "No!" Kari answered simply. Walking over, she looked down at Cas with displeasure. "What''s this?" "It''s a Juti," the girl answered, "we made it-" "You know she can''t see out of that?" Kari interrupted. "If you were going to make her something, you should''ve asked me first!" The other girl, growing frustrated, all but stamped a foot. "We''re just giving her a gift!" Kari picked up Cas and hugged her close. "Only adults have to give gifts," she retorted. "Anyway, we have to go study the other side of the Oasis, now." With that, Cas''s world turned as Kari spun them around and walked off.
"The other side" of the Oasis always meant the south side. It was a place avoided by most people. Unlike the north side, where the shadow of the Oasis stretched out into a crescent garden of cool ground, the ''other side'' was devoid of everything except lonliness and sand. It was a place strategically chosen to avoid the presence of others, though Cas didn''t argue the move, as she''d never studied this area during the day-time before. Again, ''study'' in this case meant wander around and look for stuff. Cas, slowly trawling around, her crystal eye brought to the very edge of her body to look through the eye slit, tried to glance around but couldn''t even make herself pretend that featureless mounds of sand held anything interesting. Still, she persevered, and found herself thinking of other things. For one, it wasn''t until several hours into her patrol that she noticed... how surprisingly cool it was. Not to mention, she hadn''t once suffered an update to her max HP. The old habit of looking down at her body taught her something new, as the the patterned holes in her shawl caught the wind, carrying heat away from her body as it shrouded her normally clear insides in heavy shadow. "Huh," she said, moving the crystal eye all around her insides to take a closer look at the structure. It was transclucent to the direct sunlight, and Cas thought she could see those same intricate patterns decorating it. A voice interrupted her musings. Kari was currently doing a hand stand, careful to keep beyond the tree line of the Oasis. "What are you even looking at?" Cas sighed. "I''m just appreciating how useful this shawl is. I probably shouldn''t have walked around naked for so long and wasted so much water." "Oh..." Kari fell around into a sitting posture. "I guess you really do like it, huh?" Cas wasn''t blind to the disappointment in the girl''s voice, but decided to answer honestly. "Yes, I do. I''m sure the girl''s worked very hard on it." Kari pouted, looking aside to rest her cheek on her knees. "They''re just doing that because their parents told them to," she mumbled. "They''ll turn their backs on you, just wait. You''ll see." "I don''t know about that," Cas smiled. "But, actually, you were right about the design, you know. Why don''t you take this shawl to the girls tommorow and help them make it so I can see out of all sides!" "...Ok." Kari answered, a little less hesitant after being praised. Cas rolled her eye at the reaction, Kids were so... huh, that''s interesting. "What is it?" Kari asked as Cas crawled past her. "I''m not sure," Cas answered. With the sun behind her like this, the desert seemed to glimmer, as if fine particles of glass had been mixed into the sand. On its own, this wasn''t surprising. Even on earth, the sand had reflective particles, silica grains and other reflective things inside of it naturally. The strange thing was, that some of those particles seemed to reflect, differently. It was hard to describe how, but Cas could just tell from how the light reflected that those particles were different. There were only a few of them among the thousands of points of light mixed into the sand, and Cas headed towards the closest one. Reaching forward for it, a long stalk stretched out to hover over the glowing particle. Floating her eye out into the end of the stalk, she bulged the end into a magnifying lens. It was a crappy magnification, but it was just enough that she could tell the thing was strange. It was almost an almost perfect sphere for one. It wasn''t a crystal or sand grain. It was translucent, and it stuck to the sand like... a water droplet? Cas wondered what a water droplet was doing in the desert. She stopped questioning it when she noticed that the water droplet was moving, hugging the crescent shadow of a ripple in the sand. "A slime!" Cas exclaimed, prompting Kari to run over with intense interest. Kari fell onto all fours, hovering her face over to stare at the same spot... "what''s ''a slime!''" she asked in her adorable rendition of the English. "This!" Cas gestured over at the creature. Kari immediately grew bored, dusting her dress off as she stood. "Oh... it''s just another Sakkari" "Wh...what, but it''s a slime... they should burn away at that size! Aren''t you curious about how it got here!" Cas grew a little frustrated by the underwhelming response from the girl... she could at least have the decency to look interested. "It probably just showed up with the morning dew," Kari pressed her hands to the back of her head, stretching as she walked back into the tree-line of the Oasis. Cas... did not find abiogenesis a likely theory. Still, she knew it wouldn''t do much to argue with the girl about the issue, and decided to continue the next few hours in patient observation.
Many had burned away in the sunlight, but a surprising number surprised Cas with their tenacity and survival chops. At that scale, sand grains were like boulders, and slimes hid in the shadow of those mountains. When noon-time came, the heat had become truly unbearable, and even Cas, in her shawl, began to see signs of damage. The slimes that remained, Cas saw their deaths in great detail. It wasn''t a notable death, for any slime. Rather it was more a quiet dissapearance, as they shrunk and shrunk and shrunk in the heat until there was nothing left but a dry discoloration on some sand particles. Trying something, Cas stretched out a stalk over one of these remnants. Aiming the stalk, she compressed the tip into a cone, and -- remembering her trick in the cave -- hardened it. Focusing all her resources back, Cas drew away everything from the tip of the stalk until only a watery film remained to drip onto the dry remnants like a leaky faucet. Sometimes, if she provided them with water soon enough, the slimes revived. Still, it didn''t make sense why they would appear in the desert without a direct water source. ... Looking about, it was as if she were watching the stars wink out, as one by one the slimes surrounding her dissapeared. Catching one before it had gone, however, Cas was surprised to find that -- rather than dying, it was burrowing, squeezing it''s body between the sand grains and going underground. Cas, buried in the notes section of her character sheet, didn''t notice Kari as she snuck up behind her. "You''re really good at sitting around and doing nothing, you know," she drawled, laying on her belly and kicking her feet in the air. "Hush, I think I''m close to figuring something," Cas, furrowed with concentration, tried to write every thought as it came to her. "But I thought you didn''t know how to fix the Oasis-" Kari stopped herself abruptly, clamping hands over her mouth. That had been enough to break Cas'' concentration. "Where did you hear that?" she asked with a nervous energy. "I overheard you and Elder Nemaris talking about it," Kari admitted with a guilty look. Despite herself, Cas felt a sense of relief. "You didn''t tell anyone else, did you?" The girl shook her head no. "Well... you shouldn''t eavesdrop," she admonished, coming up with nothing else to say. "Well, you shouldn''t lie," Kari retorted. "Touch¨¦, but keep this to yourself! And I actually can find out what''s wrong with the Oasis, ok?" Cas turned about, looking worriedly at the disappearing sparkles all across the near desert. "I just need a bit more time, she whispered to herself."
The desert was different at night. Of all the thousand differences the moonlight revealed, however, Cas only obsessed over the slimes. There were so many more of them that appeared from beneath the sands. Each one without fail, as if compelled, crawled effortfully over the sands over to the Oasis. It was an invisible march of the small, many of them wouldn''t make it to the Oasis before night eneded, but they would get closer. And the next night she was sure they would continue their journey after resting beneath the sands. It seemed a dangerous journey, their numbers seemed lower and lower the closer to the Oasis one counted. Cas had made a simple map of their relative density and average direction of motion. Tracing the lines to their convergence point, Cas looked up from her status screen and back at the massive pillar of stone that stood so imposingly over the horizon, casting a great shadow that pointed with what seemed to be admonishment in her direction. Cas... wasn''t sure what to make of this. "Cas..." a tired voice interrupted her. "Oh, Kari," Cas looked guiltily at the girl who''s heavy eye-lids fell like blankets over her eyes. "You don''t have to stay here, why don''t you go back home. I''ll be able to make it back by myself." "No..." The girl''s firm stance was somewhat amusingly contradicted by her soft collapse into the sand, resting her head on folded arms as she aimed a soft smile onto Cas. "I really enjoyed being with you," she said. Cas held back a chuckle. "We didn''t really do anything, though." "I know," the girl said. "I just like being with you, is all." "Kari, I like being with you too, but the sand is no place for a young girl to sleep. You should go back home for tonight." The girl made no move to comply. "Won''t your parent''s be worried about you?" Cas asked. The girl only lightly shook her head, allowing a sad expression to shine through for the first time since Cas had met the girl. "Oh..." Cas didn''t say much more. "Cas," the girl said. "Yes?" Cas answered. "Are we friends?" For the first time, the bravado was all gone from the girl, and she seemed genuinely nervous at what answer might come. Cas, for her part, actually had to think of the question. The girl was very young, and at times annoying, and asked a lot of questions and constantly challenged her. But... "Yes," was the only answer that came to Cas'' mind. A gleaming, curious, look, one which held far more wisdom than a girl like her should''ve been capable off lit up in Kari''s eyes. "Why?" she asked, tilting her head. The question confused Cas, until she remembered how much she''d overthought such things as a middle-schooler. "Well... I''ve learned that friendship isn''t something easily questioned. Friendships are good things, beautiful things, though they''re sometimes fragile. I always try to cultivate them whenever I''m gifted with one, especially when my friend is a girl as bright as you are!" In the soft light of the moon, Cas swore she saw an embaressed flush come over the girl. It seemed the girl was unused to complements. "Thanks..." she murmured. And they stood like that for a moment, before Cas finally stood. "Well... that''s enough of that," she said, turning off her notes and rising up into a taller, more mobile stance. "Let''s go back to town." "I thought you had work to do." "I do," Cas answered, "but I''ve done enough for tonight. Besides, I''m getting tired of recording, I''d like a break," Cas made to move when a word from Kari stopped her. "Wait!" It was an impatient, loud, whisper, hoarse with exhaustion as Kari lifted her head into a yawn. Bringing her cheeks back onto her folded arms, Kari placed Cas in the confines of her interested look. "Don''t move," she told the frozen slime. "Uh... why?" Cas asked. "You said you have to cultivate friendships, right? Just like you''re going to heal that Oasis." "Well..." "I know you will, Cas," Kari interrupted her, speaking with such surety that left even Cas feeling confident. Cas hesitated. "...thank you. But what does that have to do with me not moving?" "Well. I know one day I''ll get to tell people about the amazing hero that saved my village." Kari kicked her feet softly, sifting her toes through the sand. "I know people will ask a lot about you; so I want to remember just as you are, as the brave, wonderous hero from another world, as my friend." Cas wasn''t sure she understood the sentiment. Living in a world with photo booths had dulled her memory for images. Still, she humored the girl with serious effort. Unable to think of anything else, she posed slightly, raising a stalk underneath the shawl as if to wave ''hi''. For her part, Cas also tried to paint in her memory an image of that curious girl with bright eyes, who''d only shown her a sad expression once. She -- that was, Kari -- struck quite a boyish figure. Like everyone else in the village, she had surprisingly light skin for living in a desert, and her eyes and hair were quite the same. It being night time, she''d lowered the hood of her shawl and her hair, cut into a short, messy start, served as the perfect frame for the perpetually mischievous look that graced her features. She was the most ordinary girl in the world, in some ways, but that was only proof to Cas that kids could be quite amazing. Smell of Death In the immediate aftermath of the felling of the tree, Cas was in the apex of her apotheosis. In short, to the villagers, she was a god! It made a certain amount of sense, what with her being from another world and displaying mysterious powers. After the first nights gift giving, she found herself being looked upon more favorably by the villagers. Some had even started a ritual of bowing and stepping aside whenever she crawled by. Cas would''ve been lying if she said it didn''t feel nice, but she was quick to inform them that she, in fact, was not a god... she was just on a mission from god. ...what? She was trying to avoid execution over here! You try navigating this honestly. Kari looked down at the bundle of slime and shawl in her hands as it murmured angrily to itself. Behind them both, the village receded a mile into the distance. Up ahead was a single house standing alone. The shack brought up images of ''Nowhere'' from Courage the Cowardly Dog in Cas''s mind, right down to the ever present wind that ran through the space with a howl. Outside a familiar girl, dressed in a patterned shawl that covered face, struggled with a pot of water she carried at her waist. She stopped at the sight of them, taking any distraction to put the clay pot down as they approached her. The girl was a bit taller than Kari, and now that she was close enough to see through the mesh shawl, Cas could see the girl had light eyes and dark hair, though there was something in the whole of her face that seemed familiar. "Sister," Kari greeted with a breathy note. There it was. Cas perked up at that immediate explanation. Looking back through her rearview eye-hole in the shawl, Cas saw a plaintive expression cross the sister''s faces, interrupted suddenly by a harsh voice from inside the hovel. "Idiot girl! How long are you planning to keep me waiting!" The girl looked back with a panicked note in her voice. "I''m on my way!" Hurriedly, she picked up the pot and -- sparing them a brief glance of embarrassment -- walked into the dark interior. Kari followed. ... Of course, amongst the general reverie and respectful looks surrounding Cas, there was one face of dissent. That face was named Korivena, and it looked especially unhappy as Cas intruded upon her space. Unlike the tent that had been setup outside, the mud hovel -- despite being the same design as those in the village -- was exceptionally small, feeling almost cramped on the inside. Dust hung in the air, glimmering in the column of sunlight that shone through the door, and swirling into eddies as Kari made her way past. "I apologize for keeping your helper," Cas preempted the girl''s apology. "It''s fine," Korivena was busy on a small rug, "just hurry up and bring that jug here, damn girl!" The girl obliged. Korivena, working her body weight into a mortar and pestle, dipped a hand into the clay jug, and sprinkled a precise amount of water into the mortar. She intensified her grinding and a soft smoke began rising from the concoction. Eventually, the smoke grew darker, and hotter, and a pungent aroma of baked coal started to fill the room when Korivena snatched her hand away and a small fire leapt up into existence just after her. It burned smokeless and as steadily as a candle-flame inside the mortar. Carefully, the elder woman took the mortar up in her palms and placed it on a bare patch of ground, far away from any rugs. "What do you want?" she asked. "I came because I had questions," Cas answered. "Yes, yes, what-" Korivena seemed perpetually frustrated. Moving to stand, a jittery hand touched the jug a bit too harshly, and- CRASCH! A hollow, airy sound like a wind instrument heralded the shatter-fall of the clay container. A flood of water washed over the dirt floor and over the flaming pestle, washing muddy water into the surrounding rugs. Notably, the flaming pestle didn''t even sizzle at the touch of water, simply burning steadily on, unbothered by all the chaos that went on around it. Korivena, on the other hand: "Idiot girl!" she shouted. Her words whipped up to strike the older girl into a straight stance. "How many times have I told you to place that jug further away, huh?" Stock still, the girl only looked at her wringing hands. "Just look at what you''ve done!" she muttered in disgust, shaking her hands clean and lifting her skirt to her ankles as she stepped out of the mess, nearly bumping into Kari. There, as if remembering her guest''s existence, a restrained quality fell over the old woman as she looked down at the slime in her hands. "Yes... you were saying about a question." Cas replied evenly. "It''s actually quite a delicate matter. I''d like to discuss it with you alone. If you wouldn''t mind sending your girl out." Looking up, she addressed her friend. "Kari, if you could accompany her." "Very well," Korivena sighed. "Girl go out and tend to the garden. And clean my tent if you get done before our great Sage has finished it''s entreaties." The woman''s words were acid. Cas''s reply came quick and short. "Actually, I''d prefer if they went elsewhere. I''m not keen on the possibility of eavesdropping." Korivena looked offended. "You think I can''t control my own apprentice?" "I''m certain you''re an excellent teacher, elder Korivena, but children are children,'' before Korivena could respond, Cas leapt in to sweeten the deal. "Why don''t you send them both off to my house. I''ve been gifted a jug recently, and I''m sure it would find a better home here." A glint of greed lit the woman''s eyes, and she tried not to sound too eager. "Very well. Yessina, pick up some Jantoo plants while you''re there." The girl, Yessina, bowed wordlessly and made her way to exit. Kari, placing Cas on the ground, moved to follow her but was stopped at the door. "By the way. Kari?" Cas called, turning the girl''s attention back to her. "I have many questions to ask the elder. Please make sure not to return until nightfall. Nodding, Kari left and the white drape fell back to cover the doorway, filling the room with a diffuse light. Growing impatient at the mention of a day-long conversation, Korivena was quick to the point. "What do you want to know?" Cas only asked about the most natural thing. "Let''s start with slimes."
Cas had lied, Kari thought, as she lounged in the Oasis next to her sister. Slimes weren''t exactly a very secretive topic. Still, she was glad for the excuse to spend the day with her sister. The Oasis was brimming with children from all the villages, as always, but Kari and Yessina sat alone. How long had it been since Kari had seen her sister? She''d spent so many night fantasizing about the moment when she''d finally be able to be with Yessina again, but this moment wasn''t anything like her dreams. In her dreams, Yessina had still had her smile, and there was never a dull moment, and Kari could actually think of things to talk about, things to do other than sit in the shade and wait for time to pass by. Gingerly, Kari turned aside to look at her sister. Yessina had brought her hood down, so at least she wasn''t against talking. From a side profile, she looked as beautiful as everyone said, and everyone had said that she was the most beautiful girl in the village. At least, everyone had said that until public opinion changed. An Unari could never be anything other than despised, after all. Last time they''d talked about it, Yessina had become very cross whenever Kari brought up the subject, even when she told her that the villagers were wrong. It became hard to think of anything else to talk about, however. The matter was everywhere in their lives. "I don''t like that bat," Kari settled for, at last. "I don''t care what everyone else says. She''s just a fool of a woman who''s never done any good for everybody." A soft reply came back, "you shouldn''t talk about her like that," Yessina said, with soft admonishment in her voice. "If it weren''t for her... I''m an Unari, you know? I''d''ve been sent out to the desert. So, how can you say she''s never done any good? She saved me." Yessina was always the gentler of the two sisters. Though, that gentleness, Kari found, always got the better of her fire. Kari shrugged. "I don''t like how she treats you." She felt warm hands take hers in a gentle grip. It was a familiar gesture, excepting the harsh callouses that covered Yessina''s hands nowadays. Silky tears flowed down Kari''s cheeks like they hadn''t since she was a child. "I don''t like how you''re always gone," she said with a sob creeping up your throat. "I don''t... don''t like any of this at all.. It was embarrassing. Yessina should''ve been the one crying after everything she''d been through. Kari should''ve been the one comforting her sister, but here she was, crying in the shade of a tree and the light of her sister''s good graces.
Sensitive to how much of Kari''s day out was riding on keeping the elder occupied, Cas elected to ask her questions at a leisurely pace. Korivenna wasn''t pleased with the idea of spending an entire day talking to the local monster, but she was an easy woman to flatter, Cas discovered, and their conversation flowed surprisingly fluidly from the start. Korivenna''s personal slime, it''s sparkling interior glimmering as it crawled across the floorspace, was an excellent conversation starter. Korivenna gathered it as soon as the girl''s had left, placing it in the middle of the mess and letting it crawl about, sucking up the mud. Soon, all the mud and muddy water had been taken up by the slime and dissolved, leaving it''s formerly gleaming interior muddy with swirling clouds. From there, it softened itself. The flow of nutrients, the density and presence of water, and the effort the slime exerted to harden and soften parts of itself. All these hidden details were intuitively visible to Cas''s eye, so it was no mystery to her how the slime so quickly coalesced that muddy cloud into a dense ball of mud, and spat the mixture out as a bone-dry dirt-pile onto the floor. Stolen story; please report. The slime, now clean, had ballooned into a massive, wobbling thing, barely able to stand underneath the weight of its own water, jiggled in place. Korivenna placed another jug next to it, touched it in a precise series of patterns with glowing fingers. Reacting mechanically, the slime stretched out a stalk, hardened everything but the water away from the tip, and in a familiar process dribbled fresh water into the resonant interior of the clay pot. Noticing Cas''s intense interest, the woman smiled in a superior fashion and spoke up over the cacophony. "The water a Sakkari makes seems to be purer than anything you''ll get out of a spring. Provided it''s trained well enough, that is." "Oh? I''d assumed you kept this slime to make that magic juice you drank when we first met." Purposefully, Cas constructed her question with annoying wrongness to bait an answer. Korivenna answered shortly. "It''s called a Sakkari. I''ve no idea what this ''slime'' you keep mentioning is. And they''re valuable as natural refractories. They can make the purest catalysts when trained well enough." From there, Cas let the conversation go into a thousand tangents about Korivenna''s work and the nature of alchemy, the history of the village, and any topic that she felt would be able to hold the older woman''s interest. Soon, the outside cooled, however, and night was falling, and Cas could no longer hold herself back from asking the question that had brought her here. It had been a long conversation so far, though despite it, neither Cas nor Korivenna seemed to have warmed up to the other to any degree, both talking on simply for their own purpose. Eventually, they''d both run out of interest in any topic, and a periodic silence would fall over the conversation. It was in one of these silent moments that Cas broke and asked plainly: "Korivenna... how do you kill a Sakkari?"
''Everything dies,'' had been Cas''s unofficial motto. It was an all-purpose spear she used to deflate her troubles. After all, one could hardly mind a traffic jam, storm surge, or bad supervisor when their doom was assured. ''Everything dies,'' was as close to a religious statement as she could bring herself to accept. It was why Korivenna''s answer had seemed so non-sensical to her, and -- like all nonsense -- had taken residence in her mind for far longer than it had in the mind of the person who said it. Death was an appropriate topic to be thinking of at the moment. Looking up, the buzzards circled on black wings in the evening air. Each one had four wings and hungry eyes and a croagy, bald head that hung below the body on a curve. Well, truly speaking, they weren''t buzzards, and their quarry wasn''t truly a calf. Either way, it had been a miscarriage in the herd of not-sheep, and everyone steered very clear of the Oasis, citing bad omens. Cas was ashamed to say that she was uncertain about these bad omens. Considering she lived on a world with monsters and demons, she thought it might be prudent to stay away from all the bad mojo. So, it drew a nervous yelp from her when her uber driver turned suddenly towards the Oasis. "Kari, where do you think you''re going." "Oh," Kari looked down in surprise at the slime in her arms. "I have to take the dead calf out to the desert. It''s going to dirty the Oasis, otherwise." Uhm, what? Cas thought. "Uhm, what?" Cas said, putting a bit more sass into it than usual. "Why are they sending you to do it?" Kari grew abashed, squatting down to place Cas in a shaded spot next to a tree. "Oh, sorry, I guess I should''ve asked if you wanted to come along. I''ll just go do it by myself and come back for you if that''s ok." A short moment passed between the two of them, one where Cas looked on with disbelief at the uncharacteristically fragile expression Kari wore. It was the look that seemed bare to all criticism, one which quickly crumbled under the seconds as Kari''s face scrunched up in a failed attempt at feigning pride. "I''m sorry... I guess I should''ve told you sooner, huh? I thought you knew... I mean." Panicked, words and lies streamed out of the girl''s mouth before Cas had a moment to even process them. "I thought you could''ve guessed at least. I mean, I''m sorry, I... I''ll just go." At this Kari turned and quickly moved to leave, which brought Cas back to her senses, and her emotions back online. "Where do you think you''re going?" Cas yelled. Kari turned back, and was met with the perfect expression of worry. "If you leave me alone in this haunted forest, you can consider our friendship done with, got it? Not get back here and talk to me properly!" Cas was surprised to see the demure look Kari kept as she went back to the slime. "You said friendship," she noted, looking down like a kicked puppy. "Does... that mean we''re still friends?" With as much condescension and anger as she could muster, Cas answered: "Obviously!" ... "My mother shouldn''t have married my Father." Kari looked like any other child sometimes, especially at times like these, where she sat on a tall root and kicked her legs while telling stories. And, being a child, she sometimes needed more prompting to give her explanation properly. "Why?" Cas asked, trying to project a therapist''s manner and failing. "Because she was meant to marry a man in the Fari village," Kari shrugged, digging out a dried jerky from her satchel and sucking on the salted treat. "The village elders said that she had to because he was the furthest from her family tree. But, my father was, too! He was only her third cousin. He said that they only punished him because they were... were... I don''t remember the word he used." She looked frustrated at herself. Cas nodded, trying to make sense of the girl''s story without asking too many personal questions. Cas looked around at the expanse of waste that isolated the villages. It seemed the Village elders had taken it upon themselves to make sure nobody inbred too much. It made enough sense to Cas, though it seemed the powers they''d granted were open to abuse. "Is that why you have to handle all the dead animals." Kari shook her head no. "My sister... she''s an Unari, too. She was supposed to be doing this, but when I was born... because of my lighter hair. My mother said I should be the one to stay alive." Cas looked quizzically at the girl, and a disappointed breath from Kari preceded the answer. "My mother and father... they were allowed to marry despite everything, but their children -- Yessina and I -- we were both born... broken. My sister.. she always struggled with talking to people. She wasn''t shy she just... couldn''t talk to anyone that wasn''t me. And me..." "And you?" Cas asked. Kari pulled her hair back, revealing a hole in the base of her left fox ear. "I''ve never been able to hear out of my upper left ear." She ran a finger over the ear with a familiar dissapointment, pressing it down. "Mom had hopes... sometimes kids get better as they get older, and she thought I had the better chance to heal so she decided to keep me and let Yessina go. "They were going to have Yessina walk into the desert like a twin. But.. she had a talent for magic, and she was allowed to train with the elder. I''m... I can''t do magic. I can''t sew, or make pottery, or farm. I can''t get married either." Kari chuckled suddenly, a jaded impression strange in a child. "And I never even healed my ear. All I can do is take care of the dead until I''m an adult." "Until you''re an adult?" Kari shook her head. "I have to go take the calf," she said. Cas, braver now, moved forward. "Take me with you."
In the middle of the Oasis was the lake. Even having never seen it before, Cas could tell it was a shadow of its former self. Having dried up so much, a clearing of flat ground now stood between its edge and the tree-line. Still, it protected a cool and peaceful atmosphere. It was a well chosen place to give birth. Tragically, it was also a good place to have one''s final moments. Cas wondered if the mother knew the fate of her calf as she looked down at the poor creature. The air held a bloody smell, and the sense of death. The calf, curled into itself with it''s head resting on its haunch, had the look of an effigy of a living figure. In it''s presence, the surroundings seemed a pedestal for the tragedy, as three buzzard circled the creature. Moving without hesitation, Kari stepped forward and took hold of a hind-leg. Lifting it up, she began to drag it back, leaving a short trail of dried blood and slime just as a soft wind wafted over the creature''s figure, causing Kari to put a hand up to her nose and recoil, even as she continued dragging it back. To Cas, it looked, and seemed, and smelled... delicious. Cas couldn''t explain it to herself, but as she stepped forward, she gestured for Kari''s attention and said. "Hey, Kari... hear me out." ... The process was both slow and quick, and Cas started first with the rear leg, the hide and meat quickly disappearing, and her new, larger figure engulfing the whole rear, then the ribcage, then the whole of the figure as she expanded into a messy blood balloon. Her interior, being filled with a cloudy smog of viscera, Cas couldn''t see outside of herself anymore, but she could still hear the retching and regretful words of Kari as she stumbled back away from the 4-D experience that was Cas eating. "Sorry!" Cas exclaimed, watching as the cloud cleared and second by second, she began digesting the pool of matter that floated within her. All in all, it was a decidedly calm process for her. Despite the obvious dissimilarities, it just felt like a lazy Friday afternoon after she''d finished a big meal. It was... peaceful. At least, that was the case until she felt a sudden heat build up inside of her, and the blood cloud thickened in a frenzy of activity, and in front of all that, filling her world with all the dazzle and gleam of casino lights, her status screen exploded. Hardening XP Cap Reached Level 3 -> 4 Hardening XP Cap Reached Level 4 -> 5 Hardenin - Level - Cap Rea- Hardening - XP Cap - Level Hardenin - Level - Cap Rea- Hardening - XP Cap - Level Hardenin - Level - Cap Rea- Hardening - XP Cap - Level Hardenin - Level - Cap Rea- Hardening - XP Cap - LevelHard- Level 9 -> Hardeni 9 -> 10 Hardenin - Level Cap Hardening XP Cap Reached Level 10 -> 11 Often, Cas was excited when she had her best ideas. She was never the type to sit in a reclining chair and think cold thoughts to herself. No, she did her best work when she was jittery with enthusiasm and barely able to contain herself from leaping up and shouting obscenities at someone. Most often, that someone she shouted obscenities was herself, as it was right now. "Idiot!" she yelled at herself. Of course her hardening was being limited by raw materials! The admonishment was brief, however, washed away in a thousand other brilliant lights that chimed for her attention. Shape change had also levelled up some. Absorption was now level seven. She''d leveled up twice. All of that was in order, and honestly quite as expected. However, shape change just had to hold another surprise. It was honestly the first time in a long time she found herself doing a double-take as she glanced over the spot on her screen that read: Shape Change: Level 10 Capstone Hardness: Level 10 Capstone It was strange, a new table had opened up where the two sections intersected that read: Skill: Body Print: Following the body''s memory, you can perform Shape Change feats up to Level 60 as long as they conform to the body memory embedded in the mind. The description was vague, but Cas''s feeling of power was similarly vague. She just felt like she could do something new, like she could something she''d never been able to do before. It wasn''t until she thought about it a bit more, until she paid attention to the phantom limbs that were now suddenly so accessible that she finally understood, and with a *ping* the character screen updated to confirm her new understanding by saying, directly underneath the new skill: Skill: Human Figure Unlocked Conducting Ones self Cas relaxed that invisible muscle she used to summon the display, and it dissapeared. Her character sheet was a mirage. It didn''t create any real light, but it still left her feeling as if she''d suddenly been cast into darkness when it disappeared. The chunks of ichor and sinew that whirled about inside her like a disturbed blender broke down. A formless, mangled piece of meat passed close to her eye in the chaos, coming out of the haze as -- inches away from her crystal eye -- Cas saw an invisible force violently twisting the piece from a thousand angles. Blood and juice squeezed out of it, as it quickly lost all strength and consistency in Cas''s suddenly hot interior. And, like an old rope breaking, it suddenly fell apart into oil and dark slime. To her colorless eyes, the mass of flowing ichor that filled her body turned suddenly into a black cloud that swallowed up the whole world, mixing into a dense fog that swallowed up all the glimpses of light which had previously managed to sneak through. With the darkness came coolness, and Cas felt that reaction and the heat that drove it slowing down. Her body came with a thousand invisible switches, and Cas tried frantically to repeatedly hit the ''digest'' button. She felt thirsty. "Ugh, ohhgh!" A disgusted exclamation came from far away. Tentatively, Cas moved her eye forward until it pressed against the very edge of her surface, the fog thinning enough there that she could make out Kari in the distance. The girl hunched over next to a tree, pressing a balled up section of her dress against her nose as she valiantly tried not to throw up. Cas still felt thirsty, and, rounding her eye about to point at the Oasis, she tried to move there. There was something stopping her, however, something like a heavy weight in the pit of her gut. Moving her eye down, she was surprised when it bumped into a horned skull and pile of ribs. Gritting in effort, Cas focused, recalling that feeling when thanksgiving was over, and she was just about to... And then Cas fell asleep.
"...Cas" "Ake.. up!" Ugh... Waking up was a distant memory for Cas. It was also a strange process when you didn''t have any eye-lids. It felt as if the world were coming into being. And, currently, what came into being was Kari, standing nervously in front smacking her with a long stick. "Wake, up, you stupid Sakkari! Oh, I knew I shouldnt''ve let you eat that thing." Just as she raised the dried branch into another murder stroke, Cas gathered the wherewithal to create her vocal chords. The process happened in a finger-snap, letting the words, "I''m awake" escape her newly formed lips just milliseconds before Kari bonked her anyway. "Ow!" Cas said, more out of instinct than actual hurt. "You''re alive!" Kari said, surprising Cas with her tears. Cas pitched her voice into a consoling stance. "Yeah, I''m fun, hun. I was just asleep, see?" She waved a stalk about in explanation. Kari sniffled. "I didn''t know Sakkari could sleep." "Yeah, me neither," Cas looked askance around herself. Her body was more clear now. The ground around her was incredibly dry. Unlike the somewhat marshy consistency of the rest of the oasis, it was proper dust around her, and Cas could feel the taproots her body had sunk into the dirt. Inside, there was still a thin haze that sat suspended throughout her body. Looking down, revealed small sticks of bone sat on the floor, looking like dissolved sticks of chalk. She tried calling upon that heat that digested everything and failed, a blaring message greeting her to say: Absorption at Insufficient Level Huh... On some level, Cas felt she knew that. Cas drew herself together. Rising up into a short vortext, the bone fragments whirled up into the center of her body, and the diffuse haze compressed around them into a protective pocket. Honestly, she couldn''t spare the process more than a glance. Cas, jittery with the excitement of a girl with a new toy, gathered all that mess into a short pocket and called on the human figure that vaguely recollected itself around her. It felt like she was in two places at once. There was her slime body, compact and dense and hugging the floor. At the same time, straddling above it like the Vitruvian man was that static sensation which -- in the most intricate detail -- called upon Cas to express her true self. It pulled her slime body up with a magnetic force, molding her body, and at the same time it was drawn down by the weight of matter is called to inhabit it. Cas''s body felt hot, and- "Cas?" Kari said for the fifth time, waving a sleeve in front of her crystal. -and Cas remembered that she was with company, and she paid attention to the fact that the human figure felt very naked, and so she paused her exploration and turned a paintiful glance at Kari and asked: "Do you have any spare clothes by any chance?"
Kari did have spare clothes and hand-me-downs in her inheritance, as it turned out, and Cas was starting to figure out that this village had a cloth based economy. Cas stretched her figure into a cylindrical trunk. Kari, standing on her toes, had to reach her hands over to slide the garb over the slime. Entirely unnecessarily, at her side, she''d also stacked a whole host of wraps and cloth strips that she claimed were underwear. Cas didn''t have much to do beyond play a tree as Kari attended to her, adjusting the folds and bands of the shawl with delicate tugs until it hung beautifully onto the vague figure of a mannequin Cas had formed her gelatinous mass into. "You look so different," Kari prompted for the fifth time. Cas ignored the repetitive statement, answering rotely from the mouth in her midsection. "I''m just larger, Kari. It''s no big deal." Kari fell silent, it seemed she was still recovering from the shock of her apparent death, and the walk from the village and back had done little to clear her head. Desperate to break the silence, Cas spoke. "So... you''re sure the Oasis is a good place to do this?" Kari nodded. "No one will show their face in this place for a week. They wouldn''t come if a Jinguri was chasing after them." "Oh, good, good... it''s nothing bad. It''d just be a lot to explain, ya know?" If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Kari replied with silence. Falling to her knees, she tugged at the hem of the long skirt uselessly, buying time. Cas had explained the basics of what she was planning to the girl, but the girl hardly seemed impressed by the concept. She''d been looking strangely over at Cas since she woke up, and whatever was bothering her had inoculated her to any new shocks. "Can... can I ask you a question?" Kari asked suddenly. "Uhm... sure." "No, I mean, It just might be a rude question to ask," Kari mentioned, standing up and twiddling with the wide hem of her shawl. Kari had seemed suddenly uncertain around her after the change. This surprised Cas. The girl was hardly a master of polite conversation in the first place. Maybe the shock of her death had done something to rock her? But, still, it hardly made sense, what sort of question could be so bothersome. "Uhm..." Kari looked like she was choking, trying to spit the words out and looking like a perfect mirror of herself when she''d been telling Cas about her status as an Unari. It was strange how quickly Cas found herself understanding Kari''s feelings. Spending so long with someone would do that, she supposed, but there was something about the girl that was brilliant and which made Cas want to pay attention, and which made Cas realize that: this would be the first time Kari had ever asked her a direct question about herself. In fact, Cas found it strange, looking back at her memories. Other than Korivenna when she was feeling combative, no one in the entire village had ever asked her to answer a question about herself directly. Everything was done in a polite, slanted manner of assumptions and waiting. And this was all despite the fact that she was a slime from another universe! It boggled her mind how something so obvious could manage to go so over her head. Perhaps it was considered a faux pax in the village? No matter the case, Cas wasn''t about to let any ridiculous traditions like that get in her way, and she answered chipperly: "Kari, we''re friends. You can ask me any questions you like about myself!" The expression on Kari''s face was a christmas miracle. "Really?" "Really," Cas answered, adding after a moment: "I reserve the right not to answer, though. Anyway, what did you want to know." "Oh..." Kari looked embarrassed. "Well... it''s actuallly not that big of a deal-" "Kari!" Cas pulled out her big sister voice. "I know you didn''t waste my time like that to leave it a mystery." "Well..." Kari slid her eyes aside, "I was just wondering, you looked different." "Yes, you''ve mentioned that," Cas said, prompting for more. Frustrated at the lack of support from Cas, Kari finally sighed and spat the question out in full: "Why are you red, now?" "Huh?" Cas looked through herself uselessly, things starting to finally make sense. "Was that why you kept mentioning how different I looked?" "Well... yeah," Kari looked askance, rubbing her arm. "I thought you''d explain eventually, but you kept ignoring it. Sorry if it''s personal or something." Cas laughed. It was amazing how it took this for her to realize that the girl never asked her questions. How many answers had the villagers been able to draw from her with innocuous statements like that. Pouting at the reaction, the girl hunched over into herself. "It''s not funny," she murmured. Apparently, asking any such ''personal'' question was the height of rudeness in this place. "Oh, It''s actually my fault," Cas explained. "I don''t see color, you see." "Huh?" Kari tilted her head in rendition of a bird. "What, so you can''t see things that have color?" "No. I just can''t see the color of things. Everything looks like it''s the same color to me. It''s like... everything looks like it does at night... it''s hard to explain," she finally conceded, realizing she wouldn''t be able to reference movies or even sketches. "In either case, you don''t have to feel embarrassed about asking me questions, ok?" Bashfully, Kari tilted her chin down so that only her eyes peeked over the high collar of her shawl. "So... I can ask you questions about color?" "You can ask me questions about anything. I might not answer everything, but I won''t get mad if you ask. We''re friends, right?" "Right!" the girl answered, bolstered in her response by the affirmation of their friendship. "So... why are you red?" she asked again, a little less hesitantly. "Hmm... I think it might just be the blood of the Calf," Cas theorized. "I ate moss, mostly, when I was green." Kari seemed to accept that answer, and Cas, no longer able to resist that bubbling pit of electricity in her gut, that call from the phantom body that hosted that gut, allowed the body to take hold of her form and let go. Cas had expected something like a gradual change, or flow, as if she were being poured into a mold. The reality was closer to a car crash. On every level, all at once, with a single, violent, explosion, her body changed. The marker of life was change, but it felt like she was dying as an intense energy struck her like the heart of a lightning bolt. And in the heart-beat of that blast, in the short instant that only allowed her body to twitch, ten thousand things happened all at once. The first among these ten thousand things, however, was the second crystal eye formed from nothing in her center, turning her vision into kaleidoscope as she looked into all of space and saw glimpses of the impossible complexity that swarmed into existence across every inch of her body. Cas had no hope of directing even a single one of these processes, as she felt the cells and protein pumps and muscles come into existence, and the bones crystallizing into perfect renditions of tibia, and a rib cage quickly obscuring the beating heart that found itself in a half-constructed body. Complexity had a way of composing itself, however, as all the associated parts organized themselves and Cas felt her eyes moving on their own volition -- or perhaps under the instruction of the rest of the body -- moving up into the darkness of her newly constructed skull, and slotting forward into the sphere of clear fluid, behind the lens made of nothing that looked at the light and constricted just perfectly enough to bring the entire world into focus. It was... amazing. Cas had long forgotten what it was like not to be a slime, and this body... no, this new world was amazing. Turning suddenly she looked up. The sky looked so clear. It felt as if she could stare off into infinity without the distortions of her own body flexing everything into unnatural shapes. KRSCH! KRSCH! "Cas?" a girlish voice came from behind her. The sound of sandals on sound was crisp to her ears, and the voice might as well have belonged to an opera singer for how clearly it sounded out the consonants. In every aspect of her senses, Cas felt as if she''d taken the mufflers off her self. She could feel the cool wind. She knew she was near water by the smell. And her sight, oh goodness her sight! Whipping back around, her body felt like lightning as she focused her gaze on Kari, drinking in the sight of the girl. She didn''t even miss color anymore! Her crystal eyes, bolstered by human lenses... every part of the girl seemed so clear. She wanted to laugh, and she did. "Haha! Hahaheee hehe!" Cas danced lightly on her toes. She could feel the air entering her lungs with a thought. Bringing her hands up, she placed the sweaty palms up against her bust. She had a heart beat! She could feel the vertigo in her gut and the sheer amazement of what she''d just witnessed! She was human again! She could see like an eagle! She could hear like an owl. She felt like a god! And she looked... twelve years old! A brief moment of silence as she looked down at her short figure. The girl''s clothes fit her perfectly. This was expected considering she only had 90 pounds of material to work with, so, really, she didn''t care. "Hehe!" she laughed, collapsing into snorts of joy as she walked over to the girl that stood shock still, looking at her in awe. "Yeah, I think I can get a bit older if I just eat more stuff, but -- " she hopped in place, landing on one leg and posing with outstretched arms "-- I don''t look too bad, huh? I think it looks better, actually, It''d look a little ratchet to be wearing kids clothes as a twenty year old." Slowly, Cas felt bits of her non-professional personality coming back to her. She wasn''t sure if it was because of the new body or her general excitement, but she didn''t care. Strutting about, she tried to do a cartwheel and failed, landing into a laughing mess onto the ground. "Hey, help me up!" she giggled, too happy to pick herself up off the floor. Kari took the girl in both hands, and Cas kept laughing. "Hey, what do you call a- hey," Cas, calming a bit, noticed the curious expression on the girls features. "What''s the matter?" she asked, growing more serious. "Well..." "What?" Cas implored. "It''s just..." Kari paused. She, in fact, didn''t pause for too long, but Cas responded in doubletime in her panic. "What!?" she looked at her back and twirled in place. "What is it?" "Why..." Kari began, still hesitating. "What!?" Cas implored. "Why are you so black?" Kari asked finally, pointing an accusatory finger at the girl. Accounting for Grief Kari, it turned out, was a girl of a thousand questions once unleashed. She was also a girl who liked to play tag. Cas didn''t know the word for ''tag'' in Nemorian, but the challenge of tapping someone, yelling something, and then running away was apparently universally understood, as Kari -- after a brief moment of bewilderment -- sprang after in chase. The Oasis was empty still, and Cas found it to be quite the perfect playground for the game as she planted ran between the trees. Behind her, surprisingly nimble foot-falls heralded Kari''s pursuit. Cas wasn''t sure why she''d impulsively started the game. She just felt so alive, like she was bubbling with joy and just couldn''t stand still for another instant. Ahead of her was a tangle of trees that leant against one another, and Kari, planting her foot hard into the dirt, sprang to a stop, uncoiling into a single bound that took her sideways into the jungle. There she immediately fell into a slide, bounded into a hop over a rotting trunk and stopped herself inches from running into Kari. All the mirth of a jackal was expressed in the little girls smile, as she stood casually with one hand behind her back and the other held forward into a point, where the tip of her index finger bumped lightly against the slime''s dirt streaked shawl. "Caught you!" she smiled.
Apparently, Kari knew all the shortcuts. Cas sulked against a tree-trunk after her twelfth loss. Beside her Kari huffed in exertion, smiling despite the sweat on her features. Cas didn''t really feel tired. Despite that, she remained kind of slow in comparison to the girl, and by now she was starting to see the futility of challenging her. "Ok, ok, why don''t we take a break," Cas acquiesced. "Haha!" Kari laughed in victory, springing both hands up above her. "That was the most fun I''ve had since...!" she continued, still laughing, but softer now. Shaking her head, she switched the topic. "You''re a lot more fun like this, you know. I don''t know why you ever bothered staying as a Sakkari. Your Nemorian form is way better!" "It''s Human, actually," Cas corrected. "See?'' she waved a hand through the space above her head, "no ears." Kari cocked an eyebrow. "Huh, what kind of Nemorian is that?" To which Cas could only shake her head with laughter and say, "Nevermind that! What''s really important is-" like a coiled snake, Cas''s hand struck out and touched the girl. "Tag!" Cas yelled, and turned, and sprinted. Now was this sportsmanlike? No. Unfair? Perhaps. Effective? Cas thought so, as she rounded a bend and made for the tallest palm tree in the area. The tree was a single, tapering, trunk. No branches or foot-holds to speak of. And that was exactly what Cas was counting on as Kari gained on her. Sprinting forward, she leapt high into the air and placed a gentle palm on the woody trunk, willing her hand to stick. In the adrenaline fueled intensity, Cas actually managed to read the message that popped up: Shape Change at insufficient level to change Human Figure. Well... in actuality, she only managed to make out the word ''Insufficient''. But that alone gave her a warning of things to come before her hand slipped off and she crashed face first into a root system. Strangely enough, she saw the crash in perfect clarity. No daze, no blackout, not even a ringing in her ears, just the feel of her head cracking against a rock and the branch impaling through her side. It was in this state that she immediately sprang back up from the crash site, turning around to see Kari''s wide eyed stare, first at her face before her eyes flickered down to the four-foot tree-branch that had impailed through her gut. Of course, intellectually, the girl probably knew this was fine, but Cas -- looking down at herself -- felt she presented quite the special effects as red fluid dripped down her wounds and soaked through the branch and in an expanding circle through her clothes. "Uhm," Cas thought of the best way to console the girl before settling on the most immediate thing. "Could you take the other end of this branch?"
In the end, taking the stains out of her clothes had taken more effort than healing -- which had been automatic. Beside her, Kari held the now clean branch in her hands with some amazement. Cas broached the girl gently. "Are you ok?" A little too enthusiastically, the girl looked back at her with wonder in her eyes. "That... was... amazing! I''ve never seen anything like it!" Not that Cas wasn''t thankful for it, but the responce did bring a question to mind. "You''re not disturbed at all?" she asked. Kari only shook her head. "I see a lot of dead bodies," she explained, gesturing back to the place the calf had been in explanation. "What? They make you handle dead people, too?" The surprise in Cas''s voice afflicted the girl with uncharacteristic shyness as she nodded. "No one else wants to do it," she mumbled lightly. Looking aside, she pulled out a salted jerky and began chewing on it in what Cas was beginning to realize was a nervous habit of the girl''s. "And, did they make your sister do this, too? Back before she discovered her gift?" Kari simply hugged her legs, resting her chin atop her knees. "They were happier when I was born. They said a girl like her was too dirty to touch the dead." Like everything else, this was told in a matter-of-fact manner, but Cas heard anger in the girl''s hoarse voice. "Geeze," Cas could only say. It felt strange. The villagers had been so kind to her, yet. "I mean... it wasn''t all of the villager''s, right?" Kari only sent a disappointed glance her way, and Cas immediately felt like wringing her own neck. Of course that wasn''t the right thing to ask! Why had she even tried to ask that, to diminish the girl''s experience? Just so she could save her own perception of the people she relied upon? Cas let out a pained sigh. "Sorry... that was unfair, huh?" Kari only answered after a long silence. "It wasn''t all the villagers. My mother''s friends... some of them would take us in whenever my mom got angry at us, and the elder got us jobs as corpse handlers. Sometimes they don''t have enough food, though, so we went hungry. My sister gets fed regularly now, and she shares with me whenever I don''t have enough. Everyone''s been afraid that there''s going to be a bad harvest because of the Oasis, so they''ve been hoarding food. Sometimes I had to survive by drying the meat of the animals I had to throw away..." Again, strangely, Cas noticed that in all the girl''s descriptions of her life, she never once uttered the words, ''illegal, or ''bad'', or ''wrong'', or ''unfair'', or ''shouldn''t'', or ''deserve''. These were all words Cas had learned well enough in middle school to write eulogies about them. It was so profoundly sad that such a child lived in a reality where those concepts didn''t come to acknowledge the wrong that had been done to her. Cas wanted to fix all of that! Cas wanted to take that girl and hold her tight and tell her everyone was wrong to do what they did, that she didn''t deserve it, and that Cas didn''t think of her like that at all! Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. Cas knew of the hollowness of words, however. She also knew that forcing Kari to hear the spoiled opinions of someone who''d grown up with a happy, safe image of childhood would be more of a comfort to Cas herself than any actual help to the girl. She wanted to cry out and speak her emotions but she wanted to do it in a way the girl could understand, and she knew that wouldn''t happen by uttering some simple words. Instead, she decided to wait, and pause, and think as she searched her mind for any appropriate, true statement of solidarity. She searched her mind for something that could express her opinion without preaching it. Eventually, Cas just sighed and said: "Honestly, Kari. If that were me, I would''ve run away a long time ago," burying her sadness with a laugh. Cas often made mistakes and substituted simpler words when her vocabulary reached her limit. This was the first time in a long time that her words drew a puzzled expression, however, as Kari tilted her her head at her and said: "run away? What is that?" Cas had essentially made up the word, putting together the words for ''run'' and ''not here'' in the language. Still, she found it difficult to explain otherwise. Struggling, she attempted, "It means... to go somewhere else. It means to go far away so that the people you know can no longer find you." An even more curious expression, one half-filled with mirth. "To die?" Kari asked, "I''m not in that much despair that I''d eat a blade," she laughed. "No, no," Cas attempted her own laugh, though she failed at it. "I mean to go far away while you''re still alive. To go somewhere else." Kari stopped her laugh. It was the most curious expression yet on her face as she asked the polite, but obvious, question: "where would I go to?"
Cas attempted to sleep that night. She wanted a break from the emotions assaulting her. The brief respite she''d experienced after eating the Calf seemed out of reach, however. No... not out of reach, but Cas had the sense that ''sleeping'' wouldn''t do much for her other than leave her to deal with her problems in the morning. Not getting tired apparently also meant that you missed out on the joys of napping. But seriously, how could she have missed the obvious. All this time, she''d been working on the Oasis as if it were a favor to the villagers when -- news flash -- she also lived here and had nowhere to go. And, even if she did have somewhere to go, like that depressing ass cave, she couldn''t exactly let Kari die of starvation and sickness, either. Kari... An image of the always smiling girl flashed through her mind. She... couldn''t be distracted by the girl''s troubles at the moment. She had to fix the Oasis first, and then she could use whatever clout that achievement got her to improve the girl''s life. People were already acting nicer to her because of their relationship! Right, so she just had to focus on fixing the Oasis and that was that. The moon was visible outside her window. It cast a silvery light that glinted off the polished vases and sacks of food that she''d been gifted. It appeared midnight had come to pass. Outside, she could hear the last of many idle conversations dying as neighbors exchanged goodbyes and went to sleep. There had been many questions about Cas''s new color... well, not direct questions, but more than enough unusual glances and mentions of her looking different. It seemed that taboo against asking direct questions ran deeply. And Cas was more than happy to abuse it. Still, she wasn''t keen on inviting too many more non-questions by revealing her human form, so she waited for another hour, until the moon slid across to hide behind the other edge of her window sill, and she was sure that everyone in the village had gone to sleep. Flexing that intention which seemed more primed than ever inside of her, she opened her character sheet, whereupon she was greeted with the familiar ping of unread emails. Level XP cap reached: 4 -> 6! Maximum Health Updated! 40 -> 200! Hardening Level Updated! 3 -> 12! Shape Change Level Updated! 8 -> 10! New Skill: Human Figure! And then, on a separate pop up: Core Attribute Update: Closing past all those, Cas decided to take an overview of her character sheet. Entity: Cas Classification: AquaMorph Slime Level: 6 XP: 317 / 3200 Abilities: Skills Human Figure *LVL 60 Special Feat* Create Voicebox Create Stilts Vital Stats: Core Attributes: This was... actually quite different from the game she remembered playing Siablo III. For one, she leveled up because she ate an already dead calf. Granted, she didn''t level up much, but it seemed that leveling up in the real world required a bit more than the satisfaction of a job well done. More curiously, her charisma had increased. Could it just be because she got larger? Were larger slimes more endearing? Maybe it was just accounting for the fact that she was more noticeable now? Going into the excell interface, she modified the spider graph to no longer include Constitution. Being a slime, her constitution had grown large enough that it was starting to overshadow every other stat... and that did not make for a very readable graph. She wondered what the new graph might show once she took human form. Intending deeply, she once again let that phantom body take hold of her, the second eye coming into existence and -- now that she wasn''t paying such close attention -- Cas was surprised to discover that the entire process concluded over the course of a single breath. It was like a roll of hot energy that molded her into shape and quickly set her there. Her character sheet, hovering in existence before her, glimmered like the dashboard of a crashing airplane, sending colorless updates in rapid fire. Armor Rating Increased! 4 ¡ú 16 Movement added! Core Attribute Updates: Entity: Cas Classification: AquaMorph Slime Level: 6 XP: 317 / 3200 Abilities: Skills Human Figure Create Voicebox Create Stilts Vital Stats: Core Attributes: Cas moved her body with ready familiarity, bringing a curious finger up to couch her chin. The physical stats made enough sense. Armor because she had thicker skin, and she could dodge better. Strength was obvious, having muscles and a skeletal system was helpful for that. Constitution was strange, though. She''d thought that was dependent solely on mass, but perhaps there was something about her human body that was more resilient? Her mental stats, however, made no damn sense. Charisma she could understand, but why did wisdom go up? Why did intelligence!? Cas tested herself to see if she felt smarter. ''What was 23 times 24?'' she asked herself, and then immediately began scribbling the digits into the sand... oh. Hmm, taking a step back from herself, she went back and paid more attention to the layout of her character sheet. As far as she could discern, her sheet was just this world''s way of presenting information in a way she could understand. The language it used was arbritrary, the number system it used was just a convention, and Cas wondered whether the stats it chose to present weren''t just another convention, too. After all, there were a thousand different facets of the mind, and they interplayed in a hundred-thousand different ways, and her character sheet trimmed down all that complexity into three whole numbers. Naturally, this was bound to give strange results. In the end, Cas decided it was probably best not to pay too much attention to the numbers, and focused on the more practical matter of that earlier message that had hounded her. Focusing, she looked at her hands, tried to turn the palms, and just the palms, into the sticky, slime material she was best known for. Shape Change at insufficient level to change Human Figure. Her failure was attested to by the message. Cas was not one to let failure dissuade her, however, and she had a long, sleepless night ahead of her to see if she couldn''t cheese this. Cardinal Rules Village elder Nemaris had a humble abode. It was perhaps a house built as a statement, that the village elder wasn''t better than anybody else. Still, that statement made for quite cramped quarters whenever an intertribal meeting was being held. The elders of the other four villages sat present, bumping knees along the north wall of the house while Cas wobbled in slime form ahead of them. Nemaris was the youngest man there, the other elders looking generally like the type, and he seemed quite a bit more deferential in their presence than she was used to. Age was quite the bit of status in this village. Even girls that were one year apart reffered to one another with respectful titles, needless to say of the elders. So, it was quite the signal of importance, when the Fari elder declined to speak first. "The Sage has more important things to say, let''s not waste time with formalities." Cas was thankful for his practicality, and generally stood in the background while Nemaris did most of the talking. The negotiations were routine and everyone was quite in agreement about everything. Mainly, they were about manpower allocations and a general agreement to support Cas should she ever call upon their help for something regarding the Oasis. Still, the Fari elder was a crafty man despite his age. His eyes had never strayed too far from the talking slime during the entirety of the meeting, and it was only near the end of the proceedings, during a lull in the conversation, that he surprised her with a question. "Sakkari, Nemaris says that you have a plan to save the Oasis." Nemaris had said no such thing, of course, but the Fari elder had seen and heard much over the course of his life. He''d met many grifters and heard the lies they told, and he knew that such people -- vain and prideful -- were quick to agree to anything that allowed them to preen. Fortunately, Cas was a different type of liar. She was a liar that had to make reports to a doctoral board, and she knew the value of admitting ignorance. Though, the words this language provided her to speak with such tact was sometimes lacking. Still, she didn''t drop her professional habit as she crawled forward onto center stage and addressed the audience. "I haven''t discerned the exact cause of the drought, yet. I''m certain the waters can be returned, however." The elder laughed a jovial laugh. "You''re a tricky one, Sage. You at least know how to sound honest." "Pardon?" Cas laughed. "Oh, it''s no bad thing to lie for a good cause," the elder quoted a proverb. "Even a good man hides his knife in the desert. Besides, a thief can''t honestly complain about another thief. We''re all lying to the rest of the people, after all." At this the rest of the elders took on a nervous countenance. "The people are on the verge of losing their minds, Elder," Nemaris retorted. "It''s best to calm them while the Sage discovers a solution." "Perhaps," the Fari elder nodded slightly. "Still, the water is draining, and the people will believe their eyes more than our words if things go as they are." Cas broke in. "I''m learning more each day, and the more I learn, the more hopeful I''m getting." "Is that so?" The Fari elder wasn''t dismissive, but it was clear he didn''t find her hedging inspiring. "My life is at stake here, too," Cas reminded them. "I''m not despairing." A twinkle came to the man''s eye. He''d never been so talktative in years! He realized this as he retorted: "Oh? What have you to worry? Legends say that a Sakkari can live as long as there''s the night air to revive it." "I''ve heard of that legend," Cas answered, adding simply: "I''m not keen to find out!" The elder, perhaps the only one comfortable in the room, broke out into laughter. "Ahaha!" slapping his knee he rose up into a proper sitting stance. "I say, you''re at least worth investing in. Are we all agreed?" The question came powerfully, though the answers were a bit more lukewarm. "Call upon Nemaris, and we will do anything we can to help your project." "Actually," Cas interjected, "there is something you can do for me right now." At their curious looks, she continued: "I have work to do in the Oasis. I''d like you to ask all the villagers to stay away from it for the next week." Curious looks were abound, and the replies came plainly. "Hmm," the Fari elder considered. "Nemaris, one of your herd calves died in the Oasis yesterday, did it not?" "Stillborn, elder," Nemaris answered. "Then it should be a simple enough matter. Elder Kota -- " the Fari elder raised a hand to preempt one of the other elders. "I understand that your town is far from the Oasis, and that your well has already dried. I''ll allow your people to use my towns well for the week." Elder Kota bowed. "You grace us with your generosity." "Is that all?" the Fari elder looked around. "Well... in that case, I believe it''s best to allow Elder Nemaris to adjourn the meeting. Although, I do question," he turned a keen glance onto Cas, "what sort of work is so important that you require such secrecy." Cas answered with blunt simplicity: "Work that will save the villages."
Cas hung from a tree in the Oasis, messin'' around. No, she didn''t lie about the important work... Kari was doing all of that. "Uhm... take larger steps, Kari!" she advised from the tree tops. Sixty feet below, Kari, a hemp bag in hand, was walking in a spiral pattern across sand. Stopping every five paces, she took a small, clay jar out of her bag, filled it with sand, and closed it with a lid before placing it down where she''d taken the sample. Cas, meanwhile, was playing with her new body. It wasn''t a body per se. Rather, it was just a form that Cas molded her body into. Harden had advanced enough that she could create truly hard parts of her body. From there, it was a simple matter to create rods, and cartilage, and joints, and to put those all together into an entire skeleton. At first, she''d started off simply, creating a wire-frame skeleton where every joint was a ball joint. But, eventually, cross referencing her memories of her own body, watching the details as she transformed into her human form, she started getting more accurate. The 26 joints of her foot, all their articulations and interactions she''d memorized, and she''d learned enough about their interaction to create a simplified foot and ankle system that she could actually run on! Her knee, she''d sculpted and observed down to the angle of every ridge and locket. Her hips, were much the same. The spine, she allowed some more simplifications for... after all, did you really need thirty something vertebrae? And her hands... well, who needed hands, really. Yes, Cas had gotten lazy near the end, but the end result of her laziness was a form she''d memorized well enough to make a skill out of it. Golem The skill appeared under a new section of her character sheet called "bodies", and it appeared in real life as a horror. Short, slimy and transparent, It was perpetually hunched for the sake of maintaining balance. Inside of its gelatenous body, bones and muscles could be seen twitching discordantly, and solid, armor plating covered the outside of its chest in place of a rib-cage. It''s head was a simple cube of armor with two holes punched out for its eyes. It''s arms were just noodles of slime-stalk material. In truth, there was no stat where the true human form didn''t come out looking better. However... this form came with the advantage of still being a slime. And, sixty feet up the side of a ninety foot palm tree... that was quite the advantage indeed. Cas, hugging the trunk with both legs, reached a stalk hand up, and up, and up, until -- plop! Cas slapped it onto a spot of trunk fifteen feet above her. Throwing her second stalk up there, colling them together into a lasso around the trunk, she shifted her legs, standing feet first on the trunk and walked up the side. It was slow going, and much strain was put on her stalk arms, with Cas having to dissolve her chest armor to bolster them with harden. Still...It was walking pace, and that took her to the treetop in seconds. The trees were a sort of natural wind breaker for the Oasis. Near the center, the only hint of wind would have been the quiet howl of wind that streamed across the outside sands. The treetops, however, were a different story entirely. Legs wrapped tightly around the shaking stem of a palm-tree, Cas wobbled as the fan-like stem drooped under her weight and caught the wind like a sail, shaking in rolling waves that threatened to buck Cas off into a rapid descent. Reaching up an arm, Cas caught the stem of an outlying branch above her. She no longer felt any anxiety on account of heights or great falls, so it was quite a surprise to Cas to discover that -- underneath all that vertigo and terror -- being at such heights could actually feel quite peaceful and safe. So far above the rest of the world, distance shrunk every obstacle and danger into an abstract picture of itself. The sand looked smooth, and the wind felt nice against her body. It reminded her of when she''d first arrived here with the Zanzibat, clutching onto the things jaws and running through the air on borrowed wings. It was a shame she hadn''t enjoyed that brief flight more, it wasn''t like she''d get the opportunity to fly in this... world... again. Cas''s brain frizzed against itself as the words crashed against the sensible parts of herself. Stretching her stalks out further, Cas wrapped them several times around the trunk of the giant leaf above her, pulling herself up to stand on the shady branch below. It was springy, bouncing several times whenever she shifted her weight against it. It would make for a good enough spring board she decided. Sticking her feet to it, she unraveled her arm-stalks. Quickly, she lengthened her shoulder joint into a curved, perpendicular staff of bone. Having neither the time, nor patience for constructing a new set of joints, Cas settled for a hack job. The six-foot cross of bone ran across her shoulder like a giant kite set. From it, stretching down to her knees, a thick blanket of slime material -- hardened into a leathery consistency -- hung like the wings of a flying squirrel. Allready, the slight wind billowed them open and forced Cas to grip her feet harder to stay on. Cas wasn''t expecting a full flight of course, not necessarily even a proper glide. But, with two sets of parachutes at her side, she certainty felt confident and adventurous enough to spring lightly off her feet and catch the coming wind with a whoop!
Kari had always been of the opinion that Cas was a grumpy person. Always short with her, perpetually ''busy'' with seemingly pointless tasks, Cas never seemed to be in any sort of mood that could entertain entertainment. Kari very much missed that old Cas, because now she was the one that had to do the pointless tasks. Waking up that morning, Kari had been handed a bag full of jars, and told that the lives of hundreds were at stake unless she collected sand well enough. When Kari complained, Cas told her to think of it as a game. What kind of game was that!? Not wanting to destroy the Oasis, however, Kari simply continued with scrupulous intensity, walking five paces, squatting down, taking a measured cup of sand, and placing it in a jar exactly where she''d found it before taking another five steps. As the work went on, Kari felt herself less and less amused with the happiness of others, and she found herself understanding the old Cas more and more. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Cas, when she''d first arrived had been friendly, sociable, and eager to talk. Kari placed another jar down with shaking fingers, wondering if she didn''t put too much sand into that one. She''d become a lot quieter lately, though, and Kari was sorry to have ever blamed her. The welfare of others was a heavy burden to carry. She''d have to apologize to Cas, later, Kari concluded. She''d never really appreciated how much responsibility Cas was bearing until now, and how much angst- "Wahhhhhh!" Cas''s voice ran like a disco-light as she tumbled straight down and crashed into the hissing sand, throwing a dust cloud onto the carefully prepared jars Kari had set out for her. In the end, Kari decided against making amends.
The red coloring that suffused her interior, made the false muscles into a macabre simulacrum of meat. Cas''s figure was hunched and crooked, and it walked with an awkward gait. Her face was a featureless box of false bone with two dark circles for eyes. Occasionally, in the right light, a subtle glint could be discerned from their dark interior. Even her mouth was grotesque, a simple line that ran across her belly, connected to an umbilical chord that mixed in amongst the crisscross of false muscle to connect to a a primitive lung. Currently, that figure was sat on the edge of the Oasis. "Next," Cas held out her left stalk, into which Kari placed a jar. Cas''s legs were gone, having been transformed into a rectangular plate that she was currently using as a make-shift tabletop. Flicking her left stalk, a splash of sand fell onto her ''lap''. Her right stalk, the end having been transformed into a massive magnifying glass... flexed with unnatural precision as she scanned over the tabletop. Seeing the sand particles had settled, she ever so slightly softened the rectangle of slime material. The sand, being so much heavier, sunk. The slimes were left floating among a hostile environment, and Cas''s eyes -- which saw them as distinctive glimmers in the light -- had an easy time of the count. Twenty three in that batch. Looking up at her notepad, she scribbled the information for jar 23-C. "Next," she held out her hand, waiting a second too long before repeating the demand, looking up from her workspace for the first time. Kari was looking away from her, hands cupping her face. "Can you please just turn back into a human." The request was spoken softly. Cas looked down at herself as if in surprise. It wasn''t surprise at Kari''s words, but at the fact that it had taken her this long to realize this. Corpse carrier or not, the girl was still a child, and Cas doubted she was much used to seeing walking skeletons about, unlike Cas who''s childhood binge of walking dead movies might have prepared her for such a thing. "Oh, I''m sorry. I actually kind of need to stay in this form for this," Cas explained. "How about this, though?" she asked, hardening her exterior, obscuring her interior with the deep-red flush that now colored her skin. Kari, looking back, only shook her head. "Huh..." Cas felt annoyed at her own impatience. "I''m almost done here anyway. Why don''t you take a break?"
It was a late night, and -- desert temperatures could turn rather chilly at night. Cas had been the one to insist they stay in the Oasis overnight, and Kari had been the one to complain about the cold, so of course Cas took it upon herself to play tent. Cas sprung up into the shape of a simple pole-tent, thinning out her top to let the star-light shine through to the girl underneath. Currently, that girl was snoring, and Cas was scrolling over their findings. Having transported herself into a region outside of the reach of the metric system, Cas found she had to get creative with her measurements, but otherwise she found her results to be incredibly consistent. Running the numbers. She estimated that 2000 liters per day of slimes were coming into the system. Tracking the slimes, most usually ended up dissolving into the dew, feeding the trees, or just straight up becoming one with the lake. Cas, being large enough, now, to maintain some separation from the rest of the environment, had even sunk down to the bottom of the Oasis, looking for survivors... nada. Those few slimes that managed to survive long enough to get a water-resistant skin... well, similar story to the cave, they got munched up by the various bugs that called the Oasis home. It was apparent that the slimes were bringing water to the system. Cas almost laughed at the absurdity of it. Here she''d been expecting ground water, and it turned out that two thousand liters of water was literally marching out of the desert to come to the Oasis. The slimes, desperate to get away from the desert, created their own deathtrap. What was less funny, was that -- accounting for evaporation and human use -- the Oasis needed three thousand liters of new water per day to break even. At that rate, it should have dried up in a little less than three years, the fact that Cas was looking into this drought five years after it started implied that it was speeding up, and that it was likely to get worse... Cas had so many answers figured out, but her mind was a greedy one that wanted so many more. She''d had Kari lay out the Jars in a specific pattern, and she''d labeled each of the specific jars accordingly. Essentially, that allowed her to turn the excel data into a sort of map. Don''t get too excited, her character sheet didn''t have any map features. Rather, she was forced to make a map manually in her notes, using letter combinations to define terrain like it was some kind of emoji. Cas felt slightly degraded by her work. This was the kind of bullshit she used to spring onto the unpaid interns! Calming herself from the thought, she focused on the shitty map.
xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx xxx xxx xxx OOO
xxxx xxxx xxxx xxx xxx xxx xx xxx xxx OOO
N xxxx xxxx xxxx xxx xxx xxx xx xx OOO OOO
O xxxx xxxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xx OOO OOO OOO
R xxxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xx xx OOO OOO
T xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xx OOO OOO OOO
H xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xx xx x OOO OOO
xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xx xx OOO OOO OOO
xxx xxx xxx xxx xx xx xx x OOO OOO
xxx xx xx xx xx xx xx x x OOO
As was her habit, Cas designed the map so simply that an intern could''ve made it. Each square represented a area of land. The OOO''s represented the borders of the Oasis, and the x''s represented the density of slimes in the area. More x''s, more slimes. See? Simple. Day one of studying slimes had shown Cas that slimes died in the sun. And the further they traveled through the desert, the more of them died before they could make it to the Oasis. This, of course, meant that they were coming from somewhere relatively close by. The only question was where. And, of course, that was where their sun allergy came in handy. See, it was Cas''s hypothesis that the most slimes would survive on the most direct path between the Oasis and their birthing place. That straight line was easy enough to see in the data. As Cas drew out the final blocks of the Oasis, a vague line of high slime-density had formed to the north-east. Of course, the data gathered from so few samples was rough, and ''northeast'' as a direction was pretty vague. However, Cas did find herself unsurprised, as she extended an eye-stalk out from the top of the tent, pointed it to the north east, and saw -- rising high as if to blot out her vision -- the familiar face of the rock-spire which was the source of so many mysteries. Aerial Combat Cas was excited. No, like, really excited, more excited than she''d ever been in this life or her last. Because, studies usually didn''t end like this. Cas had ran and participated in over a dozen research studies over the course of her career. Studies where an entire staff worked months straight of all nighters, studies where graduate students poured their blood sweat and tears and tenured professors sacrificed their marriages because they were so obsessed with getting results. She''d participated in studies where they''d spent a hundred grand on a single machine and chopped off the heads of ten thousand mice... only to end up with nothing. That was the nature of most things, Cas had accepted. No result, inconsequential results, a discovery that your life''s purpose did not, in fact, matter. It was a racket. Consequently, Cas was a pessimist when it came to this sort of thing. Privately, in her heart, despite what she''d told the villagers and what she''d allowed Kari to believe, Cas never once hedged that she''d discover the source of the problem, or that it would be fixable even if she had. She never allowed herself to believe that this could end in anything remotely pretty. That was in the past, now. Cas felt the sublime ease of having a great weight lifted off her shoulders as she lifted her eye-stalk skywards, looking up at the dark-spire. It was a tall form silhouetted against the moonlight and casting a black shadow that cut the desert in half. The shadow was dark, but all around it, Cas could see millions of twinkling lights where the slimes''s numbers reached their night time peak. They were smart enough, most of them, to time their over-ground movements during the cool hours. It was a beautiful sight, though the distance obscured any details of what went on near the tower. A short snort, followed by a constipated cough interrupted Cas''s musings. Cas had sealed off her tent body to keep the night air out... perhaps a bit too well, she noticed, as she looked through the transparent housing and saw a dense, suffocating fog building up on her interior. Flexing her figure, two flaps opened up at either side of the tent, moving like palm fronds to usher fresh air into the space. Drowsily, Kari blinked her eyes open, looking annoyed. "Whatszis-" she murmured, looking up at the crystal eye sat perched in the upper beam of the tent. Cas''s first instinct was to shake the girl awake and scream the good news into her ears, but something stopped her. The girl, bleary eyed and clumsy, as she rolled back over herself to get into a comfortable position, reminded Cas a lot of her little sister. Perhaps, she''d been treating the girl too familiarly, Cas realized. It had been easy to treat the girl as a sidekick when she was a ball of slime, and even easier in some ways when she took on a human form. Cas now played the part of a sentinel, standing guard over the girl. It reminded her that the girl''s friendship wasn''t so simple. Cas was maybe the only person in her life she could grasp a hold of, after all. It wasn''t her place to share the heartache and disappointment of setbacks because Cas shared too much too early. Still, as the last remnants of wakefulness drained out of the girl, Cas couldn''t help but whisper: "Hey... hey, Kari. I think I found a way to fix this. I think everything''s going to be ok..." Kari''s reply was clear despite her weak voice. "Hmm... I wish you hadn''t." she replied sleepily, the reply coming automatically and with no forethought that could''ve implied deception. "I wish you''d just..." and the girl drifted away.
Flying was easy once you lost eighty-five pounds. A gentle flap of her wings, one that left Cas straining like she was deadlifting the entire sky, and her body rose another foot into the air, gliding forward at a trotting pace. Another, herculean effort to force her massive wings down, and another gentle glide upward. It was amazing how suddenly take-off happened. A dozen failed designs, hundreds of minute adjustments, and all it took was this. Flight was more a matter of altitude than height, Cass had realized. The last two days of practice had been her gradually extending the length of her agonizing descents from the top of a tree. But, gliding only turned into flying once you could gain altitude yourself. As long as each wing flap could just give her an inch of altitude... well, then she could go and touch the sky, getting there one inch at a time. The desert below her was a giant baking pan, and Cas was only ten feet along when updrafts of hot air rose up to greet her wings. "Whoaaaa...." Kari''s amazed proclamation disappeared into the distance as the world fell a thousand feet below her. It was a fun ride, if a harrowing. The updraft threw up eddies around her wings, and the headwinds canted her body up into a stall that threatened to flip her in two directions as once. Her, slow, inexperienced reactions to the surprises always came a second too late, and Cas was left in a perpetual scramble to keep her body aloft. All in all, it was an experience that reminded her of drowning in the middle school swimming pool. Her astounding indifference to the danger of heights helped to keep her calm, however, and soon she''d reached an altitude of calmer winds. Another, heavy wingbeat and Cas relaxed her wings into a soft glide, looking forward and getting comfortable as she aimed for the rock pillar. ... Cas had made the early mistake of designing her body to look like a bird, rather than trying to make it fly. Yes, yes, birds do fly, but that''s not all they do. Birds needed legs so that they could land, beaks so that they could eat, heads to hold their faces. They needed a large body to hold their heart, lungs, intestines and livers. They had so much crap weighing them down just so they could ''live''. Cas had no such restrictions. Her body was, in the main, just a giant wing. Two large wings, shaped carefully into ellipses, twisted into arcs that hundreds of trial-runs had in formed, meet neatly in the middle of her body, which spared only a slight bump in order to house her crystal eye. Behind, a small fan of slime, held in place by a triangular skeleton and winching pully-muscles, was formed into an imitation of a bird''s tail-feathers. In the front, a short, thin neck held out a dense sphere of hardened material, hardly larger than a small marble. It was there more for weight distribution than anything else, and Cas hardly paid it any attention. Above, a stabilizing rudder stuck out of her back like a shark-fin. It was the only appendage without a muscle, relying on Cas''s shape change to twist into whatever spiral flight conditions required of it. Thankfully, flight conditions were calm and breezy at this altitude, and Cas was left with very little to occupy her mind for the long flight ahead. Well, at least, that was the case until character sheet, as if sensing her boredom, popped up to say hi. New Form Unlocked: Form 1 Would you like to rename? A naming field blinked under the question, hovering over the new body''s stats. Form 1: Stats. Vital Stats: Core Attributes: This notification came with a sudden, sparkling sensation that ran across her body. It was the feeling of familiarity, the feeling of being comfortable in her own skin. Strange enough to say, but... you know you can move your arm, and it just moves? How you can walk or dance or do any sort of complicated thing and your body just knows how to fire off the hundreds of muscle twitches to get the job done. Cas felt suddenly that she knew how to construct this body. Feeling confident, she turned her eye left, willing her body to bank smoothly... which it did with the hesitating, jerky motions of an amateur. Hmm... she supposed there was no substitute for practice when it came to actually piloting the body, however. Cas had made it a rule not to glance at her character sheet while she was designing the body, certain that chasing stats would do nothing good for her design process. So, she was surprised to discover that she had Movement: 60 and Charisma 48! And the charisma was the real charmer. That was higher than her human form! Movement 60 was surprising considering she was flying at walking speed. Heck, she was an hour into this flight and she was only half way to her destination! The rock was only ten miles away! Still, she considered, flight alone must''ve counted for a lot. ... Cas thought it a shame that she hadn''t managed to make her bird-based designs work. If she had, choosing a name might''ve been so much easier. As it was, ninety minutes into her flight, she stalled, throwing ideas at the wall. ''Kite'' as a name, was out. Too childish, Cas considered. ''Spitfire'' was too extra. ''Flying machine'' sounded dumb. ''Glider lacked creativity." It was amazing how many thoughts were contained in such a static figure. Cas had designed her body for stability, first of all. She felt every body that she''d glided through the air, and this design sat heavily in the wind, moving with large, lethargic sweeps, reluctant to change direction even when Cas herself tried to get it to. It was, simply put, a glider with training wheels. Cas was glad for that. The design had saved her from crashing twice already. But, this also came with the unintended side-effect of making her look strange. Unlike most things in the sky, Cas''s body flew like a brick statue, staring at it, the only hint of motion in the alien body were the shifting colors running throughout its surface, as red pigment came up to protect it from the hot sun-rays. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. This strange and alien figure, colored like a blood-drop against the blue sky, was quick to attract the attention of eyes trained to see open wounds as weakness. Cas heard the first vulture before she saw it. The second sense with which she noticed it was touch, as a hard beak knocked lightly against her rudder, wobbling her body with a curious, testing fashion. Cas had seen no need for a head on this design. So, of course, in her infinite wisdom, Cas didn''t allocate a budget for one. Her eye, she''d figured, could just float around in the center of her body and look around. She only realized her mistake thirty minutes ago, when she tried to look left. Her underside, a flattened plane -- was an excellent viewbox. Every other direction on the other hand... the wings to her sides, the dorsal fin up top, the pointed rear and complex head, everywhere around her was a fun-house maze of distortions that made vision quite impossible. So, with the sun arriving and temperatures rising, Cas had felt little compunction about darkening her exterior until it was an opaque, cherry red. Stylish color, not a great design for windows. As soon as she felt that first knock against her dorsal fin, however, Cas withdrew all the pigment to her interior and looked up. She could see three distorted figures flying in lazy arcs above her, crisscrossing their paths as they scattered up, apparently startled by the sudden color change. It was difficult to make out any identifying features through the distortion, but Cas could make out enough to tell they had four wings. ''Vultures'', the thought came, remembering the circling figures that had apparated above the fallen Calf''s corpse. Apparently, they were still hungry, not that Cas had left them anything to eat in the first place. Feeling bolder, one of the figures descended again, knocking against her rudder with its beak, as if testing the strange vehicle''s reaction. Cas only wobbled in the wind. In fact, it was all she could do. She was barely flying as she was, any shape change or drafting action was out of the question for her unless she wanted to pick up plummeting as a new hobby. She couldn''t even shout at them because she didn''t have the space inside her body to create a lung, much less vocal chords. In a grim twist of irony, Cas found herself stranded in the air. Still, she wasn''t worried. They weren''t being threatening. The vultures were circling around her now, and one came into view below. Strange, black-feathers with a furry texture hugged against its body. A head like a snake dangled down on a scaley neck, slitted eyes turning to look back at her. Cas, felt no panic on account of this. Vultures were scavangers, not active predators. Glock, glock. Cas felt herself tilting, talons lightly scraping along her hardened back, as blunt teeth began teething at her dorsal rudder. Everything was fine. Cas told herself. CRGMBL. A strange, crunchy sound, like that of breaking chiken bones sounded as the vulture easily tore away a corner of her rudder. The sudden mangle of her flight surface buffeted the winds around her, and her entire body shook. Everything was absolutely fine! Cas yelled the thought. They''d back off once they got a taste of her acid! Flicking her eye up, she could see the lizard-vulture licking it''s scaley lips at the taste. Apparently able to stomach her taste. Cas felt she shouldn''t have been surprised that a carrion eater could handle something as mild as acid. She was surprised to find that the vulture was willing to share, however, as it raised its head and let out a triumphant caw. Whatever the vulture was saying, it''s partners reacted like they''d just heard a five-star yelp review. The chaotic sound of black wings flapping closed in on Cas, and she could see the light being blotted out as all immediately rushed towards her. Cas banked her wings, went nose down, and dove.
People often made the mistake of conflating diving with falling. No, diving wasn''t falling, not even close. Falling was falling. Diving was commitment. For the first time in a long time, Cas felt the weight of commitment crushing her with sudden vertigo. As she banked down, cresting over the top of her stall, for a split second she recalled the feeling of being in the front seat of a roller coaster, as the whole vehicle shook and you rode slowly up the first crest... Well, this was kind of like that, if you weren''t wearing a seatbelt. Cas banked down and rushed forward at a blazing... twenty miles per hour. Her own design now turned against her, as the body automatically stabilized itself into a gentle, thirty degree decline that urgently ushered her towards the rock spire at legal speeds. The buzzards fell back for a second, more out of surprise than anything else, Cas was sure, and quickly caught up, flapping gently and flying literal circles around her as they gave a curious chase. Cas found herself frustrated. Had she still been human, she could have grit her teeth, stamped her feet, broken something or even just cried out for goodness'' sake! But here it was, again, that nightmare of being trapped immobile while monsters looked to kill you. Grack. Grack. The sound rang hollowly through her interior, as balled up talons repeatedly harried her, knocking against her wings and body, apparently having just as much difficulty trying to destabilize her flight pattern. Cas, looked away from the vultures, as their distorted figures hovered above her, coming down in turns to harry her. Instead, she focused her attention forward, towards the rock spire, and it was such a focus as she''d never felt before in her life. As far as Cas was concerned, in that moment, nothing existed in the world except for that spire and the plans she had with it. She dove further, and -- flexing her body -- drew in all the stabilizers she''d grown on the underside of the body, shortening her wings and drawing her weight balance forward. The changes applied in real time, and she could hear their effects as the air started whistling over the tips of her wings, and the ground started rushing closer. The spire was about a quarter mile ahead of her at this point, and at the speed she was going- Badum-Badum, Badum-Badum, Badum-Badum. It wasn''t fast enough. Cass didn''t bother looking up, she could hear them. Their four-winged flight heralded them along on an alien rhythm, and -- chancing a glance up -- she could see they''d changed tactics to diving. She caught one just as it came to slam against her wing. Cas dropped the wing -- shape-changing it so that it sprung in to miss the vulture by a hair. The manuever banked her into a hard right spiral which she rode until she was facing the mountain again. She''d gained speed, and she was almost where she needed to be. The changes she''d made -- hasty, sloppy -- they''d made her faster, but she was no longer flying in any proper sense. The best she could manage now was a controlled fall. The vultures seemed to sense this, backing off as they split apart, each gaining on the other as if hedging on her crash site. Growing her wing back into place, Cas streamed back into level flight, the excitment of a finish line hitting her as she beelined for the spire and- WHOOOOOOOOOOOSH! The spire and it''s constant updrafts had been a bane to her when she''d first climbed it. The wind drew away her moisture and the noise drove her insane, but -- Cas surfed over the top of the spire, rising a third again over it''s total height in an unexpected rebound -- Cas thought she could find it in her heart to forgive the mountain. The spire seemed to act like a giant chimney, directing all the ground-bound winds upward into a massive spiral of air that left Cas feeling like she could see the entire world. Flicking her eye downward, Cas applauded herself gleefully, expecting to see confused, frustrated vultures pecking at the ground or looking confusedly upward. The vultures were patient and experienced creatures, however. They lived in the sky and had a sense for it that preempted her clever plans. Cas realized this too late when she didn''t see any vultures below -- Badum-Badum, Badum-Badum, Badum-Badum. The sound -- barely heard over the spire''s howling updrafts, gave Cas just enough warning to look back before the vulture slammed into her, and sent her tumbling.
Falling was a dream. Her body tumbled around her, but the world was perfectly still. Her eye stabilized itself, and she could see the rest of the body tumbling about its axis as the top of the spire came rushing up. The updrafts only became more intense the closer she came to the roof of the spire, and that slowed her just enough to gather her bearings, spreading out her wings, she arrested her fall, coming to a screetching halt and transitioning to a forward dive. The roof of the spire came up, and her harried, fast flight came to a crashing halt against the ground-draft, transitioning her to a fast flight that just barely kept her from scraping against the top of the spire as she darted across the top and fell off the other side. It was embarrassing. Despite all this manuevering and desperate gambles on her end, the birds seemed to have no issue keeping a casual pace with her. Immediately she dove as she came across the edge. Flying forward several hundred feet to escape the updraft, she banked hard into a wide spiral that slowly dove her down to face the base of the plateau. Her mind was doing a thousand things as she banked, and twisted and dove and kept a fearful ear out for the diving vultures. She never turned away, however, from the scanning gaze she shot across the base of the spire. Looking with careful eyes for any strange shadows, for any flashes of darkness for... there! The cave! Without a moments hesitation, she drew her wings in, buzzed her rudder down into a decorative thing, and screamed into a hail-mary dive. Gravity pulled her gradually but unceasingly, as the wind picked up into a buffet, then a pitch, then a howl, and then into a noise she''d never heard the wind make before as it streamed over her skin. Cas wasn''t faster than the vultures, she knew. But she outraced them anyway, because she wasn''t planning to slow down. She knew she could survive the fall, she just needed to make it into that cave. BFRBFRBFRFBRBFR A sound like a piece of paper rattling against the spokes of a bike wheel. Cas turned her eye too late. The top of her right wing was wobbling, looking like water as high speed winds battled against it''s surface. Cas barely had any time to appreciate the sight before her wing exploded. ... Did you know that if you jumped out of a plane at thirty thousand feet, you would hit the ground in around twenty seconds. Cas was one hundred feet off the ground when the disaster occurred. And she''d been diving at the time, too. Two seconds passed in a flash before she crashed. She had lost half her mass with her wing. She didn''t even try to salvage her flight, instead coiling herself up into a tight baseball and hardening. The world went dark as dense, hardened, slime closed around her crystal eye, and two seconds passed in darkness, and in silence, before her crash into the world. The slime, a ball barely larger a fist, hit the sand like a cannonball, throwing up a line of dust clouds at it skipped across the desert and thudded against the sandstone base of the spire. Bouncing off the wall, it landed softly on the sand, and wobbled there for hardly a second, before a creature hatched from it. A small, spherical creature unfurled itself from the ball. Four legs, a bar for a spine, and nothing else. It had been a lazy design, one Cas used to get up the tree for test flights. It was one she''d practiced enough to change into swiftly, and the change couldn''t have concluded quickly enough. Just as she righted herself onto four legs, the the vultures landed all around. Stabbing mouths came down in unison, teeth scraping divots into the creature''s turtle-shell back. Cas, not having any of it, barreled past the figures and sprinted wide. Her crash had gone off-kilter from her original destination but the terrain was familiar and she could see the cave opening right there. The buzzards let out a strange sound, something like the quiet hiss of a lizard mixed with hyena laughter as they pursued on wing. Harsh shadows blinked over her like strobe lights as they passed her, each waiting for another to take the first plunge. They waited too long, however, as Cas made a quick, hobbling right, her clumsy gait just fast enough to curve into the cave as the first buzzard landed. Cas, running to the far back, met the expected dead end. She turned her eye back, rearing on her hind legs. The buzzards, snake-necks coiling high into the air in intimidating patterns, walked in drunken motions across the moss-grass. Their lizard faces held very little expressions, except perhaps a cool smirk of satisfaction that she could swear twinged at the edges of their lips. The lead buzzard, a large figure with multiple, harsh scars running down the length of his neck scales, slid forward with a confident expression and hypnotizing eyes. It was strange how quiet the creatures were. The only sound was the soft clicking of their talons, as their massive, puffed up bodies floated across with a ghostly presence. Scarface reached within inches of her, and slowly pushed forward his coiled head, forked tongue licking out to test her surface. The vulture never would find out the taste, as white teeth like guillotines smashed around his neck in a violent motion. It was almost anti-climactic despite the violence of it, the life went out of the vultures eyes in a split moment. Heavy, basso snarling filled the room as the Zanzibat crunched its jaws around the neck shook its head, sending fitful sprays of hot blood in every direction. The other two vultures, eyes dilated into perfect circles, stood shock still for a moment before scrambling back in their shock. Their reaction came too late. Cas, who''d been expecting the show, sprang forward with readiness. A hardened, chisel-like spike stabbed from her forehead, and she rammed it into the ribcage of the nearest living vulture. A strange, empty, deflating sound came from the creature as she slammed it back against its compatriot who -- pinned under their combined weight -- could only manage to lift its its neck before a flashing-tawny streak blew past, leaving it headless. The vulture''s corpse stood with alarming composure for a second, its wings fluttering senselessly as a red fountain bubbled from the top of it''s neck. Then, stumblingly, like a drunk, it took one, slow step then three fast ones before it collapsed, and expired. The fox spat out the head in it''s snout with a snort, looking at her with only half the disgust it had reserved for the vultures. Cas looked at the Zanzibat, her oldest friend, her savior, and said to it the words she reserved for her closest friends: Looking at the pile of vulture corpses, Cas asked: "Are... you gonna eat this?" Killer of Omens The cave walls were painted with unexpected nostalgia. It was a warm feeling of familiarity that hit Cas, like what a prisoner might feel on seeing their old Cell. Looking around, things had changed a lot over the past year. The grass grew thickly like a matted carpet over the floor, wet sand clumping the open spaces in between like make-shift dirt. Sharon and Tara had grown a bit, and the ant colony was flourishing now for some reason. Cas had changed a lot, too, she realized by the confused -- hesitating expression in the fox''s eyes. She''d changed color, grown legs, got a house -- running into the fox felt like bumping into an old drinking buddy after you got your life back together. "Are you gonna eat all this?" Cas asked it. The fox paused as it heard the voice. It recognized her! Cas could tell by the nostalgic terror in it''s eyes as it yipped and backed away.
Vulture group defeated: XP: 27 Entity: CasClassification: AquaMorph SlimeLevel: 6XP: 344 / 3200Abilities: Skills: Human Figure (Insufficient material) Create Voicebox Create Stilts Vital Stats: Core Attributes: Time had a way of slowing down when you were in a rush. It had a way of stopping when your life was in danger. From the moment the vultures had begun their attack, Cas''s life played out on an 80 mm reel made up of blurring milliseconds. Then, the credits rolled and normal life resumed, and Cas felt as if she were waking up in a strange place when she looked around the cave for a second time. The agitation she felt never managed to express itself physically, but the rampant emotions ran like flywheels in her mind. As was her habit, Cas combed through her character sheet in order to calm down. The fox, spitting out vulture blood and curling its nose in disgust at the corpses, looked at Cas with some judgement when she began eating the trash birds. Her body washed over their bodies like a flood, feathers and skin and talons and bones all taken up with impunity in the growing tide, the vultures feeding the process that fed on them. The first vulture was the slowest to take in. Incorporating it''s mass, growing, the second and third vultures both were taken in in half the time. Cas was unsure how the process of chunking up flesh smelled to everyone else, but -- to tell by the wrenching growls that came from the extreme opposite end of the cave -- it probably wasn''t good. To her, however, the scent was heavenly, and as rewarding as the dopamine-rush pop-ups her character sheet saw fit to reward her with. Vulture absorbed: Vulture absorbed: Vulture absorbed: XP: 5 Absorption Level Cap Reached: Level 14 -> 15 Size Change: Small -> Medium Acid Immunity Level Cap Reached: As always, her sheet was sparse on the actual, you know, details. But Cas, mind still buffering as she tried to process the previous five minutes of her life, held onto the character sheet like it was a security blanket. Eye scanning the sheet wildly, Cas''s mind raced and ruminated on all the potential implications of those simple words. Cas did this with an earnestness that allowed her to take her mind off the recent, near-death experience. She hadn''t for a moment, however, expected to discover something new. Well, it wasn''t actually so much a discovery as it was a realization. The thought had come unprompted, "why would acid immunity be leveling up... in fact why is the skill even called acid immunity if it needs to level up. Immunity implies a hundred percent damage cancellation, you can''t get better than that." The thought had been a sarcastic throw away, but the more she pulled at the thread, the more the whole veneer unraveled, and the more she continued to snowball fresh realization until the mask fully came off the beast and Cas looked away into herself. For example: why was she so acidic? No matter how many ants she ate, she was still more than ninety percent water. Besides, she hadn''t eaten a single ant for months, their acid spray should have degraded away by now, especially when considering how much sunlight she''d been exposing all her internals to. Also: why was she so red? The cow''s blood she''d eaten could account for some of that, but -- again -- it should have scabbed over and rotted into a black sludge by now. And why did the intensity of her color never dilute whenever she drank water? None of that should have been possible unless her body was preserving and making new red blood cells... ooooooohhhhh! It was a eureka moment, a lightbulb radiating the joy and satisfaction of a problem figured out. And, right before her very eyes, as if to acknowledge the discovery, her character sheet changed: Skill Label Updated! Acid Immunity -> Chemistry 101 Cas laughed. Apparently, the character sheet shared her sense of humor. She remembered Korivenna''s slime was capable of creating certain compounds. She''d assumed that was just something she was too low-level to be able to do, but -- now that she really thought about it -- Cas wasn''t even sure what a ''level'' was actually meant to represent in this world. Deciding quickly that wasn''t a question worth pursuing at the moment, Cas looked around, expecting more and finding it. Scanning the bottom of her character profile. Cas was surprised to discover that -- for the first time ever, a new page had been added. For almost two years, now, the [Character, Inventory, Notes] trifecta had formed a stable basis to the entire character sheet. Now, she was surprised to discover that a new page labeled "Materials" had been added. Actually, surprised wasn''t the right word for it. No, it was more like... overwhelmed because the character sheet appeared the very instant Cas realized the true meaning of her memories. Because, Cas remembered so much. Living in this slime body, most of her senses had been dulled. Her color vision was gone. Her hearing was muffled by her own body. Smells sometimes took minutes to percolate through her gelatin before reaching her crystal. Yes, compared to her human form, it was as if all the world''s music had turned into the blues. So, that was perhaps why Cas hadn''t noticed the thing about her taste. It was... mechanical, was one way to put it. Yes, she liked some tastes more than others, but, to her, all tastes were essentially the same. She knew the taste of ant. She knew the taste of cricket. She knew the taste of cow bones, which tasted different from vulture bones. More than that was the sheer fidelity of her taste. When she ate an ant, she didn''t taste ant. She tasted carapace, blood, flesh, organs, sinew, and so many other flavors, each distinct in their variety. This wasn''t a sense. It wasn''t something Cas could notice by looking at it. It was just a series of memories that she''d never paid any important attention to until now. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Clicking the requisite excel sheet brought up everything she already knew. Hundreds of items crowded the screen. The contents were unsurprising. Although, she was surprised to discover so many ''unknown'' ingredients. The Cow blood, for example, it listed its ingredients as Salt, Sugar, unknown... Cas knew what blood was made of. She knew it was made up of water, red blood cells, iron, hormones, globulin compounds and a bunch of other bullshit. Cas looked at her screen as she thought this, expecting it to update with her recognized knowledge. Minutes of waiting yielded nothing. And then Cas realized... she didn''t know what iron and globulin compounds tasted like. But... Cas didn''t feel any poorer for it. Turning off the sheet, and pointing her attention inward, it felt like she was suddenly an artisan of sorts. She just knew she could make this stuff, and what she needed to make it. She knew that she could make Cow blood if she had Vulture blood, a little extra salt, and some fats. Cas knew she could make Agave Plant Leaves if she had moss, algea, salt and tree-sap. It wasn''t lost on Cas that most of her Materials required ingredients that were basically the same thing. Bone required bone powder, Muscle required ''flesh'', blood required blood, etc... Probably, Cas gathered, it was because those materials also carried a lot of the "unknown" ingredients Cas was ill equipped to identify. Alas, it would''ve been nice to be able to eat rocks and turn the atoms into bone, but she could work with this. In fact... this was probably the perfect opportunity for a test run. Cas looked at the Fox. It had made a nest in a hidden corner of the Cave and was lounging there, licking itself while sending a weary side eye over at Cas. ... Having eaten three vultures worth of material, Cas was overweight by a mile. Her flight form was around five pounds, and she was currently at around twenty. So, what else was there to do but make fifteen pounds of cow flesh? The end result didn''t come out to fifteen pounds, and -- frankly speaking -- it didn''t look much like the muscle Cas had been envisioning either. It lacked structure. To call it ground beef would have been an insult to ground beef. Cas pondered as she looked at the mushy pile of greyish-red stuff that was currently collapsing under its own weight. Still, the Zanzibat -- to tell by the frantic and hurried way it gulped down the soup -- gave it quite the positive rating. "Aww... see, told you I''d make it up to you," Cas cooed at the creature and reached out a non-acid stalk to pet it. The fox only ignored her as it raced to choke down the oversized meal. Still, Cas saw improvement in its willingness to let her get that close, and resolved to leave further bonding for another time. Right now, she had a village to save.
Cas was a strange figure, stuck a hundred feet up the side of the mountain. Lizard, despite its simple shape, was a sure and competent climber. This climbing ability was due more to Cas''s sticky body than any good design work on the Lizard which -- despite the branding -- was a simple sphere with legs. Though, she could harden the back, maybe she ought to have called it tortoise? The monologue brought back her earlier trouble, as she selected her next form. As if a great boulder had been placed onto her back, her body smoothly flattened out against the sandstone walls, turning pancake shaped as oval wings stretched out to either side. Stopping at a certain length, her body compressed, and a dorsal rudder grew from her back, a fan tail-wing in the back, and a minimalistic rod-and-ball counterweight that struck out in front. In defiance of all sense, the limbless plane stayed stuck to the wall by virtue of Cas''s glue-stick body. It stayed paused as Cas stared at the still-blinking prompt she''d ignored all this while. Form 1 Would you like to rename. Cas had wanted to rename it all this time, but it wasn''t until just now that she thought of something fitting. She thought of the Vultures, omens of death, and entered into the blinking space: [Killing Omens] There, she thought. That seemed fitting. Hardening her belly, the stickiness reduced. Cas tipped slowly backwards as she peeled off the great rock, then fell back into a graceful dive, facing her belly downwards just in time to catch the storm-front updrafts...
This, honestly, never got old. The thermals -- winds she''d ignored for her entire life -- were now as solid as the ground as they carried her up through a thousand feet of air. It was so unfair that she was trapped in such an expressionless body! [Killing Omens], in an effort to reduce weight, had been designed with as few struts and internal support structures as possible. A cow-bone bar for each wing, a ridge along the spine, and a triangular frame for the tail. The design was still the same, but now Cas used vulture bones to make the struts. The difference was insane. Her previously plodding, wearied glide turned into an immaculately effortless soar. She barely had to think about turning and her body was already doing it. All the hidden anxiety about crashing that weighed on her mind, the anxiety of being stranded somewhere without a take-off perch and having to walk back home, all of that was now replaced with the simple joy of flight! It was almost a shame that she came here with a job to do. Weary of the sun, Cas turned on her roof-tint and focused her eye down through her belly window. The updraft from the spire had taken her to impossible heights, and the details blended away with the distance. There was something about Cas''s eye that had a penchant for picking out slimes, however. From the ground, they looked like little sparkles in the dust, up close they looked like water droplets. Up here from this height, however, it was as if a great river of silver dust were flowing from the base of the spire. The great river didn''t flow, it was as if a snap-shot had been taken of it in motion, it''s streaming figure mixing into the surrounding ocean of sand as it spread out into a false delta. This river encompassed the North side of the spire and fed the cave. To the south... the river wasn''t there. Cas pitched to the side and looked out to the Oasis. The great strip of desert between the spire and the Oasis was empty of slimes until just before the border of the Oasis, where they suddenly appeared again. This was expected. The Oasis was ten miles away from the spire, and Cas had figured the slimes would submerge themselves until the rocky ground forced them to the surface at the Oasis. This made things difficult. If they''d been above ground, it would''ve been child''s play to find where they were coming from. As it was, however... Cas drank in the sight below. She took in its beauty and searched for any further hidden meanings. Reluctantly, she turned away from the sight and flew straight home.
It was a faster return trip. The wind was to her back, and she was a more competent flyer now. At the Oasis, the eighty-five pounds of slime material she''d left back sat there like a Jello sphere, glinting in whatever sunlight managed to reach it through the shadows. Cas, gliding in, fell into the mass of slime, dissolving into it. With a short start, the body woke up. Kari wasn''t there.
It was a long crawl home. Cas had elected to keep her transformations a secret from the villagers. This naturally resulted in some inconveniences. The trip from the village to the Oasis took a lot longer than it had to, for one thing. It felt longer without Kari to keep her company, however. Cas cursed. The girl had one job. Leave her body unguarded, will she? Cas rehearsed the admonishing words she''d prepared for the girl as she cursed and crawled her way to the village elder''s hut.
Cas stopped by Kari''s place on her way into the village. It was a small hut on the very outskirts of the town. Cas had been here more than once, though she''d never stayed for long enough to get a good sense of the place. Unlike the other homes, which were covered wall to floor in embroidered cloth and decorative rugs, Kari''s had always been a humbler abode. She had two sets of clothes and one rug. Looking inside, Cas felt a little unease when she didn''t find Kari there. She couldn''t tell why, but... that place had looked a little emptier than before.
Cas told herself not to worry, and she didn''t worry. By the time she reached Elder Nemaris'' hut, Cas had forgotten whatever vague, little thing had gotten her so worked up in the first place. Cas, being a slime, was exempt from the polite custom of knocking on a wall before you entered a closed house. So, it was a series of surprised glances that met her, as she pushed aside the cloth door and crawled into the space. Elder Nemaris was there, him and several other figures sat gathered around a bowl of dried meat, each hand carrying a clay chalice of some strong substance. Nemaris was in the middle of laughing about something, and the atmosphere in the room was jolly, though Cas''s unannounced presence had attracted several annoyed glares. Elder Korivenna was there, speaking with another woman. The Fari Elder was also present, sitting at the head of the men''s circle. This was perfect for Cas''s purpose, as she needed to speak with the village elders for her plan. In this room were gathered all the pieces she needed to fix the Oasis! It was, therefore, surprising to Cas that the first words from her mouth were: "Where''s Kari?" Elder Nemaris brought his cup down from his lips, swallowing before he could answer. "Sage!", Nemaris was happier than Cas had ever seen him. It wasn''t a true happiness. She could almost taste the alcohol pervading the room. "Any news on the Oasis?" he asked carelessly. "Yes," Cas answered bluntly, the painful anxiety making it hard to speak tactfully. "I''ve found a way to fix it." The room, previously filled with soft conversation, fell completely silent. "Sage..." Elder Nemaris spoke weakly, his previous joy squashed by the dreadful hope in his voice. "You mean to say, there is something we can do now?" "Yes," again, Cas''s voice was tight. Another, dreadful silence, as a dozen perked ears stood up in the room, waiting for her explanation. "Have you seen Kari?" was Cas''s only answer. "I need to speak with her about something." "Kari?" Nemaris'' eyebrows shot up, as if surprised to hear that name. "It was her birthday today." he answered. "Yes, but she was at the Oasis with me. She''s not there anymore." "I had one of my trusted men call her here." Cas was eternally polite, not a single note of sharpness in her voice as she spoke to the man and said, "I asked specifically that the Oasis was be left alone." "Don''t worry, it was an attendant of the village elder. He is a man that can be trusted with our secrets." Elder Nemaris spoke in his own polite fashion, one which seemed to ignore any rebuttal against him. "Besides, he said that you were sleeping there, and did not stop him." Cas cursed herself, remembering the slime flesh she''d left behind. Frustrated, Cas asked, "well... where is she now?" Again, Elder Nemaris threw up a confused look at the question. Looking around, Cas could see he wasn''t alone in doing this. "As I said..." he broke politely. "It was her birthday. She''s an adult now." Cas remained silent. "Did she not tell you?" Korivenna asked with a sly note to her voice. "I suppose you were bound to find out sometime. Hm." she nodded shortly. "Well, In the interest of saving us the time, I''ll tell you now that she''s been sent off to the desert." Cas was incredulous. "To the desert? What for?" This question drew the most confused look. It was an uncomfortable look that spread around the room, and -- as always -- it was Nemaris that stood up to bear the responsibility of addressing it. He answered: "She''s going for the reason we''re celebrating her departure. She is going to relieve us of the burden of raising another body. She is going out to the desert because she is no longer a child that can be supported by the community that raised her. She is going out to the desert to join our ancestors." It was a rote speech, probably a standard phrase they said at every funeral. Cas didn''t bother to ask if he was joking. The man spoke as honestly as always, and nobody, not a single person in the room stood up to laugh at this great big joke they''d played on her. Kari didn''t leap out of the corner with her annoying face and mischievous brows to laugh at how Cas had almost believed that- "Kari''s going to die, then?" Cas asked, her voice sounding alien to her own ears. Again, Nemaris. Brave, responsible, honest, Nemaris, with hair much too grey for his age, answered for the rest of the group, honestly and with no pretense: "I''m afraid that is how it must be." Losing your first and only ally. She had to give it to them, the Village elders -- at least what she''d seen of them -- were surprisingly insightful and wise men. They quickly sensed something in Cas''s voice when she asked for a private conversation, and immediately, the party was cut short and everyone was told to leave. Some grumbling followed, but with the words of two village elders to contend with, the room was quickly cleared and Cas was left alone with Nemaris and the Fari elder. The conversation that followed was a quiet one, almost too-formal by nature as Cas took her place at the gathering mat, directly opposite of Nemaris and the Fari elder. Nemaris, who''d done most of the talking on his side of the mat, hunched over, finally, supporting himself by his elbows and allowing a bit of emotion to creep into his voice, as he said with a hoarse growl: "These are our traditions! How can you -- an outsider, expect to trample upon these things you don''t understand? Cas had the upper hand, and as someone in a winning position, she didn''t feel the need to come up with new arguments, repeating herself in a tone just as icy: "your traditions be what they may. I will not be reviving the Oasis until I see Kari back here, safe and sound. "She''s been sent out into the desert! How can you expect us to find her. For all we know, she may already be dead!" Cas answered simply, "then the village will die with her." The cold words seemed to surprise the man with their audacity, and he hung his head once more -- doing at least that much to hide his disgusted expression as he spoke in an even voice. "We have nearly five hundred souls in these five villages. Children, elderly, pregnant mothers and their unweaned babes... you would be so callous as to let them die? For the sake of one woman?" "She''s a child!" her own voice grew hoarse with emotion before she clamped it down. Calming herself, Cas was quick with a retort: "And why place the blame on me? Would you be so callous as to let those people die for the sake of some petty tradition?" Nemaris grew silent at this, taking a deep breath as was his habit when the challenges of life became harsh. "My half brother... he was sent out into the desert because of a mistake his parents made. He was born deformed, and I never imagine he experienced a single moment of genuine happiness before he became an adult, and was allowed to let the desert have his bones "This happened because his parents," he snarled the word, "did not follow ''some tradition''. I gave up the love of my life because this tradition did not allow the marriage! Every person here... their entire life, their marriages, their children are protected by the limits of this petty tradition! Do you have any idea what it''s like to watch half your children be still born, to watch your sons die before they take their first breath because you married the wrong woman? Do you? This thing you call petty is the only thing that has allowed us to survive!" Cas had shut her emotions away for the sake of the argument. So, she wasn''t sure if she felt pity, but there at least came an understanding. These people -- she looked up at Nemaris'' dark eyes, which bore a thousand yard stare into her form -- they were desperate, and isolated, and afraid after the world had swallowed their village up in a great desert. With so few people, with such isolation... avoiding inbreeding would require stringent adherence to certain rules, it would require planning, and Kari had been conceived outside of the confines of that plan. Of course, Kari herself was healthy, but It was likely she was too related to everyone else to be able to have healthy children. Struggling, Cas attempted to take an outside view of things. "That may be well, but I''m not asking you to let her have a family. I''m asking you to let her live!" "We can''t afford to keep her fed in this village!" "You can afford to feed one child!" Cas yelled, cutting through what to her seemed to be obvious bullshit. Nemaris only chuckled. "I see... that you haven''t thought this through. Do you know that next year... two children, a boy and girl, will come of age to go into the desert? On average, we have three. If we kept every child that was a risk to the village, what do you think would happen. Cas didn''t say the answer, but it was obvious she understood. "The only reason this village has survived is because we are ruled by law," he growled out his last words, "everyone is bound by the same responsibilities and every person -- including me and my half brother -- are to make the sacrifices required for this village to stay alive. What would happen to this village if we saved Kari, but made every other parent watch as their children are sent out into the desert? Or are you suggesting that we keep every child, let this village crumble under the weight of its own kindness?" Cas couldn''t answer him. He was right. This village would collapse if it saved every child. The people with genetic defects would build up in the population, and -- even if they didn''t raise children -- the healthy members would be too few to maintain their numbers. Their strategy, it was essentially to cull the ''unhealthy'' members in order to make room for new attempts at having more genetically healthy babies. It was a well executed strategy, to tell by the longevity of the village. It allowed them to kill birth defects before they could spread, it let them keep some genetic distance between villages, it was evil. It was evil, yet it was the only way they could survive, Cas realized. She looked out the open flap of the door. The Elder''s house was in the outskirts, and the door gave a direct view to the expanse of waste that surrounded the village. Cas remembered that the people of this village had thought the world ended five hundred years ago, when the desert engulfed their home. Perhaps this was what it took to survive the apocalypse. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. Cas couldn''t think of a single good reason to save Kari.
Kari was a small girl, with pensive, sometimes coy, features. She had a face for loud expressions, and had once been a very talkative child. The world she grew up in was large, however, and against its crushing weight Kari could find no way to survive other than to shelter against herself. After a certain age, she found that she didn''t talk with people much, and the villagers didn''t want to talk to her either. So, she stayed quiet and paid attention. Animals had more to say than most people noticed. They were hungry, lazy, greedy, sad and they looked at her with attentive eyes that didn''t glance away with embarrassment. Cas had been the first person to look at her like she was there. Kari was sad that Cas had showed up so late in her life. By that time, she''d forgotten so much about how to talk to people, that she could never tell the girl what was in her heart. She''d asked Cas whether they were friends, but she''d never told her that she, too, saw Cas as her best friend in the world. Another step, and the baking sands ran painfully up her ankles. The dunes were higher here, away from the rocky dirt of the Oasis, and every foot-step sank deeper into the sands, the air itself baking her as she struggled onward. It was funny. Kari had essentially been raised for this. From the moment of her birth, she''d been designated as a sacrifice to the desert. Every year, on her birthday, the old women would come to her hut and teach her spells to recite at the moment of her death, ones that would bring the villages good water. Kari wondered if the last few children hadn''t been spitting a few curses instead... That was the strange thing about it, though. Despite the fact that this was Kari''s destiny, she''d never thought about it much. She always avoided the topic when it came up, and even days away from her last birthday she''d never built up the courage to say it out loud, to even tell Cas ''I''m meant to die soon.'' Granted, she hadn''t expected them to send a man into the Oasis to get her. She thought she''d be safe there until a better time. Maybe, if she''d been brave and told Cas the truth, Cas wouldn''t have gone out on that trip... maybe she wouldn''t have died on that trip. She''d seen Cas die. She''d seen the vultures attacking her until she fell behind the great mountain, and that falling, crimson figure in the distance was the last time Kari saw her friend. Strange... Kari almost laughed. It''d been so long since Cas had said they were friends, and here was the first time Kari was willing to say it to her self. Despite her avoidance of the topic, on certain nights, Kari did have a dream about her walking through the desert. In her dreams it was much more peaceful. In her dreams it was the comfortable walk of a person taking their last steps. "Ughhh!" She sputtered, huffing heavy breaths and not bothering to touch the spittle that ran down her lips. Reality was far crueler. It was painful, exhausting torture that drained the life from her with every step. And, even though Kari had lost her friend, and any prospects at life, even though she wanted to die, her body just wouldn''t stop striving to live. It couldn''t. A weak step onto uneven sand collapsed her legs, and she fell into the sand, her body too numb and exhausted to register any pain. It was a large world Kari had been birthed into. It was so large that it crushed her tiny body flat until she could do nothing but sink into the sand, eyes bleary as the whole world turned into a mush of color. Many people had been crushed under the world, and Kari didn''t feel anything special about being its latest victim. She actually felt quite comfortable, letting her eyes drift into a close as she basked in the warm darkness. She was sad about a lot, she was sad that she didn''t get to say goodbye to the only person that had ever cared, she was sad that her sister had been kept away from the ceremony, she was sad about so much... but she also had happy memories, too. She remembered talking to her sister under the Oasis. She remembered playing tag. She remembered the amazement of realizing that Sakkari could fly! Kari had spent her entire life preparing for death, and perhaps it had been too much to expect a fairy tale savior out of the desert. But, in the real world, she was glad to have met someone who could give her happy memories before the end. She was thankful for that. And, for a girl being crushed by the world... that was enough.
Cas stood silently with Nemaris in his hut. Currently, his wife was helping him dress and fix the tassels and adornments over his shawl. Cas felt sick to her stomach. Anxiety eating her up as she sat in the hut, useless and cowardly and anxious as she tried to reassure herself. "Nemaris spoke without facing her." "In spite of everything... I thank you for understanding enough to help us." "I cared for her," Cas answered. "I cared for her for far longer than you did!" Nermaris'' voice sizzled with hate, losing its previous composure before he coughed, and adjusted the bottom cuff of his shawl. "I... you have lived under our hospitality for so long... how is it you dare to do this? You know we can kill you at any time. I think you''ll be surprised at how quickly the sun would kill you without a roof over your head." "I think you''ll be surprised at how little I care for your threats," Cas answered her own patience frayed as she glanced out the door. "We''ve already made the agreement that I will save your village." "With great insult," Nemaris jeered. "How can you sit there so confidently? What would happen if we threw you out into the desert after the Oasis was fixed anyway?" Cas, had elected not to reveal her shape-shifting abilities, so her confidence probably came as a great surprise as she repeated her earlier words: "Then you won''t be a man of your word, Nemaris. And that''ll be that." A dry laugh came up from the corner, where the Fari elder sat watching with great amusement. "I think it''s fair to say that she''s soundly beaten you, elder Nemaris. I told you... didn''t I warn you, that one day your own honor and civility would be the downfall of you." Nemaris only spat at Cas. "I will keep my end of the bargain... but know this, Sage. You''ve lost your first and only ally in this village!" Cas shouted back. "Good!" Cas found herself snappy with anxiety lately. Her decision not to reveal her abilities meant that she couldn''t go and help save Kari herself! Still... her flight form was unlikely to be helpful in bringing her back, and Nemaris had sent a man off from the first moment Cas had made her threat, and that man -- a large man with heroic stature, stepped in through the shawl without a knock. Again, everyone excused him this politeness, for his arms were burdened by the weight of a young girl with sandy hair and light eyes! "Kari!" Cas yelled, crawling over to the girl, spouting fresh water into a nearby pot. "Did you give her water!" she glared up at the man who had brought her. "I gave her all my water," he answered simply, "she was half dead by the time I reached her. Don''t give her too much," he cautioned, tipping his hand to stop her stalk. "She is weak. It''s best to give her water in moderation." Cas knew he was right, yet her instinct was to yell at him. Thankfully, this was stopped by a hoarse voice that called: "Cas..." "Kari!" Cas answered, trying to display more happiness than worry. "It''s going to be ok," she cooed, running a stalk through the girls hair. The first time she''d been able to touch the girl since she cleared all that acid out of her system. "They''re going to let you live here, now." Kari didn''t react much to the news, only saying: "You''re alive. I thought," she choked up in her voice, though her eyes could only squint tearlessly. "I saw the vultures..." "I''m fine!" Cas announced, not eager to let the girl prattle on about her flight. "And you''re going to be fine, too," she said, taking the girls soft hand in her stalk. Again, a tearful, choked up noise. "Why?" Cas grew confused. "What do you mean?" "Why did you save me?" Cas, finally understanding, answered simply with the only reason she had: "Because you''re my friend." Not Lying. For their own reasons, Nemaris and Cas mutually decided not to tell the villagers about how Cas had almost let them starve to death.. Granted, Cas wasn''t sure she would''ve followed through with her threat. Even if Kari had died... she didn''t want to think about all that right now. The official story would be that Kari -- as "THE GREAT SAGE''S" personal attendant, would be granted an exemption from the desert march. Granted, Nemaris had made a very wise point about how the rest of the villagers might react to such blatant favoritism. It was an observation that filled Cas with much worry. As such -- for making her so anxious -- Cas left it to Nemaris to make the announcement. Cas had been nervous when the time came, but Nemaris nailed the presentation and the people... didn''t really care; or, rather, they had bigger things on their mind. The fields on the outskirts of the irrigation Canals brought a bad harvest. Of course they were only beet fields -- winter crops. The actual harvest wouldn''t come for another three months, and the central fields were doing well... still, lately, the Oasis had been on everybody''s minds and whispers were running about, ones that seemed to grow in intensity whenever Cas was brought up or even was seen. Even as Nemaris made his announcement, Cas realized, a good selection of the audience had their eyes discreetly set upon her. Kari looked lost for words as she was presented before the audience. Nemaris, ever the crowd worker, had insisted upon and conducted a massive dog and pony show about Kari''s new position. All the tribal apothecaries, many looking even unhappier than Korivenna, had been gathered into a conga-line of blessings and holy-dust baths for the new Sage''s assistant. "It''s important to make things official," Nemaris had said, and Cas was content to let him conduct the gathering as he saw fit. The crowd, though generally disinterested, went along to clap in acceptance of the ordeal. To his credit, Nemaris had conducted it wonderfully. And then, it was Cas''s turn. She climbed the low hill Nemaris'' had been using as a podium. Nervous about the ordeal, she attempted to scurry up as quickly as possible, though -- at her pace -- it came off as a dignified and slow ascent, one perhaps meant to build suspense. Cas stood there. Out of habit, she cleared her artificial throat of nothing. Cas never feared presentations, but she felt she was ill suited to this task. Her experience was more technical explanations, not so much the rousing, inspirational speech Nemaris expected of her. Still, she made her best attempt at the task. She looked out at the crowd that had been gathered. Even in winter, it was strange to see such a large crowd in the mid-day sun. Men stood sweating in their work clothes, some still carrying the field tools they''d been using when hastily called to come here, and not a single annoyed look among the bunch. It was obvious they were expecting something important, and Cas was glad to give it to them. "Villagers of Karinessa!" Cas announced with a powerful voice. "We have called you, and not for any trivial reason! I have known for some time now of the rumors that have been spreading. Look around you! We have also called your brothers from villages Nari, Setu, Karmaz, and Korinna! We have called you all because, once and fall all, I want to say... I mean, to confirm the rumors. Yes, I have found a way we can heal the Oa-" The crowd interrupted into roars at what Cas was surprised to discover was the end of her speech. "However! However!" She yelled several times, almost instantly killing the mood as the villagers quiet, anxious again. "It is a great task for which we need your help... hence why we, again, have gathered you. Are you with me!" It was... a terrible speech, all things considered, to tell by Nemaris'' dissapointed head shaking. The crowd still applauded in slight confusion, wondering more about the nature of Cas''s vague call for help now. The applause pattered down suddenly. A large man pushed his way to the front of the crowd; the people parted before him and he stood a few paces ahead of the front row, looking to Cas with sharp eyes. Cas recognized him as the man who''d saved Kari, and to tell by the reverential looks many of the men sent his way -- he was not an obscure figure in the villages, either. "Great sage!" he announced with a purposeful voice, taking a deliberate pause to let the crowd''s attention settle. "I... have heard that you are wise to things beyond this world, and that your vision and foresight are unmatched. So it is that you have been able to find such an ingenious way to save our Oasis!" he bowed suddenly, "what would you have of us!" A roar of approval came from the people behind. As soon as the shouts ended, he started on his second speech, directed to Cas, but perhaps intended for the audience. "We are in a dying village! Let us acknowledge that! We must grit our teeth and fight until we''re breathing spit! And this I swear, great Sage. No man from Fari will slack under my watch!" Turning to the men assorted, he was pointedly speaking to them now, pointing an accusing finger over the crowd. "We will put our souls into this task! If I see any man treating this like it''s his second field, I will beat them until their eyes turn red! And If I see Mr. Shar¨¦ treating this like he treats his first field... I will beat him twice!" At this, a hilarious roar of laughter went through the crowd some men taking the time to give a few joshing shoulder-shakes to a man who was probably Mr. Shar¨¦, by Cas''s estimation. The desperate tension form earlier mellowed into focused excitement, and the men quickly organized themselves by village -- splitting off into their familiar work groups, ready to recieve orders.
Cas was unsurprised when the mystery man showed up to her tent. She had asked the workmen to send a represenative, and he seemed like a natural pick for the leader position. Sitting this close to to him however was... overpowering wasn''t the word. Cas looked at him closer. It wasn''t something she could see exactly. It wasn''t his face or the way held himself. It wasn''t anything special really, it was just something about him that was so much more noticeable than it was on everything else. Cas looked harder, wanting to see more, and that wanting manifested a character screen over the head of the man.
LVL: 23 - 29
Name: _______
"Sin," the man introduced himself simply, settling down into a cross-legged posture. The name didn''t update automatically, and Cas had to manually will it to say "Sin". "Cas," she replied, speaking. "May I ask. How old are you?" Sin cocked an eyebrow and canted a fox ear. "That''s certainly an impolite question." Oh, right, no personal questions allowed in this village. Perhaps that taboo came about because of stat screens? When your personal details are on full display, maybe some privacy really was sacred. Risking it, she decided to ask another question,. "Are you... able to tell something about me by sight? Can you..." she struggled for the right words, "can you tell how strong I am... how old I am?" Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. "If you mean your personal aura, I can''t see much." Sin admitted as much with some embarrassment. "I haven''t trained to read Sakkari aura''s." "Can you at least tell what species I am? Does it say I''m human or Sakkari?" Cas tried not to discern her interest. Sin shook his head. "Only the strength of your aura," he answered simply. "Without more insight, it''s impossible to tell anything." He gave a fatalistic shrug, closing his arms crossed. "Wouldn''t the fact that you can''t read my aura imply I''m not human, though?" "I haven''t trained to read humans, either. Besides, even if you said you were a Sakkari, I would simply assume you''d trained well enough to hide your aura from me." She looked back up at the Nemorian Man''s character sheet. Well, more of a character card than a sheet. Cas hmmed. "Oh, so hiding your aura is a skill, then. Is that why yours seems so sparse?" "Not more than it has to be." Sin gave a roguish grin. "An aura too well-hidden draws more prying eyes than it deters." "Could you teach me?" "Perhaps after we save the Oasis," he answered. "The sun will be up in a few hours, and I believe you said time was of the essence?" "Oh, right... the plan. Yes. How are the kilns coming along?" "They''re being built as we speak, and that''s exactly why I''ve come here. The men are curious to know... why are we being asked to make sixteen thousand clay chalices? That''s four times as many as exist in this entire village." "Can it not be done?" Cas asked. "It can, but it will be costly, and the men are eager to know why. The women, too, I imagine, considering how unhappy some of the households have been." "Well... it''s all part of the larger plan," Cas began. Sin only looked at her expectantly Cas sighed. She''d been dreading this from day one, the day she''d have to actually explain what she was doing. It was hard enough back home where everyone at least had failed a science class. Here, though? Cas paused, and thought for a moment. "I need the bowls, because we need to collect a lot of sand." From there, Cas explained it as best as she could, but -- in as few words -- it was essentially what she''d tasked Kari to do near the Oasis, but on a far grander scale. You see, in order to find the location where the slimes were coming from, Cas needed a higher resolution map of the slime density. Kari''s small efforts had been enough to give her a heading. With sixteen thousand data points, however, Cas was certain that she could get a far more accurate direction. Cas had asked Nemaris to step outside the tent for the last part of her explanation, drawing in the sand. So, you see, she explained, drawing a straight line from the Oasis. Once I have enough information, I''ll be able to draw a line to where the water is coming from. Sin looked puzzled. "But, it could be coming from anywhere along that line" he said. "That is why we''ll need to do it again near the Spire. This will allow us to draw another line -- " Cas drew another line coming from a different angle, intersecting the first "-- and where the two lines meet..." She let Sin finish her sentence. "That''s where our problem will be." "Not necessarily," she interrupted, cursing her nerdish conviction to accuracy, "the problem could be an upstream phenomenon. Even if not, there could be entierly unrelated factors at play, correlation isn''t causation and all that." Cas had managed to say that sentence using only the Nemorian word''s she soaked up. Sin looked at her like she''d cobbled together the mad ramblings of a witch. "I mean... yeah. Finding the place will help us fix the problem." Sin accepted this without much argument. "How are we to explain this to the men, then?" Cas sighed again. "Do we need to?" "Yes," Sin answered strongly. "Why? All they have to do is collect sand in jars where I tell them to. All they need to know is that it''ll save their village!" Sin''s answer was the sigh of someone who had to explain something very basic. "Because men need a purpose, Sakkari," a light hint of annoyance had gotten into his voice. "Those men out there may be saying ''Rahh rahh'' right now. If you ask them, they''ll tell you they''d march into Balthura''s gates with you, some of them may even believe it. But reality has a harsh view of idealistic leaders, Sakkari. Those men are going to be doing a hard job, and most of them have never stepped foot outside their village, much less been out to the deep desert. Trust me, when the sun begins beating on their brows, and the sands rise up to sink them into the burning depths, they will-" "Not do their job and let the Oasis die?" Cas interrupted, with bored disbelief. "They''ll get sloppy," Was Sin''s equally bored answer. "This task may seem simple to you, but to the rest of us it''s full of absurd rules and hard tasks. Consider what that will look like to a man who is sweating in the desert and is asked to sprint over quaking sands to ten distant locations and place ten bowls, each filled with a careful amount of sand. Oh, and for some reason, these bowls must be placed in the right location based on those arcane marking you showed me. Do you honestly think men will take the care to fulfill each task with great care?" Cas paused... each man was responsible for ten grid coordinates, and each one was fairly far apart... that would be a lot of running for those that chose to make the trek. Exhausted, hands shaking, away from home. Cas suspected if she were still human and asked to do such a thing, even she''d send back half her bowls looking like a mess. Cas hadn''t appreciated the human element of the task until just now, nor its surprising difficulty. The bowls had to be filled up to the same point, otherwise the slime count would be off. They needed to be taken in the same time period, otherwise more slimes could come out of the dunes over time. They had to be in their assigned locations, or else the map would be off. That was three sources of error right there, and Cas had to ensure everyone involved actually understood the importance of doing everything correctly. "I see your point," was her answer. Still... "It''s hard for me to explain my process, however. They''d need to understand that the count I''m doing is... well, the numbers are going to be averaged, if everyone is even a little off, the error-" Sin raised a hand to stop her. "You don''t need to make them understand, just give them a clear vision to care about." Cas blew out a frustrated sigh. "Isn''t not dying a good enough cause!?" Sin hmmed and hawed over the prospect. "Something more concrete." "I don''t have anything more concrete! This is all about abstract math and averages. Do you guys even have probability here?" Sin laughed a bit, backing away from the venting Sakkari. "In that case," he looked around and led her into the tent. "How about we give them a reason," he said with a whispered voice. Reading the look in his eyes, Cas gasped with surprise. "You mean lie?" "Not lie," Sin explained gingerly. "The role of a leader is to guide his men. Not everything real is suitable for seeing by, aftter all." He gestured up at the sky, "can you say that light is a lie because it has no physical presence? Who cares as long as you can see by it?" Cas thought to correct him about the whole ''light'' thing, but was distracted by the fact that she... was about to lie in order to mobilize a lot of people into the desert. Was she... was she about to pull a George Bush right now?
"Men!" Sin shouted, standing high on a hill as he addressed the work camp. It had been a frenzy of activity that was stopped by his words. A line of half-completed ovens stood baking in the desert light, men carrying pots of clay made rounds between the desert and the Oasis, while others set about constructing the great, termite mound bakeries. "I say, Men!" Sin shouted again. This time, a chorus of, "Uwhaaaa!" came to greet him! "I have consulted with the Sage!" he announced, stopped by another chorus of cheers. "There is a monster underneath that mountain!" He explained loudly, to the horror and anger of the crowd, taking a dramatic pause before revealing the horrific truth: "And it is the one stealing our water!" A yell of sustained vitriol was the answer. "It may burn our crops!" Sin added, stoking the flames ever heigher. Feat melted away to wrath, people quaking in their own skin as they yelled death threats up at the man on a hill. Sin spoke like a preacher, stretching his vowels into an expression of genuine worry as he spoke the worst deed for last, "and it may... no -- it most likely is hiding monstrous weapons and magic, by which it means to destroy what remains of this world... on a mass scale!" Cas had added that last part. It was pretty believable when these people thought the ''remaining world'' consisted of their village. To tell by the horrified, mouth foaming, teeth gritting, screams that answered him... she was honestly kind of proud of herself! "We need to do this," Sin implored, looking to the sky as if receiving a holy quest, "we must collect the desert sand, so that the Sage may locate this monster''s cave, find him, and slay that son of a CUR!" A short pause of disbelief followed, right before the tremendous uproar that shook the canopy of the Oasis! "UWHAAAAA. UWAAAAAH! UWAAAAAAH!" Preparations and Logistics By all accounts of her friends and family, Cas was an asshole. The moniker was given in jest, most of the time, but Cas was the kind of asshole that liked to correct people when they were joking. You see, it wasn''t that Cas didn''t feel emotions or care about other peoples'' feelings, she just had a greater than usual commitment to truth than most people. This was why, when Cas remembered Kari''s bedraggled figure after she''d been saved from the desert, when she remembered the tears in the girl''s eyes as she recounted her fears about how Cas had died, how she''d seen her get attacked by the vultures and thought she''d die alone -- Cas felt herself choking up as she inspected the plot holes in the story. Not that she thought Kari was lying, mind. It was just astounding because Kari had apparently seen the vultures attacking her... from ten miles away! At that distance the Oasis was barely visible and the spire looked like a pencil! How did that girl notice a bird sized object much less see the detail of Cas''s fall? Cas agonized over the question and her theorizing for days before she remembered she could just ask the girl. "Hmm?" Kari looked up from her bowl of noodles, cheeks full with broth and strings of spaghetti dangling down her lips. She swallowed. "What do you mean? You were right up in the air, it wasn''t like you were hidden. Besides, you are red, now, remember? It''s not hard to see that color against the sky." Kari pointed out the obvious, and Cas dropped the issue, at least outwardly. Far too busy with overseeing the construction of the kilns, Cas didn''t feel she had time to go chasing this mystery. Though, she never expected that her busy schedule would bring the answer right to her doorstep.
Kari had become a lot more clingy after her near-death experience for some reason. In particular, she''d become a lot more bold about asking personal questions to the slime, as she was doing now. "Cas... Cas?" Kari poked the slime again, "are you ok? Can you not talk?" The questions flew over the catatonic Slime who -- if she had a jaw -- would''ve been holding it slack as she stared at the kiln site. What was more surreal to her was how, to everyone involved, it appeared to be a routine sight, seeing a man hefting half a ton of weight on his shoulders, his feet stamping imprints into the dirt as his body -- flexing like a steel spring -- easily carried the mass of clay and brickwork into a pile where the children stood to mash it all together, breaking bricks into dust with their bare hands and mixing it playfully into the the rock dough. Off in the distance, Korivenna stood next to her eye-less slime. Touching it with glowing fingers, it produced a fine, handful of powder which she threw into the kiln and -- with a raised hand, a spark of static, and a magic word -- ignited the mixture with a roar. The kiln flickered orange as if hit by a light switch, and a wave of intense heat crossed the distance in an instant, hurting enough that Cas had to harden her skin against it! Ohhh, right... Cas remembered. She was in a world of magic and monsters. Due to the limited mobility of her slime form, Cas had not left the village center... ever during the course of her stay here. She''d never had a reason to go to the fields, and no one had a reason to take her there, so she''d literally never seen these people do anything other than shop and drink tea. And Kari -- Cas looked over at the girl, who''d gotten bored of poking her at this point -- the girl had been carrying her around for the better part of a year, now. Disgusted by her own obliviousness, it was only now that Cas thought it strange that a twelve year old girl had been able to carry around a thirty pound slime for hours at a time, for days on end, without suffering any fatigue. All of these people were super humans. The answer came naturally, as did the realization: and that''s why Kari kept beating her at tag... the cheating twerp! Cas shook her head as another line of men came, each carrying tons of building material and other refuse that could be broken down for the project. Sin, Cas saw, led the back, noticeable for his large frame as well as the fact that he carried twice the weight of any man there, as well as the especially dark spots that marked the tips of his fox ears. The fact that several of the men called him ''bloody'' gave Cas a hint as to what color those dark tips were. Steam was literally billowing off his figure when Cas approached him, rock dust pummeling into the air to mix with the steam as he dropped his loads into messy piles. A cool wind ran through the work place, one which every person took a moment to enjoy. In the sudden, short pause of silence and wind, Cas interjected herself into the clockwork workflow. Sin, looking down from his enjoyment of the breeze, stooped to her level for a proper conversation, resting his arms on his knees. Kari, hiding as much behind the slime as physically possible, peeked up at the large man with a shy gaze. Sin, for his part, knew enough not to look directly back at the girl, instead focusing his attention on Cas and the coded conversation they engaged in, saying: "Our apothecary has a lot of complaints about the mold you sent her," he said with a slight laugh, his teeth shining in the moonlight. "I''ll omit the unkind words, but she says the shape isn''t a good one if you''re looking to make thousands." "It''s just meant to give her an Idea," Cas answered, "tell her she can make the mold however she wants as long as it holds the same amount of sand. The important thing is that everyone collects the same amount of sand, and that they take the sand from the right place." Sin smiled at that and answered with a people-pleasing voice she''d never expected from a man his size. "There''s another thing, actually," he clapped his hands together, taking out the labelled parchment she''d given him. On it was depicted a three by three grid, essentially a tic-tac-toe board. In the center of each of the squares was a number, one through nine, written in the Nemorian numeral system. "About the labelling system for the cups." If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. "Yes?" Cas said sardonically. "What''s there to talk about? Each guy gets nine cups for their space, they just have to collect the samples in the right order." "Right," Sin nodded, "however, I worry that the men might get confused about some of the numbers..." Cas looked blankly at him. "You see," he continued, in explanation, "few people have actually touched those books you pulled those numbers from in years, and not everyone is intimately familiar with written numbers. So, I suggest, instead -- " Sin pulled out his own parchment. On it, was the same grid, but the numbers were replaced with pictures of various animals, plants, and other random symbols. Cas thought she noticed a snow flake and a mountain. "And those are?" Cas asked. "Constellations!" Sin answered cheerily. "Everyone should know them. Besides, if they start out in the central square for their space, then each of the symbols corresponds to the cardinal directions. They''ll have no trouble taking sand from the right places." Hmm... cas thought about it for all of one second before she nodded her crystal eye. "Very well. As long as the apothecary doesn''t mind drawing the more complex symbols. I still need the first numbers on the bowls though. That''s the only way I''ll be able to tell which set of bowls came from which man."
So it was, that Cas found herself counting sand grains from grid number 420.saggitarius. At least, the Nemorian equivalent of the constellation. Kari, sitting dutifully next to her, read out the number before dumping the contents of bowl onto the Sakkari''s table-lap. From there, it was the same old process of letting the sand-grains sink into the slime table-top, while the floating mini-slimes were taken to account before being gobbled up by their hungry new environment. The past week had been an intense frenzy of work, as various work groups rotated in shifts to keep the kilns fired as the women -- under the watchful eye of the Fari tribe apothecary -- expertly created clay bowls that could have come off a production-line, so uniform were they. The fires themselves were maintained by the apothecaries'' and their slimes, who kept them alit with supernaturally consistent flames, able to be powered for a day on a mere handful of Juju-beet powder and a few magic words. The apothecaries were some of the less replaceable members of the team, and as such got the least sleep. It was mainly for that reason that Cas had been able to forgive their snarly attitudes by the end of it. Honestly, she fairly respected their hard work, especially the Fari tribe apothecary, who''d gone far beyond expectations with the bowls, making ones that were supernaturally cold, like miniature sample refrigerators. Cas didn''t even know you could do that! Well, ignorant or no, she was very glad for the upgrade, because it was getting to be early morning, now, and the sands were heating, and Cas was still only half way through her count. She''d been expecting to have some soiled samples due to heat losses, even in covered bowls, but the refrigeration worked excellently. By the time noon came around, Kari had taken to cupping each new clay bowl and rubbing it against her cheek as Cas counted her 500th bowl of slimes. It was easy work to Cas''s eyes. The slimes appeared as literal glowing dots, even without her magnifying lense trick. Her crystal eye didn''t experience eye strain, and she literally didn''t have a back to tire. The worst she could say about the task was that it was monotonous, and Cas had become thoroughly inoculated to monotony at this point. Watching grass grow in a cave for a year would do that to a person. Yes, she was still complaining about that.
The count near the Oasis was easily collected. Being so near the village, everyone was avaliable to help, and the sample collection was spread amongst many more hands, and the data they got was... very exiciting. Cas had been able to narrow the direction of the source from being "north east" into a 0.7 degree corridor lying slightly to the left of the spire. Taking measurements from the new stream of slimes on the other side of the spire would be able to yield... far more interesting results. Combining the two, she''d be able to get a very small search area indeed! Cas was giddy! She wanted to be able to go there now, now, now! However, revealing her flight capabilities was a no-no, not that she expected to be able to do much even if she did rush over there on wing. She needed at least fourty pounds of mass to pull off the slime-table counting trick effectively, and even then there was the problem of logistics for the rest of them. "Get on with it, you dogs!" Sin encouraged the men in his own gentle way, as they each prepared and pre-loaded sand-skiffs, each man carrying a leather jerkin filled to the brim with water, clay bowls, and nothing else. Going ten miles out into the desert and coming back was an ordeal. So much so that they had to cut down the number of their sample collectors to a hundred of the most able bodied men. Collecting sand near the Oasis had been almost a celebratory experience, with laughing children working alongside the adults to partake in the sample collection game. Going out to the deep desert, conversely, was a rough prospect for everyone involved.
Cas, spreading her weight out across the sand, drawing skiff-like stilts out underneath her, and caterpillar crawling over the icy dunes... actually managed to keep pace with the trudging army of loaded men. They could have travelled far faster, she knew, but it seemed they were unwilling to leave their sage behind in the wilderness. How sweet. Arriving at midnight, they walked to the south side of the spire, escaping from the shadow of the spire into the full moon. The mass of slimes was densest here, and they sparkled with a silvery tinge in parody of the midnight sun. It was stunning, Cas thought as she looked at the spectacle. So many of them were out at night. Comparing the Oasis to this was like comparing a stream to the Ocean. "Kari," she whispered to the girl who was eternally by her side. "You really can''t see this?" Kari, grumbling with tired eyes, only blinked blearily at the vista. "See what?" she asked, letting her annoyed voice take over. Cas laughed, and here the girl had been so excited to skip bed-time. ... Cas let the girl sleep after the sample collection had been done, enlisting Sin''s help with the count. Work went faster with him at the helm. He was far more disciplined with his voice than the talkative Kari, and Cas lost count far less often. Morning came, and Kari -- bed head spreading around her like a blonde halo -- trundled into Cas'' tent where she attempting to calculate a heading. Unfortunately, the excel format of her stat sheet was more of a design choice, in this case -- and the number crunching had to be done manually in the sand. Cas was certain she was doing the long division correctly... yeah, probably would be fine, she hedged as Kari stepped closer to stand over the sand-board. Outside the wind had picked up into a sand-storm, and -- peeking through the tent-flap as Kari walked in -- she could see the world outside had turned into a thick haze of brown so thick she couldn''t even see her neighboring tent. It was a only a ''mild thing'' Kari had assured Cas boredly as she went about brushing her hair, yawning as she turned away from the Sakkari. "So... what are you going to do about the blockage?" she asked, petting her hair with closed eyes. Cas, hardly paying attention, answered without looking away. "I''ve got to find it first." Kari, still nodding off. "Sin... I heard him say the wind''s going to die down soon." "Have you been eavesdropping again?" Cas chided calmly. "No..." Kari replied indignantly, putting her hair back and throwing over her shawl, "I just heard him through his tent." "Well, go and tell him I''m ready when the wind calms down," Cas said, looking at her diagram, and the thirty grid squares on it which marked the spot of her approaching future. Farewell Song Noon was a quiet hour in the desert. The sandstorm had passed, and it had wiped the air clear of all dust, leaving a stagnant atmosphere with nothing in the air except the rolling waves of heat that slowly rose from the desert sands. A large mound of sand had collected at the base of the spire, where the wind was stopped in its tracks. This ramp of collected sand and debris was an active one; occasionally, some part of it would shift, and a large mass of sand would slide back down to the desert floor, and this gave the otherwise quiet camp a constant backing track of hissing sands which -- in the absence of any human or Nemorian activity -- were free to dominate the airwaves with their subtle songs. The men had been free to return to their homes for the better part of twelve hours, now. Yet, they stayed. Cas was surprised to hear this at first, as the young, nervous looking man reported to her and asked where she would like them to set up their tents, the men behind him already hefting their sleds to the northern base of the spire. Despite Cas''s clear explanation that their help would not be required, the Nemorians -- convinced as if by some feeling that a great battle between good and evil was about to take place, and that their presence and proximity to such an event was somehow vital to the moral character of the upcoming battle -- set up their tents and stayed quite out of sight. Even in the early morning, when Cas went out to burn off some boredom, everyone turned and hid immediately the moment they met her eye. According to Sin, it was considered bad luck to speak to a warrior before battle. This inspired some guilt in Cas at their fib, but she forgot about the event until noon, when she noticed a silhouette of a young man with fox ears at the wall of her tent. It was clear by his stance that he''d been trying to be sneaky, and he''d almost succeeded at the task had Kari not pointed out his shadow with a silent whisper, drawing Cas''s attention from her slime counting to the silhouette at their wall. The shadow of the man stood there, fidgeting before leaning closer and... to Cas'' great surprise, singing. A melodic chant was spoken through the thick walls of her tent, using many archaic words Cas had yet to learn, but the gist of the jingle was quite clear to her: "Your life is like the tip of the spear, who has taken on such risk for us, to blind and cut at our enemy. I give you my life''s luck for this battle." Cas was amazed, having never expected such personal words to be said so privately, and she was honestly touched when -- one by one -- over the course of her counting and calculations, ninety nine more silhouettes appeared at her tent to sing their own songs, and chants, and spells of protection. Some hopeful: "...You''re gonna win this, Sakkari." Other''s funny: "..If you can only frustrate them as much as you''ve managed our dear elder..." There apparently had been some importance to the order, for it was the work leads that made up the final group of well wishers, and Sin was the last among them, and even he -- in on the sham and had perhaps only showing up to keep appearances -- managed to sneak some good advice to her: "Treat the enemy like your friend. If you can forgive their faults, you can understand them." After that, however, things fell quiet, and all anyone at the camp would do was wait upon the strange slime in their midst to finish their work.
The camp, the village, and any future hope for the Oasis was waiting on her, Cas understood. And, she, in turn, was waiting on the unimpressive, brown cocoon of a glow worm. It was funny how things most consequential could turn upon such small creatures. Removing herself from the vast majority of her body, Cas took on her smaller -- thirty pound -- slime form. Leaving sixty pounds of her slime material back in her tent, Cas transformed her body into a four-pointed yoke that fell across Kari''s shoulders like a primitive backpack. Hardening herself into a more carry-able form factor, Cas ordered her transport south. The men -- even without Cas''s insistence -- had been happy to stay in the shady, north side of the spire. Kari looked back at them with some jealousy in her eyes, and Cas almost felt a pang of guilt in her cold heart as she watched the girl trudge through the sand, crossing into the blaring, morning sunlight off the desert. Cas wondered if she wasn''t being too paranoid about hiding her transformation skill, but they were so close to solving everything, and it seemed bad tactics to start introducing questions and doubts into the villager''s minds at such a crucial moment. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ... Cas had let the guilt get to her, and -- squeezing some fresh water into the center of her body -- she offered a clean water-spout over to the girl, who took it immediately and developed an immediate habit of chewing on it. Cas was reminded of Kari''s nervous eating habit. Normally, the victims of this tick were the bits of dried meat she never seemed to be without... here in the desert, though. Another absentminded bite recalled Cas to her situation. Kari had a laughably easy time carrying Cas''s weight, taking long strides across the desert, and looking about her surroundings with a cold dispassion. It was a strange look in Kari''s eyes, like someone who was remembering a dream. "Kari," Cas spoke from the girls'' back. "Yeah?" Kari answered, taking the water spout from her mouth. "Are you..." Cas stopped herself from asking if Kari was ever nervous in the desert, the question sounding stupid to her mind and the answer obvious, electing instead to ask the next question on her mind. "...I mean, do you think I should tell the rest of the villagers about my ability? It''d stop you from having to carry me around-" "No!" Kari answered immediately. "You know Korivenna thinks you''re a monster! And Elder Nemaris is mad at you for saving me. What''s the point of making them suspicious of you?" A short pause passed, and Kari continued, calmer as she replaced the spout and took a nervous sip. "Beshides," she answered, the spout dancing at her lips, "it''s shupposed to be our shecret." Cas was surprised to hear that Kari knew about Korivenna''s opinions about her. The old woman had done a remarkable job of keeping up appearances in public settings. It was strange how precise the girl''s knowledge about the woman turned out to be... This train of thought was derailed from both their minds as they rounded a final bend, and saw the entrance of Cas'' old home, the place now rich with a sense of life as grasses overflowed from the mouth of the cave. Leaping down from Kari''s'' shoulders, Cas quickly filled herself with ant toxin -- keeping an eye out for the fox as she abandoned most her remaining mass and started climbing the walls in her [Lizard] form. Reaching the juncture between wall and ceiling, Cas flattened her toe-pads and enlarged the [Lizard]''s feet, taking slower, more deliberate, steps as she searched through the usual nooks and crannies where the moths liked to lay their eggs. While she did this, Cas opened her encyclopedia and scrolled down to the page on ''Glow-Worms'', as she''d liked to call them. They were among the first creatures to hatch in early spring, and Cas had studied them with fascination as they crawled like an army across the ceiling of the cave, setting up their own fishing spots there before they each lowered a strand of wet silk that dangled from the cave ceiling. The morning sun shone a red beam directly into the cave mouth, turning the space into an alien landscape of glimmering silk strands that seemed irresistibly attractive to the thousands of insects that choked the air during early spring. By afternoon, the sun rose out of sight, and the beautiful display had turned into a macabre horror story of dangling insect corpses, which were reeled up by the larvae to be eaten. What interested Cas more, however, was how the larvae baited the night insects. Looking up at the ceiling, Cas had one night been fascinated to discover stars dangling there. Bioluminescent dollops hung on the ends of the silk strands, flickering violently whenever an insect ran heedlessly into the trap. It being early winter now, the larvae had yet to hatch from their first cocoons. To Cas, however, who had made a detailed study of their life cycle along side those of dozens of other insects, it was a simple matter of discovery, as she searched along the ceiling for the right: Nope, fly eggs. She noted, seeing the cluster of gray pearls that were glued to a stony outcropping. Cricket larvae were the next false positive, followed by the desiccated husk of a dead ant. This went on for several more rounds of misidentification until: Cas looked back over her notes to confirm the description. Small, oval, darkly shaded cocoon, textured exterior, translucent in sunlight. They had to go outside to confirm that last bit, Kari looking back into the cave as Cas stared up at the sun, watching the silhouetted figure of the wriggling larvae through walls of its cocoon. Through the noir coloring of her vision, Cas felt there was a strange significance and power to the cocoon she held up in her stalk. It felt as if she was holding something very fragile and powerful, and something undoubtedly alive beyond the simple definition of the word. It reminded Cas of the silhouettes of the Nemorians as they sang old songs and said portentous words to her behind a mask of obscurity. And then... Cas ate the larvae, before its life even had a chance to begin.
There was less fanfare for her departure than Cas had been expecting. The men had apparently said their fill, and only Sin accompanied Cas as Kari carried her to the location. The magic area where the lines intersected lay behind the spire, where it connected to a lower range of mountains and turned the terrain craggy with rocks. It was a strenuous search, but -- to Cas''s eyes -- the intense shimmer of slimes as they exited out of the long crack at the base of one of those mountains was as noticeable as a neon sign. At this distance, Cas could see that they were bigger here. They exited the cool darkness of the cave with a monotonic intensity, coming to life once they hit the outside and immediately submerging beneath the desert sands once they got a taste of the sunlight. The crack they emerged from was barely even that, about the width of a finger. Looking back, Sin was off leaning against the shadow of a nearby outcrop, making himself comfortable for what he expected would be a long wait. Kari sat on her knees in front of the slime. There was an anxiety in her face borne from inaction. Kari had always been an active child -- perhaps a workaholic in her own way, always eager to carry Cas and happy to get the chance to do so. As she dropped her off here, however, it was hard for her to know what to do with the feeling in her chest. She wanted to be able to do something. Kari leant forward, moved her lips next to Cas, and whispered: "I know you''re gonna save the Oasis, Cas. Good luck!" Cas was more discerning with regards to Kari nowadays. She noticed more clearly that there was a strained quality to Kari''s happiness. It was something that had always been there, Cas supposed. It was hard to say that Kari had ever been simply happy. She was just noticing it more, now, perhaps. Still, as Cas squeezed herself into the crack, stretching her body to flow down the dark corridor, she could feel the echo of Kari''s words following her down into those depths. And, as she went down there, she couldn''t help but draw another comparison to the silhouettes that had sung her all those encouraging words, and the glow-worm larvae. She couldn''t help but feel the worry about the future that hadn''t been there in her heart until a moment ago. Rhetoric and answers. Cas exited the other side of the tunnel before she finished entering it. It was like piping water between two glass plates, a simple squeeze and a handful of her completely filled the miniature confines of the tunnel, rushing out the other side into a chilly cavern below. 50 slimes absorb- 43- 59 slimes-78-absor-99-67 slimes absorb- 34- 19 slimes-69-absor-89-50 slimes absorb- 70- 32 slimes-38-absor-232-45 slimes absorb- 45- 54¡­ Cas elected not to expand that itinerary of her recent murders, simply taking note of the 22 xp and feeling slightly heavier for it as she compressed her outer layer and squeezed more of herself through. Crawling, pulling and pushing herself from all sides, Cas¡¯ body on the surface grew smaller, less substantial as it shrunk and shrunk, draining down the fracture until only a small handful of slime remained, an over-sized eye taking up the majority of the remaining space. The inner confines of the tunnel were astoundingly tight, and her eye ¨C Cas understood ¨C was the only part of her bound by such considerations. So, Cas focused, feeling a soft warmth develop around her crystal, and then.. Cas¡¯s eye dissolved, and the world dissolved with it. Sounds disappeared, all the background smells she¡¯d ignored became notable for their absence, and the clear sight of Kari¡¯s smiling face scattered out of focus, leaving Cas with only a vague recollection that she was in sunlight, and that her lower body was dragging her somewhere very dark, and very cold. Cas¡¯s body had spilled out onto what she felt was chilly stone. In a few minutes, her eye had reformed. She became certain of this when she started hearing again, a chaotic beat of dripping water playing out in the darkness. Around her she could see¡­ nothing. It was dark. Normally, darkness was no impediment to Cas. She had excellent night vision as a sakkari, a small consolation for a lack of color vision, she supposed. However¡­her ability to see by starlight held no weight inside the cavern, which was gripped by a darkness that admitted no light by which to see, and which was so complete that Cas was certain no human before her had ever experienced. Her crystal, free of the shimmering illusions human eyes entertained whenever they encountered the concept, saw the darkness very plainly. It was what Cas had imagined the darkness in her dreamless sleep to be.. It was quite calming, actually. Still, calming or no, Cas couldn¡¯t see. That was a problem for her expedition, considering that ¡®looking around¡¯ had been a key component of her scientific process thus far. Quite troublesome¡­ As she¡¯d suspected, the cavern was empty of conveniently glowing mushrooms. So, she transformed into the [Golem v2.0]. Cas had taken into account the user reviews she got from Kari. This version was substantially less horrifying to look at, and quite an improvement otherwise. Better proportioned legs and a stronger spine gave it a more human posture, and it actually had hands now, rather than the stalks she¡¯d defaulted to using before. And Cas, stretching out one of those hands, changed it, feeling her body morphing as she pumped more material through arm. A long drip of slime extended out from her palm, hardening into a long pole that fit comfortably in her grip. On the end of that pole, suspended high above her, a large, spherical bulb grew into position, crowning the top of the staff with a jelly-like material. Eating the glow worm had revealed the usual: it was made of meat, worm blood, salt, and about a hundred different ¡®unknown¡¯ materials. Through quite a tedious process, Cas figured out that it was a combination of four of these unknowns that created the Glow Worm¡¯s titular light. She¡¯d named these four materials appropriately, labeling them: glow stuff 2, glow stuff 3, glow stuff 4 and ¨C of course ¨C Lampyridae. Looking more closely at each of them, she¡¯d been surprised to discover that they each had their own sub descriptions detailing their makeup, and to her great delight, they each had only one necessary ingredient: sugar. All those ingredients, transmuted from sugar, were pumped through her staff into the crown, where a soft undulation of the slime-bulb mixed them together in a swirl. ¡­ It was a dim light that tentatively came to life in the bulb. To Cas¡¯s eyes, however, it might as well have been a chandelier as the cavern lit up like a ballroom. The dark walls, rich with mineral deposits, shimmered like the night sky. Cas had hung the pole on her shoulder, keeping the light behind her to avoid flashing herself. That decision now stretched her shadow to the forward edge of the cavern, where a large, dull boulder intruded upon the glaring symphony of crystal walls. This was all background to Cas. Her attention entranced by the spot just in front of her splayed feet, where her shadow fell over the corpse.
Cas could still hear the sound of dripping water in the center of the cavern, could feel the dank atmosphere stretching its way in this direction. The slimes gave her light a wide berth. As they continued their march, Cas noticed they took up every stray bit of moisture they came across. This explained the dry environment, as well as the immaculate preservation of the skeleton before her. Her first instinct had been to say human, but the extra set of ear-holes identified it as a Nemorian. It was collapsed in a reclined posture against the wall. A rusted spear-tip lay on the ground beside its thigh bone. An outline of where the wooden shaft had decayed to nothing discolored the ground. She moved her lantern to cast her shadow off the skeleton, aiming for a better view. No trauma on the remains. The way it sat against the wall suggested that it had died exhausted. Starvation, maybe? Cas left the depressing thought alone. Standing, she moved further into the cavern. ... Roughly circular in shape, the cavern was empty of all features except the central puddle: a muddy thing that rippled constantly as water dripped from the stalactites in an uneven dribble. Walking forward revealed that the central puddle was surrounded by a wave of slimes that slowly rose from its edges. Stepping over them, she splashed into the bog, ducking under the lower stalactites and standing in the perpetual rain that decorated the center of the cavern. In such a small space, with so few obstructions, it had been easy enough to trace the slimes¡¯ paths after they emerged from their waters. Despite their blindness and general lack of ability, it seemed the slimes had an instinct for following well worn paths, and created highways leading directly to three places in the cave. The first path led by the skeleton. The second trail of slimes, Cas followed to a large hole in the wall, big enough for a man to fit through. Crawling into it, Cas traveled for about a hundred feet before she was stopped. Broken rubble and loose stones piled at the end of the path. A cave in, heavy enough to trap a man, she thought, remembering the skeleton back by the first entrance. Pausing, Cas could feel a warm stream of air coming through. Reaching forward, she felt for the breeze, found the gap and ¨C squeezing her palm against it -- formed a stalk. Testing and teasing her way through the maze of tight corners and jagged spaces, Cas stopped when she felt the stalk breach into open air. Moving more mass into the end, she grew the bulb and ¨C taking a few minutes ¨C formed an eye at the end of it. Cas was unsurprised to find herself looking into a dark and hidden corner of her cave. On the other side of the cave, the fox-bat sat couchant in a makeshift nest, snoring lightly, oblivious to her presence. Dissolving the eye and drawing the stalk back, Cas crawled back out and followed the final group of slimes to the third exit. Her lantern danced and swayed behind her with every step. Her shadow swung like a pendulum in front of her, passing like a metronome over the dull, gray boulder which formed the final notable feature in the cavern. This third exit, by her bearing, was the one that led directly to the Oasis, so she was immediately on the lookout for something amiss. Walking closer revealed that few of the slimes chose this path. Of those that did, fewer still actually made it to the exit. The slimes seemed hesitant to go to the exit, either stopping and turning the other way or wandering senselessly in confused circles. In fact, in the muddle of confused slimes, it was difficult to tell where the exit was. Moving closer, she crawled past the rock, leaning against the wall to peek behind the large boulder. There, she found a medium sized hole in the wall. It had smooth edges, as if carved out by centuries of erosion. The slimes that made it this far had no trouble climbing up the smooth lips of the entrance. Cas was confused for a moment as to what the problem was, until five seconds passed and the gray stone hissed. It was the sound of a giant taking a breath, and the stone expanded like the giant¡¯s chest, growing out to press against the wall and sealing the entrance shut. The slimes that continued heedlessly onward, Cas saw, touched the surface of the stone and¡­ absorbed into it. This series of deaths sent a cascade of panic back to the following slimes before ¨C with another, long hiss, the giant exhaled and the exit became clear of obstruction, and the slimes continued their march onward. Cas felt a bit of her pride spark up at this realization. Taking a step back, she moved her lantern to get a better view. She didn¡¯t want to admit the truth. Tilting her head, Cas looked deeper into the surface of the stone, and she could see that the stone was changing color. She wanted it to be some natural phenomenon that she could feel smart about having discovered. The stone lost its opacity, becoming less substantial. But this¡­ The stone was changing color. It grew¡­ not lighter, but less substantial as Cas looked through the dimming haze of the rocky interior, where she saw, floating there, a large, crystal plate that reflected her lantern light. This was just stupid, she thought. Alas, the stupid lies one made up sometimes turned out to be the stupid truth instead. Fate was funny that way. Who would¡¯ve thought, out of all explanations, it would turn out that it would be this. This giant monster was stealing their water!
Cas plucked the bulb from the top of her staff and absorbed it into herself. The chemicals she moved into her off hand, which now glowed even more dimly as she knelt by skeleton. The new, low angle of the light gave the skeleton a mournful expression. It also gave the spear-point a sharp shadow against the ceiling as she held it up, its surface gnarled with rust and flakes of deterioration. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it Cas had once asked Elder Korivenna how to kill a slime. Knocking the blade against the stone wall drew a dull hum from the metal. It was still in good condition. The answer Cas had received was vague and unsatisfactory. Cas slammed the socket of the spear-tip onto the now empty tip of her staff. The staff was a part of her body, and she could feel it changing in reaction, thickening to fill the socket, growing hardened pins where the attachment points had been punched into the metal, replacing the delicate chemistry of its interior with grained hardness that left the staff feeling more like dried bone than the hollow sugar-stick she¡¯d designed it as. The simplicity of the design also had another advantage, Cas noticed. No longer dependent on the sugars she fed it through her body to function, and no longer needing intelligent control over the reactions that once occurred within its shaft, Cas was free now to detach from it, letting the spear drop away from her hand like a ripe fruit, allowing her to slide both hands across its smooth surface as she held it up and approached the slime. Cas grew four feet when she changed into her golem form. The spherical compactness of her slime form drew her down several sizes. The slime in front of her was taller still. For her own confidence, she elected not to estimate exactly how many tons it weighed. Taking a deep and unnecessary breath, she trudged forward, feet splashing across the central mud-puddle as she approached within stabbing distance of the creature. Again, Elder Korivenna¡¯s answer came to her at a time like this. ¡°It¡¯s hard to say what can truly kill a Sakkari. The sun can take them, but where they go after that¡­¡± she let the silence go its own way. Cas, for her part, had her own ideas as to what else might be able to kill a slime. Namely, incredible violence. Kas raised her spear in both hands, thrusting it forward in a series of quick motions, one that punched a hole in the creature, one which followed through to deepen that wound, another that thrust four feet into the creature and slammed harshly against its crystal eye, a fourth that slashed down to flay a slice of hardened flesh. By the time the fifth strike came, the first four had already healed. She tried again, and that failed. She tried to strike faster, and the slime healed the shallow wounds. She tried harder strikes, and they had no effect. She tried attacking without breaks for an hour, and saw no progress. Demoralized and tired, Cas took a stroll back. The slime, standing in place senselessly, had hardly registered her attacks. Cas, looking back at the slime, which by now looked as pristine as ever, started to understand why Korivenna had been so unsure as to the status of their mortality. It was hard to imagine what human efforts might be able to kill something which healed as easily as a human moved. Then, Cas remembered that she was capable of more than human effort, and went to her second plan. ¡­ Well it wasn¡¯t her plan per-se. It was a tactic she remembered from watching the Zanzibat hunting slimes. Cas raised the spear above her head, coiling her body and bringing it down edge-wise like a sword. The spear had an edge, though not much of one, and it cut several inches into the hardened exterior of the slime. A grip and a wedge jerked it out from the slime. It was already starting to heal, but Cas wouldn¡¯t give it the opportunity to finish. Bringing her spear back down, she slashed at it again, and again, and again like a woodsman chopping through a particularly stubborn knot. The more she hit it, the more it healed, but, by focusing on a small area, attacking the delicate point where the armor barely hung on by an edge, Cas brought her spear down for the last time and was rewarded with the sound of a wet flop as the slime flesh crashed down onto the carpet of mini-slimes below, sending the confused mass into a buzzing disarray as the disembodied flesh absorbed them into itself. Cas went through the usual process the fox had shown her. Reaching down ¨C she remembered that the fox had merely tossed away the broken armor out of reach of where the slime could reabsorb it. Cas, however, had far better methods of denial. Hurrying, she flashed down and took the disembodied slime into her hand, attempting to absorb it, and failing¡­ ¡®Huh?¡¯ was the only word out of her mouth before the message flashed on her status screen, and a searing pain came from her arm. Foreign material exceeds your absorption level! Max HP Updated- Cas didn¡¯t bother to read the rest of the bad news, the searing in her limb told her enough. Looking down at her arm, Cas could see clearly the junction where the slime flesh was absorbing her, and growing further up her arm like a strange virus. It was¡­ a horrifying sight to her eyes, and she reacted with all the shrill energy of a woman who¡¯d just seen a mouse. The rusty spear head flashed in a fast arc, and the monstrous appendage, arm and all, fell to the ground with a dead flop. Cas staggered back from the scene, watching as the disembodied flesh finished absorbing her appendage, and as the insensate slime slowly reached out to reabsorb the huddled mass of her flesh and its own. ¡­ Cas regrew her arm, feeling the rest of her body shrink to maintain proportion. The mass of the arm itself wasn¡¯t an expensive loss. However, the limb did contain many bones, each of which had been hardened with a lot of her tougher material¡­ so it was that Cas decided to make up for the losses with tactics she wasn¡¯t too proud of. Looking down at her chest, the skull floated in the space inside her rib-cage, looking up at her with what she considered to be a judgmental look before dissolving. The various other bones she''d taken up soon followed suit until: Absorption level insufficient to take up all material. The message appeared once she¡¯d saturated her body¡¯s ability to take up the harder minerals. The remaining bones still broke down, but didn¡¯t dissolve ¨C instead floating as an opaque cloud that muddied through her upper body. The rock-slime stayed where it was, not caring to pursue her or move the slightest bit from its perch. It was a strange thing to see. The slime was obviously higher level than her. At least, it had a higher absorption level. But it was so lethargic. To Cas¡¯s eye, it didn¡¯t even seem to be eating the other slimes intentionally. It had simply gotten stuck in an inconvenient place and ¨C fed ever larger by the blind mass of its brethren as they ran into it ¨C couldn¡¯t muster the energy to move. Cas felt she could relate to it, in some way. Cas ¨C mainly through her own bad decision making ¨C had become water heavy multiple times. Every time she loaded up on too much water she always felt¡­ lethargic. It wasn¡¯t a feeling of sickness per say, but without the salts and actual sustenance she so relied upon, it felt as if she could never find a reason to move unless it was to eat something with actual substance to it. And this slime, stuck in the darkness of this cave, fed on a diet of slime water for five years straight, didn¡¯t seem to have much motivation left to move. This cavern was the perfect trap for a slime, in a way. Young slimes were more water laden than adults, but they stilled maintained a proportion of minerals that would keep the slime from instinctually purging itself of the excess water that would built up inside of it. And here, it couldn¡¯t eat more minerals to fix the deficiency because there was nothing in this room resembling food. Cas looked down into her body, and into the slurry of bonemeal that was now mixed out through it. Or, rather, there hadn¡¯t been any food that it could smell in the perpetual darkness of the cavern, she corrected herself. This gave her an idea...
Cas took a moment to bask in the sunlight as it streamed into the cave. The Zanzibat looked at her, confused. ¡°Hey, buddy,¡± she waved with her golem arm, ¡°it¡¯s about to get messy in here, so sorry in advance.¡± The fox, recognizing her voice, simply closed its eyes and tried to catch some shut eye. Cas, looked around at the arena, and took out her spear head. In the daylight, the flakes of rust that crusted its surface had a translucent quality to them. It was bent and chipped, and not all of the damage was from age Cas recalled with a wince, as she remembered all the dings and scratches the thing had endured as she forced it through the claustrophobic spaces of the cave in. Taking out her arm, she reformed the spear-shaft and molded it into the socket of the blade. Cas was surprised to find how much harder this shaft was. It was all thanks to the sacrifice of the skeleton, she supposed, rapping a knuckle against the thick shaft of hardened slime and finding it produced a dense, thudding sound. This spear shaft, in addition to the better grip, was also much shorter, handling more like a sword as she gave it a few practice swings. Satisfied with the performance, she placed it on a high perch of rock and descended back down into the cavern. Taking a few minutes to regrow her eye, she changed into a golem and activated the glow-worm solution in one of her hands. In her other hand, she concentrated the slurry of bone, forcing it through her surface and producing a soft handful of dry bone powder in her palm Gently, she sprinkled the dust at the foot of the larger slime. The slime, tentative at first, stretched out, snorting the powder eagerly like it was an underpaid supermodel. This was a promising start, for Cas had been planning to lead it out to the surface with a trail of the stuff. Then, the promising start became a little too promising, as the slime¡¯s surface warbled, and it let out a horrific, inhuman, inanimate shriek that filled the cavern completely with its overwhelming noise. It was a disturbing thing to hear, but Cas wasn¡¯t left much time to process it as the slime ¨C with surprising rapidity ¨C shot out a thick stalk that the golem was barely quick enough to dodge. Cas could see the caustic surface of that stalk bubbling. Apparently, it had developed a taste. Again, it lunged at her, attempting to absorb. This time, Cas jumped to the side, and made a bee-line for the cave entrance. The slime followed, and the race was on.
Cas, in her golem form, was laughably faster than any slime. Leaping up into the hole and army crawling to the cave-in, she¡¯d built quite a substantial lead over her pursuer, who was only just now crawling into the entrance of the tunnel. Squeezing through the rubble would require a more primordial form, however, and in that state she held no advantage, so, not wasting any time, she threw herself bodily into the exit, squeezing herself quickly through the maze of broken stone, at times splitting her body to take multiple paths at once before converging back up at the surface. She could feel the slime nipping and dissolving at the trailing edge of her body when she pulled through, appearing in the warm, surface air in a blind, deaf and quite helpless state as she tried to form the golem. Idiot! Berating herself, she crawled forward blindly. Having not expected this to turn into a chase, the few minutes it took for her to reform her eye hadn¡¯t seemed so important!. So, Cas, in a panic, reached out to the ethereal body stamped in her mind, and activated [Human Figure]. The change crashed into her body as always, and her eyes formed in seconds, appearing just in time to watch everything happen all at once. Skeleton, organs, muscles, feet, torso, legs, arms¡­ all these changes and thousands more flashed by like the racing frames of a slide-show, and Cas stood in the middle of the cave, gasping for breath. The slime, to the displeasure of her paranoia, was barely halfway out of the rubble wall, taking its time. Cas, reached out, and picked up her short spear, taking a few practice swings in nervous anticipation. Because, you see, that was the thing about [Human figure]. Cas could make it, but it was a construction done without understanding, like a student who¡¯d memorized the answers to the test. The slime was fully out in the open now, and its eye, a large crystal about the size of Cas¡¯ palm, reformed within seconds. And, like a student who didn¡¯t truly understand the material, Cas was therefore unable to change her human figure. Unlike the golem, which could grow new limbs, and make lightbulbs to see in the cavern, and stretch its stalks out to climb trees, the human figure -- built without understanding -- was much too complex for Cas to manipulate. It had none of the utility options of the golem or any of her non-human transformations for that matter. The slime approached. However¡­ up here in the light, where creative problem solving had reached its limit¡­ Cas raised the spear and swung. It came down in a flash, projecting a loud whistle as it sliced through the air and cut half way down into the body of the slime with a loud squelch. The slime''s armor exploded, splattering the nearby walls with the slime¡¯s innards. ...the human figure was really, really good at exerting its strength. A slight step back was enough to extricate the weapon, and a flashing motion brought the rusted blade back down into the slime. That had been enough, and a large slice of the slime the size of Cas¡¯s forearm flopped into the ground. Cas picked it up. No warning message came, and Cas laughed as the disembodied flesh struggled vainly to absorb a body built using ¨C in her status screen¡¯s words ¨C ¡®level 60¡¯ slime feats. Yeah, she doubted this slime would be pulling level rank on this body; and, chucking the slime armor 15 feet into the desert outside, Cas smiled, took up her blade, and started hacking. ¡­ The slime was a shadow of its former self by the time Cas was done. Violent splatters of viscous material and scattered debris of hardened armor lay in a chaotic mess around the tiny, marble sized figure that sat gripping onto a large grass stem. Sharon and Tara, shivering, huddled together in one corner of the cave, apparently not liking the show. The fox lifted its head up from its tent, blinking sleepily to see what the commotion was all about. And Cas¡­ Cas was breathing heavily. She never really felt out of breath as a slime, but it felt good to be able to express the intensity of her emotion, to put physical form to her exhaustion as she looked down at her defeated enemy, which now only looked confused as it attempted to crawl off the grass stem which wobbled underneath it. Cas wondered whether or not she ought to spare it. After all, it hadn¡¯t been killing the other slimes on purpose, and she doubted it wou¨C Nom-nom The fox¡¯s tongue licked up against its chops with a delicious motion. Huh¡­ guess the decision was made for her. Cas looked all around. The ants were having a field day with the mess that had been left inside the cave, and, outside, the slime remnants were already beginning to desiccate. There was¡­ really nothing left of the problem, it seemed. A glint of crystal caught her eye, however. The slime¡¯s crystal eye, looking like something between a silvered mirror and a mollusk shell, sat in perfect condition on the ground. Cas picked it up¡­
Cas could be quite loud when she wanted to be. Her ''lung'' was dedicated solely to speaking, and could be expanded quite generously, as could her vocal chords, and air channels, and trachea. Everything could be supersized to fit the purpose, and at this stage -- with the modifications she''d made -- even the slightest whisper from her could sound like it came from a speaker system. Despite all of this, Cas was silent, at a loss for what to say. Cas was perched atop the low hill this town used as a soap box. She recalled the lack-luster speech she¡¯d given here last time, and was determined not to repeat the mistake. So... Cas paused, took a deep breath, and -- with a subtle, yet confident voice that filled the air with its volume, announced: ¡°Ladies and gentlemen¡­ we got him.¡± And the crowd went wild. Breeding Ground for Trouble The effect after the monster''s defeat wasn''t immediately noticeable. Rather, over the following month, the Oasis stopped drying, and then it started healing, and that was simply enough.. After saving the village, defeating the monster, and generally purging all excitement from their world, many adventurers may have been disappointed by the hum-drum village life that followed. Cas, however¡­ Cas was having the time of her life! She was a hero! A legend! The talk of the town! She wasn¡¯t being executed, for one! She officially had citizenship, and quite generous yearly rations to boot, not that she had much use for food and tea. Naturally, the villagers were eager to show their gratitude beyond simply not killing her, and Cas took them up on that unabashedly. First thing was that she wanted a new hut at the edge of the village. Elder Nemaris was aghast at the suggestion. A border hut for such a well renowned figure could be interpreted as a slight, but Cas didn¡¯t care and the people worked like ants to have her place built within the week. Naturally, this was followed by another ceremony, speech, and a housewarming party that lasted longer than Mardi Gras. It was wild! It was like a reverse end-of-the world party. Ie¡­ a lot less chaotic and depressing than an apocalypse jam, as depicted in various disaster movies where people threw parties for some reason. Eventually, however, the party died down, Cas became yesterdays news, and she was left alone to stew in her hut, studying obscure things nobody cared about. This was the life of her dreams. Her current obsession was the life cycle of slimes. Now that she knew where they came from, she could feel that she was this close to figuring out how they reproduced, and ¨C unlike in the cave ¨C this study was sparked by a painful curiosity rather than painful boredom. Cas wanted to know the answer to this question which had eluded her for so long. She wanted to be the first person in this world to discover where slimes came from. And, in her peaceful little den, with a pension and lots of free time, she was free to focus herself entirely onto the task of scientific discovery. ¡­ Still, no matter how jealously she guarded her hut, the chaos of the village life outside had a way of intruding. Today, that chaos was called Tami, and she was distraught. Kari stood up and addressed the woman as she entered: ¡°Hello, Cas is actually busy at the-¡± ¡°Oh, great Sage, thank goodness you¡¯re here!¡± Tami spoke in a hurried and heartbroken manner, managing to slip naturally past Kari¡¯s attempts to play receptionist. ¡°What is it?¡± Cas asked, dissolving the magnifying stalk she hovered over her desk and flipping her eye back like a coin. The woman was near panicked, throwing her shawl back to reveal a beautiful face, coal black hair and light eyes. ¡°Please,¡± she said, holding out a bag full of some strange looking tubers in one hand, while in the other was a small clay container filled with dust. ¡°This is a matter of utmost importance.¡± Sensing the hurry in the woman¡¯s voice, Cas simply complied. One of the natural abilities of slimes was to transmute various substances. Korivenna used her slime to make fire powder from the Jinjibl root, as well as various other medicinal balms and powders from a dozen different plants. The advantage of slimes ¨C or Sakkari as the locals called them ¨C was that they could make things out of season. For instance fire powder, by human effort, could only be made from the concentrated nectar of a flowering Jinjibl plant. A properly trained slime, however¡­ could make it from the root in any season, so it went for many other medicines and useful products. Cas reached out with a stalk and tasted the small, dark powder the woman held up to her. There was barely enough there to dust the woman¡¯s fingertips, but it was enough for Cas, who immediately tasted the primary flavor¡­ a hint of concentrated Kamari root. Knowing enough by tongue, she reached out her second stalk and took the bag, flipping it over and dumping the contents into herself, watching ripples and air bubbles form in front of her crystal as the group of roots fell and floated inside her body, already dissolving. Tami, hands clasped together, looked on with disbelieving joy. You see¡­ despite the Sakkari¡¯s amazing abilities, they did have one weakness. They could only make useful things if trained properly, and it was hard to train a mindless blob of water that didn¡¯t speak human language. Most apothecaries specialized their slimes into creating about a dozen different common materials. Attempting to teach them more often resulted in the slime becoming confused and forgetting old lessons and ¨C for the rarer medicines ¨C well, there was little that could be done about that. So, Cas ¨C who required no training ¨C had become quite the hot commodity for creating rare and unusual medicines. Chemistry 101 XP Cap met. Lvl 14 -> Lvl 15 And she was getting quite good at it, too. Cas reached out her stalk. Tami was ready for her, holding out a massive jug in both hands, into which cas poured the black powder, filling it up to what would¡¯ve been the two-liter mark if the world were a Walmart. The last sifts of the material shifted into the jug, piling high over the rim in a black dune. Tami looked down at the jug greedily as if it were a pot of gold. Placing it down on a nearby, wooden, table, she reached into her pouch and pulled out a small, flat, clay container. The container was filled with some sort of butter, into which Tami poured a finger pinch of dust before mixing¡­ turning the butter dark with subtle glitters. Showing off some immaculate dexterity, she simultaneously pulled out a small, horse-hair brush which she dipped into the mixture and began applying across her eye-lids like mascara. ¡­It was mascara. ¡°Oh, thank goodness I found you when I did, darling,¡± Tami spoke in a conversational tone, a steady hand applying lines of glittering darkness across her face. ¡°I was in such a panic to discover I¡¯d run out. It¡¯s silly of me, I know, but I forget how often I apply this stuff. I could¡¯ve sworn I had another jar in the back shed.¡± She paused a moment, dipping her brush in the clay jar and moving over to her other eye. ¡°Anyway, how has your day been?¡± ¡°Really?¡± Was Cas¡¯s only answer, annoyance palpable in her expressive voice. Tami looked back at her, confused. ¡°What?¡± ¡°Is this what you call a ¡®matter of utmost importance?¡± You walked in here like someone was dying!¡± The woman looked affronted, looking back up from her clamshell dust holder. ¡°Beauty is always a woman¡¯s priority, darling,¡± she waved a hand dismissively, ¡°Oh, I wouldn¡¯t expect you Sakkari to understand. You don¡¯t even have faces.¡± ¡°I used to be a human, you know,¡± Cas retorted. ¡°Well, apparently not a very fashionable one,¡± Tami retorted, standing up straighter as she stuffed the brush and holder back into her side satchell. ¡°Get out¡­¡± Cas said.
Kari had finished her errands for the day. Hugged in front of her was a basket full of various roots, herbs, plants and dried meats that had only just come into season. It was a strange experience for Kari. Having work to do that wasn¡¯t carting corpses, being needed, it was¡­ new. Running errands for Cas, however, meant that she sometimes had to go into the village. Kari didn¡¯t like going into the village. It felt like she was a ghost wandering through a memory. It felt like she didn¡¯t belong, and that she should¡¯ve disappeared when her birthday had come. The people didn¡¯t treat her differently. In fact, her life now was almost exactly the same as it had been before her pardon. People were distant, didn¡¯t look in her direction unless they had to, and otherwise shadows who¡¯s faces she never saw. Kari hiked the hem of her shawl higher to cover her face. Everything was the same, but she hated it more, now. Before, this was all she knew, but now she understood that things could be different, she had a friend she could miss. ¡ª- ¡°What!?¡± Kari said a little too loudly. Cas paused, cocking an eyebrow as she stretched out her toes. ¡°What do you mean, what? I¡¯m just saying we should let the villagers know what I can do. It¡¯d certainly save us a lot of headache if I could transform freely.¡± ¡°No!¡± Kari said obstinately, crossing her arms. ¡°Kari,¡± Cas asked sweetly, sounding and looking so much kinder in her human form, ¡°why are you so against this?¡± ¡°Because¡­¡± Kari hesitated. Because Cas was her friend, and that was their secret, and seeing her like this was something she let only Kari do. Why did anyone else need to know?\ ¡°Because,¡± Kari continued, ¡°people will just ask you for more favors if they found out! Besides, you don¡¯t need to tell anyone else here. They¡¯ll just get the wrong idea, especially if they see you looking like that ugly corpse body.¡± ¡°Hey, Golem V2 looks much better, thank you!¡± Cas shot her a hurt look under her eyebrows. ¡°But I guess you make a good point. We can hold off on telling them for now.¡± ¡°Great!¡± Kari hopped up onto her toes, rushing over to nestle her neck into Cas¡¯ and crush her with a deep hug. ¡°Hehe¡­ fine, but you know what that means, don¡¯t you?¡± ¡°Of course!¡± Kari hopped back, watching as Cas melted, turning into a large, spherical ball of slime that glimmered like a red jewel in the moonlight. There, inside the sphere, the crystal eye moved out of the center, swimming up to the surface where ¨C emerging from the surface ¨C a winged thing appeared, breaking away from the larger slime ball just as Kari picked it up and placed it on the windowsill. ¡°Ok,¡± the thing spoke in a small voice, ¡°I¡¯m going all night. You know what to tell anyone if they see it?¡± The thing gestured a wing at the eye-less, senseless slime ball that sat at the edge of the room. Kari rolled her eyes, ¡°that you¡¯re sleeping and not to be disturbed.¡± ¡°Good girl!¡± Cas complemented, dissolving her vocal chords and preparing for takeoff, stopped only by a small voice. ¡°Do you have to go?¡± ¡°Huh¡­¡± Cas asked, looking back. There Kari stood, hands behind her back and her toe tracing embarrassed lines in the sand. ¡°I just¡­ I mean I don¡¯t think you should go all the time. It¡¯s not good to be away for so long..¡± Cas paused, turning around to more fully face the girl. ¡°You know I have a lot of work to do in the cavern, Kari,¡± she explained in a soft voice. The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°I know,¡± Kari answered, moving over to rest her arms on the windowsill. ¡°I just¡­ I hate seeing you go,¡± she said with a muffled expression. Cas laughed at that. ¡°If you hate seeing me go, why do you always come to my shed at night. You know you can just go to sleep before, and I¡¯ll be here to wake you up in the morning!¡± Another, embarrassed look from Kari. ¡°I know that, too,¡± she said. ¡°I just like to see you fly.¡± Cas couldn¡¯t smile in her form, but she did express a rather unnecessarily loopdy loop to the cheers of Kari as she left for the mountain.
Cas returned from the mountain with more questions than answers. Such was the day of a researcher. Still, she made a point to enjoy the journey back, both in a metaphorical and literal sense. Flying could be quite the relaxing activity, you see. It was still very early morning, and ¨C a thousand feet up in the air, with a horizon dozens of miles away ¨C Cas had a panoramic view of the night sky as the globe drifted slowly beneath her. The desert was a lot more lively in the dark. Her night vision allowed her to see with perfect clarity in this light, but ¨C being so far above the earth ¨C she relied on the strangely shifting sands to alert her to the mass of life that crawled across the desert sands below. The village came into view, and soon so did her hut, and her window, which expanded with the shrinking distance until she was perched inside of it. She stayed there for a moment, enjoying the morning breeze and looking inside the hut. She had multiple wooden tables set up with her samples and equipment, both gifted to her by village elders. And in terms of decoration, this hut was perhaps the best clothed in the entire village. And, sure, the people here could be pushy at times, and rude, but¡­ Cas found that, after saving their Oasis, she found the days going by more slowly, reminiscent of the lazy summers of her youth. It felt like she was back home again, and living her perfect life. Well liked, useful, and able to spend all day on her research, research that was actually helping people! Cas sat on the window for the next several minutes, staring down absent mindedly at the eighty five pounds of slime material she¡¯d shed. Her mind, cleared of all obstructions by the soothing winds of her recent flight, was left more flexible and creative in the croaking racket of the night animals. She wondered, as she looked at the inanimate parcel slime flesh, what exactly was the difference between her and it. It had no eye, for one, but neither did Korivenna¡¯s slime. Wouldn¡¯t it be natural for her to be able to create slime balls that could run predetermined chemical reactions? Chemistry 101: 345 XP gained! New skill discovered!Sakkari Clones: Create slime clones that can transmute products based on a predetermined stimuli. Cas looked curiously at the XP gain. It somewhat confirmed her suspicions that XP gain was about understanding, at least somewhat. The new skill, however. She was curious¡­ ¡­ Yep¡­ Cas ¨C in her larger body now ¨C looked down at the miniature slimeball she¡¯d separated out from herself. It was a small, eyeless sphere that sparkled internally with undissolved minerals. It had its own stats that read: Sakkari Clone 1 Size: Small Instructions: Transformations: Will create Tamari Balm from Tamari Vines. Instruction: Will enact transformation when fed Tamari Vines. Instruction 2: Will grow when fed water and other foods. Instruction 3: Will stop growing once it achieves 5 pound weight. Instruction 4: Will not dissolve meat. Instruction 5: Insufficient Level to Include more instructions. Cas looked curiously at the instruction set. Training the slime ball had been¡­ an interesting experience. It felt like she was talking to herself, as thoughts, memories and images flowed within her, coalescing in one place before dropping away into the¡­ Sakkari 1, as she¡¯d uncreatively named it. Now we were getting somewhere, Cas thought.
Sin was a wanderer trapped in a desert island. Cas could tell by the anxious energy that seemed always to overflow from the man. He often left his farm, and his home village of Fari, making unnecessary visits to the other villages like today. The five mile trip was too short by far, however, to tell by the amount of extra energy he had to burn by the time he arrived. Energy, Cas noted, that everyone agreed was best spent entertaining the children. Today, he was telling one of the same five stories in his repertoire. All of his audience knew the story by heart, and had heard him tell it many times before to boot, so today¡¯s session took the character of a question and answer sequence. Sin stood at the fore of little seated figures, striking a dramatic pose as he continued recounting the harrowing tale. ¡°And the beast ¨C scales glistening and teeth flashing like the moon, battered the earth with its body and shook the sky with its voice. Every buck of its shoulders sent another tremendous earthquake that tore apart the armies of Nemoria! And Gingibl stood witnessing this, and in order to defeat the injured beast he¡­!¡± Sin stopped at this crucial moment, drawing a pained groan from the crowd of children. ¡°Actually¡­ I¡¯m having trouble remembering how he defeated the Rom Beast.¡± ¡°Aww! Come on!¡± some children grumbled while the disappointed cries continued. ¡°Hmmm,¡± Sin said with an exaggerated posture of questioning. ¡°Did he, stab the beast to death?¡± he asked, thrusting forward with an invisible spear. ¡°Nooooo!¡± the children cried out in unison. ¡°Oh¡­ then maybe he danced until it ran away?¡± he asked, curving his body in a mime of a shoulder dance. ¡°Nooo!¡± some children answered while others were taken in a fit of giggles. Sin paused, struggling with himself. ¡°You know,¡± he admitted at last, ¡°I actually don¡¯t remember, can one of you-¡± Before he managed to complete the sentence, a dozen hands shot up, raising the bodies they were attached to after them as the children, with attentive eyes and perked ears all waved for his attention with a chorus of ¡°Me! Me!¡± ¡°Ok,¡± Sin said, pointing to a particularly enthusiastic figure, ¡°you there, young girl. Can you tell us how he defeated the beast? I¡¯m dying to know.¡± The girl all but leapt up onto her feet and yelled, ¡°he killed it by falling asleep, and making it think he¡¯d died!¡± ¡°Correct!¡± Sin leaped up in a jester¡¯s posture, drawing another laugh from the crowd before going into a song and dance that had the children chanting along. ¡°Ok, ok, now go on and play,¡± he waved them away after a while. Then the children, excited, all leapt up in the unison of common purpose. Grouping off into pairs and triplets, they quickly started their own separate productions, reeinacting the tale of Gingibl. Groups of monsters and heroes ransacked through the village streets with just that extra decibel of racket that only Sin could inspire, and for which the villagers were quite happy to send Sin off on an adventure to a neighboring village. Before the Village Elder was called to kick Sin out again, however, Cas approached. ¡°Oh! Sage!¡± Sin greeted with that ever cheerful smile, not a hint of guilt on his face as a pair of boys knocked into a cart behind him. ¡°I saw you were enjoying the story! Not as interesting as your own exploits, I imagine, but hopefully the performance was entertaining!¡± Cas, seeing the villagers gathering with annoyed faces and a petition for his expulsion, didn¡¯t waste any time on small talk. ¡°Can you teach me how to use Aura?¡± she asked. ¡ª- Away from the village center, in a quiet place, Sin knelt down with an amused expression next to Cas. ¡°So¡­ why the sudden interest?¡± Cas rolled her eye. ¡°It¡¯s not sudden, I just found myself a lot less busy after the Oasis got saved. Besides it¡¯s a useful thing to learn, how to use Aura.¡± ¡°Well,¡± Sin said, looking a little miffed. ¡°You don¡¯t ¡®use¡¯ aura he corrected. You¡­ hoska it.¡± ¡°Hoska?¡± Cas asked, not having learned that word yet. ¡°It¡¯s like¡­ if something wants to go somewhere. It¡¯s bound by its limits. That is... It needs a path. Hoska is the making of those paths.¡± ¡°Ah..¡± Cas said, deciding to translate it as ¡®channel¡¯ for now. ¡°Ok, and how do I channel Aura?¡± she asked. Sin picked up a small, dark pebble from between his feet. ¡°It¡¯s simple actually. All living things have an Aura, even slimes. Auras tell us a lot about ourselves. They¡¯re what judge us when we do wrong and what allows others to look at our misdeeds.¡± He focused his attention, and a soft glow arose between his fingertips, engulfing the pebble. ¡°Put a little mind to it, however,¡± he snapped his finers together, a thundercrack snapping through the air as the pebble broke apart into a hundred shards that scattered like shrapnel around them. Ok.. Cas was impressed. ¡°When can we start?¡± she asked. ¡°Well, first you¡¯ll need to get stronger. It¡¯s difficult to train an aura if the body its expressing itself through is weak.¡± Cas nodded her eye. ¡°Ok, and how do I get stronger?¡± Sin¡¯s initial answer was only a smile. ¡ª- Cas stood in front of sin in a deserted area of desert. Before her was a perfectly ordinary boulder, about the size of a soccer ball. Beside her was Sin, looking at the boulder with some expectation. ¡°Uhm¡­ did you want me to hit it?¡± Cas asked, gesturing an unsure curve with her stalk. Sin laughed. ¡°Oh, no,¡± he said. ¡°It¡¯s far simpler than that. See this rock here?¡± He pointed to the boulder. ¡°You¡¯re going to repeatedly lift and put down this heavy object!¡± ¡°Until?¡± Cas asked. ¡°Until it becomes uncomfortable, of course!¡± Cas sighed. She knew his heart was in the right place. She also knew that hypertrophy wasn¡¯t gonna work on a slime of all things, but the look in his eye told her she wouldn¡¯t be getting aura lessons until she did this. So, she reached out some stalks, wrapped them around the rock, and lifted. Cas looked over at sin, who looked ecstatically happy to finally have a gym buddy, and she put the rock back down and lifted again, unwilling to crush his hopes with the fact that this wasn¡¯t gonna work.
Cas couldn¡¯t believe it worked! Base strength value updated: 2 -> 3 The increase to her base stats was modest, of course, but the fifty percent increase to strength paid dividends when applied to her transformations! And if money was flight, Cas was left feeling like Scrooge McDuck. A powerful beat of her wings gained her several feet of altitude. Even with vulture bones, Cas had previously found it difficult to gain altitude at night. The desert cooled quickly after dusk, and the lack of thermals made for a very unsupported ride. With this, though¨C Another wing beat slashed down barely a second after the first. She felt like she was actually flying! Despite the poor flying conditions. The desert was full of life at night. Down below she could see things by the marks they left in the sand, and forward ahead, she could see the fox had taken to the air, occasionally diving down onto one of those shifting sands as it began it¡¯s night time hunt. Another flap, and another, and Cas could feel herself picking up speed, the wind whistling over her figure with a familiar howl. BRFTRFTRFTRFT! Speaking of familiar. Cas¡¯s eye flipped right to look through her body. Being night time, she had no need for a sunblock surface, and was able to see around her body quite clearly. Her wings were once again the issue, rippling in place as the air battered their hardened surfaces and drew a sound like tearing paper from the appendages. Cas felt her tail fin cut side to side with competent trajectories, turning her forward dive into a smooth, swimming wave as she zig-zagged through the air, letting the wind slow her down as she rounded the base of the spire. Cas went directly from flight to underground, smashing into the side entrance and eating about a half liter of slimes on her way into the cavern. There, she transformed. Cas had a weight limit of seven pounds whenever she flied. Still, despite her diminished size, on the ground, Cas found a bipedal form to be quite useful, as she transformed into a small, elf-like thing she called ¡°Homunculus¡±. Standing about a foot tall, Cas found the cavern ominous as she lit herself up with Glow-Worm, casting ominous, upward shadows on all the jagged edges and dripping stalactites. Cas was ready to get to work
Note taking was more of an art than a science. It was vitally important that you take note of the important things, and often the most vital facts were hidden behind a veneer of triviality. So, it had always been Cas¡¯ method to first record the stuff she thought looked ¡®cool¡¯. It was as good a criteria as anything else, and it had gotten multiple new discoveries to her name back on earth. Here on Nemoria, however, in this cavern, the thing that first caught her eye were the glowing crystals in the rock. You see, even the most boring pebbles you might pick up on a hike could glitter in the right light. The sand outside had particles that looked like a drag show. These crystals, however ¨C in addition to being exceedingly numerous ¨C had a peculiar ¡®color¡¯ to them that wasn¡¯t really a color. Their glow had a quality which separated them from all other rocks and which reminded her of the colorless light that slimes reflected when the sunlight hit them right¡­ Well¡­ at least now she knew what her eye was made of, Cas thought. The puddles were her next order of business. Marching over, she stepped gingerly over the edge of the nearest puddle, where a converyer belt of new slimes were constantly being ejected from the surface, and lowered herself into a squat, taking a closer look. Perpetually muddy, looking into the surface revealed little other than a haze of flowing eddies in the mucky opaqueness of the body. It was from the edge of every one of these small puddles that slimes flowed out in a primordial scene, and their movement seemed to disturb the suspended dirt particles in a perpetual dance. Cas interrupted this ball, and dug her hand into the puddle. The movement disturbed the water, and a strange, glittering light suddenly appeared in the puddle, as if wafted up from the silty bottom. Pulling her hand out revealed a wet clump of sand which reflected intensely that same colorless ¡®color¡¯ which identified the slimes, as well as the crystals that peppered this cavern. Interesting...
Not with a bang. Kari was still having a bad time in town. Well, it wasn''t so much a bad time anymore. Kari had relearned her old social habits from before she met Cas. It was easy enough to keep the villagers distant, even as she grew close to Kari. Nobody here was anything to her, after all, and she was sure they thought likewise. Nadia laughed and waved an arm over her head. ¡°Come on! You¡¯re as slow as a Sakkari, Kari!¡± the girl teased back, looking very proud of her rhyme scheme. ...she had promised Cas to try and make friends, however. ¡°Ok! So, what¡¯s next?¡± Nadia asked, dropping the last item into the basket. Kari answered, ¡°That¡¯s all Cas wanted for today." She was glad for Nadia¡¯s company, though she never found a compelling reason to admit that to the girl. It made Carrying the groceries easier, in any case. ¡°Glad to help!¡± Nadia answered, saluting with her whole body. ¡°I didn¡¯t have anything to do today, anyway,¡± she admitted, dropping her arm into a slack hang and looking a little abashed. And, in the most literal sense, Nadia -- today as most days -- did not have anything to do. For, Nadia was an Unari, like Kari, and was therefore left without a job whenever there wasn¡¯t a corpse that didn¡¯t need disposal, and now that Kari had graduated from her position, she wondered... ¡°Nadia,¡± Kari said, looking aside at the girl on their walk back. The girl looked up from her contemplative pace, turning on that ten-thousand watt smile which was her trademark. ¡°Yeah?¡± she asked, looking believably cheery despite the perpetual slouch which affected her spine and made her happiness look more like silliness. ¡°Have you¡­¡± Kari hesitated, ¡°had to take any corpses?¡± Nadia only beamed harder, laughing. ¡°Oh, just a few dead mice from Ms. Gani¡¯s place! Why?¡± Kari didn¡¯t know. ¡°I guess¡­ I just remembered¡­ never mind.¡± Kari said, too self conscious to continue. In truth, the Unari of a village hardly spoke to one another. All the other Unari hated themselves and hated each other, and Kari ¨C during her youth ¨C had been confused to see Nadia walking around with a perpetual smile and good feelings. She¡¯d been¡­ different from all the other Unari, and from everyone else in the village for that matterr. This attitude made her naturally likable, and it pushed the villagers to show her a bit more tolerance than an Unari deserved. As for Kari''s opinion, well, they weren¡¯t friends, but she always thought of Nadia as more tolerable than the rest of them. They were reaching the edge of the village, where the dirt grew coarse with sand and announced every footstep. On most days, by the time they reached this point, Nadia would split off to wander aimlessly as was her habit. Today, however, she stopped, and something inside Kari made her stop, too. Looking back, Kari was surprised to see that Nadia was standing up straight for once, arms flat by her side and the collar of her shawl slacking down to reveal a nervous smile ¨C all of Nadia¡¯s emotions were expressed via smiles. The smile shed it¡¯s nervousness and became shy¡­ ¡°I¡¯m¡­ having my birthday next week,¡± Nadia said, words full of meaning. Kari stood shock still, for once silent from shock rather than disinterest. Nadia laughed. ¡°Mom says we¡¯re gonna start the party today, and it¡¯s gonna go on all week! The elder also said that I won¡¯t have to carry corpses from now on¡­ so, it looks like I got away with just handling a few mice after all. Aren¡¯t I lucky?¡± Kari couldn¡¯t think of any appropriate words, so she simply smiled and nodded. ¡°Well¡­ anyway. It¡¯s gonna be a big party. I was wondering if you wanted to come, and ¨C if you could ¨C I know no one¡¯s supposed to talk to her without you ¨C but if the Sage is interested, then she¡¯s invited too!¡± Nadia spoke the final few words in a rush, hands balled into fists and arms locked straight. The girl simply stood there, beaming that innocent smile that never left her face. She was quite the opposite of Kari in that way. She was the opposite of Kari, who could manage a sad expression as she shook her head and told Nadia: ¡°I¡¯m afraid she¡¯ll be busy this week,¡± and turned before she could see what sort of smile Nadia would express at being denied even that.
Kari was worried. It was a new feeling for her. For the longest time, she¡¯d lived life with a death sentence. There was a sort of comfort to knowing what her fate was, and to a girl like her ¨C worrying about anything was as preposterous as buying sand. Now, though, she had a life, and all the commensurate worries that came with protecting that life. She didn¡¯t know exactly why, but she felt herself being crushed by dread as she thought of what might happen to it. Kari announced her presence by placing her basket down with a thud at the doorway, swooshing aside the white curtain as she entered the shack. Cas stood at a wooden table ¨C an extravagance Kari had never seen up close before, magnifying stalk traveling along with her crystal eye as she hovered her attention over the surface. ¡°Did you get the Tamari Vines?¡± Cas asked without greeting, speaking robotically as if her intonation were being stolen away by the fascinations on her desk. Kari¡¯s first instinct was to scream, to take all her unresolved frustrations out on Cas for being so happy while the whole world was crumbling. In the end, however, she simply sulked. Sitting down, pressing her cheeks against her palms, she answered with a muffled: ¡°yeah.¡± ¡°Good, good¡­¡± Cas trailed off, and then fell silent for the next thirty minutes, entranced in her work. Beside her stood the new slime which Kari had a hard time taking her eyes off. Noticing her entrancement, Cas interrupted her reverie with a soft chuckle. ¡°I¡¯m guessing you''re curious about Sakkarina? ¡°Kari nodded, though her heart wasn¡¯t in it enough to truly care.¡± Cas laughed with an excited fugue, pushing a spaghetti bowl of plant fibers over the desk next to the girl. ¡°Ok, try feeding it a Tamari vine!¡± she instructed, voice taking a prankster quality as she turned her stalk eye over to the girl. Kari obliged. Reaching a straight hand out, she waggled the tamari vine over the slime before letting the plant slip and ¨C with a generous *plop* ¨C drop into the miniature Sakkari. Cas had already seen it working many times before, but couldn¡¯t help her joy and surprise when the vine sank into the Sakkari, and the slime immediately warbled to life. The slime warmed up on the crystal bowl it called home, warbling as it shredded the vine into fine fibers, roiled them together into a bubbling mixture and ¨C as was Cas¡¯ ingrained habit ¨C stretched out a bent stalk, lethargically pouring the jelly-like result from the tip. Cas quickly slid a bowl under the spout to collect the material, moving her stalk back in a mockery of Jazz Hands as she said. ¡°Taa Daa!¡± Kari tried to feign joy, but she didn¡¯t feel like trying too hard as she said: ¡°Oh, wow. I guess that¡¯ll save you a lot of time.¡± Cas was immediately leapt up to address the prompt. ¡°Oh, it¡¯s far more amazing than that! Look here!¡± she pointed to a sample of the glimmering Gem she¡¯d taken from the cavern. ¡°Actually, wait, I never asked. What color is this crystal?¡± Cas asked, scatterbrained as she tried to answer and ask every question all at once. Kari squinted at the glimmering gem. ¡°It¡¯s a lot of different colors at once," she answered, "blue, green, purple, red.. it keeps changing.¡± ¡°Oooh, rainbow!¡± Cas exclaimed, too hyped to slow down as she took the finger sized jem and brought it up under Kari¡¯s nose. ¡°Well, now we know the color, do you know what this is?¡± ¡°Uh¡­¡± ¡°Wait, what am I saying? Of course you don¡¯t! That¡¯s what I¡¯m about to tell you!¡± Moving aside, she gestured to Sakkarina and her eye-less, glimmering interior. ¡°This rock is what sakkari are made of, Kari, and I think it¡¯s what turns water into living slimes! This is the stuff that gives sakkari the ability to be learn and move and all that stuff! Do you have any idea what this means?¡± she all but yelled, bouncing in place like a rubber ball. ¡°U-¡± ¡°It means we could use this to train sakkari!¡± Cas spoiled, too eager to let her point go unsaid for a second longer. ¡°Come, come,¡± she said, gesturing Kari closer to a crude map she¡¯d made of the cavern. ¡°Look here. See, about two thirds of the sakkari are coming out of these holes here and here," she pointed at the two southern entrances, "though they only recently started using the cave exit. They die in the desert, all of them. ¡°The ones that go south though here¡­¡± she pointed at a large dot on the map pointing towards the village, ¡°...they''re the ones that make our oasis!¡± ¡°Ok?¡± Kari said, struggling to maintain further interest. ¡°What I¡¯m saying is,¡± Cas squealed with glee, ¡°if we could train the Sakkari that come out of the north entrance to turn south, we could triple the size of the Oasis!¡± Kari raised an obvious eyebrow, ¡°why don¡¯t we just close off all the other exits,? Why waste time trying to train so many stupid sakkari?¡± The question was phrased meanly, her attempt at trying to shut down the conversation. Cas, hardened to questioning, and oblivious to Kari¡¯s demeanor, simply oohed in the impressed manner of a teacher speaking to their star pupil. ¡°Excellent question, Kari, but we might crowd the cavern if we did that. Remember the slime that was causing us problems?¡± If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Kari nodded. ¡°Well, it only became a problem because it got trapped there. If we locked them all in, they might start milling around, eating each other, growing too big to leave, then we¡¯d have an even bigger problem on our hands!¡± Another raise of the eyebrow. "Wait. I thought the ''monster stealing our water'' story was supposed to be fake, though." "It was," Cas answered, "but it turns out we were accidentally right. Besides, I thought only Sin and I knew about that fact," Cas said, turning her own suspicious gaze at the girl. Kari only pled with a guilty look. "Kari... what have I told you about eavesdropping!?" "Well I wouldn''t have to do it if you didn''t keep lying!" Kari defended herself, hurriedly looking for a way to change the conversation. "Anyway... you said something about training sakkari." "Oh, right!" Cas leapt onto the bait like it was hook. "I think we can use the stones to train them en mass. Kind of like how pigeions always know to go north. Wait... you''ve never seen a pigeon have you..." Cas paused contemplatively. ¡°But, come here, look at this!¡± The scientist in Cas had too much pre publication material to show, and she frenziedly pulled Kari to the next table, eager to spill her work before an audience. Kari, by now had caught some of the infectious interest, and she felt a spark of curiosity in her as she peeked her head over the desk, running her eyes across the layout.
... There, laid out before her was a long strip of white cloth. On it there were pinned four different specimens, laid out purposefully, one after the other, as if to display the gradual development of a single creature over time. It was the standard egg -> larvae -> pupae -> adult diagram Cas had seen presented in every entomology museum ¨C though she¡¯d never had the opportunity to make one herself until now. In most ways, her diagram was identical to those life-cycle sheets, with the small caveat that her project was made up entirely of her collection of pet rocks. Laid out on the white cloth were samples of that rainbow gem from the cavern, at various stages of transformation. The samples were laid out in order of size, and the first step in this transformation was an intensely glowing example of the magic stone, small and oval in posture, and quite dense with surface texture and impurities. Then came a larger stone, looking like a bloated version of the original, as if the first stone had been a sponge that was getting filled with water. The third stone was larger still and looked even less substantial, as if connected by strings and strands of dissolved stone. This process continued on until the largest stone she¡¯d been able to find concluded the end of the progression. Nearly the size of the smallest slimes, it looked like a combination of steel wool and swiss cheese and had the general look of a skeleton with bubbles of water hanging between the solid strands of stone that filled its volume. The final step before birth Cas imagined no one would be able to see ¨C for -- in the murky depths of their puddles -- she knew the stones dissolved completely. And, though she''d never seen the process directly, Cas imagined that, for a brief moment afterward, the dissolved solid formed a region of mineral that disassociated itself from the surrounding waters, a region that came alive. The heavy, muck laden waters would protect these newly born slimes from being dissolved into their own element, and this new living thing would crawl from its inanimate womb. ...
This was the general speech Cas had prepared for the explanation of her diagram. And she went further beyond when it came to Kari. Cas walked her involuntarily student through this life-cycle, pointing out all the characteristic features which she thought defined each life stage, and trying to explain the recoiling effect the stone must¡¯ve had on natural osmotic process before the glare in Kari¡¯s eyes stopped her. Coughing, Cas got straight to the point. ¡°Anyway¡­ what I¡¯m trying to say is that tripling the Oasis is only the beginning of it! With this stone,¡± she gestured at the diagram with a shaking stalk, ¡°we could actually make more slimes. Kari,¡± she moved closer to the girl now, turning her voice into a low, excited whisper. ¡°I¡¯ve been down in that cavern. There are cracks in the floor no human could fit down, cracks that run hundreds of feet deep into the earth.¡± Cas paused at this, hesitating as if revealing debating with herself to reveal the existence of a surprise party. This brief bit of unintended showmanship managed to revive Kari¡¯s interest, who asked: ¡°What¡¯s down there?¡± Cas answered finally: ¡°There''s water down there, Kari: millions and millions of Oasis¡¯ worth. There¡¯s more water down there than you can imagine, and only the sakkari are capable of tapping it. If we could grow them, if we could make them bring more of it up¡­ Kari, we could increase the Oasis by hundreds of times over! We could grow it by thousands, tens of thousands of times over again afterwards! This oasis would be a lake, and these five villages could be the heart of a great city!¡± Cas was rambling now. This excitement had been building inside of her for several days at this point, and the energy behind it seemed relentless as she finally had the chance to let someone else in on the secret. Kari only asked: ¡°What¡¯s a city?¡± Cas let out an involuntary laugh, almost manic as she realized her own mistake. Thinking on it for a moment, and looking into Kari¡¯s confused eyes ¨C Cas finally settled on the simplest description of ¡®City¡¯ she could think of. ¡°Thousands of people!¡± Cas answered, looking out her window towards the spire in the distance. ¡°Thousands and thousands of people living in the same place without having to fear starvation! Living next to so much water they could bathe in it! Kari,¡± she turned to the girl, taking her hands in gentle stalks, ¡°we¡¯d have so much food that we could throw it away! We could built towers, castles, and throne rooms! We could live like kings! And you¡¯d make for a good court assistant, I think!¡± She giggled at that last statement, tickling the girl¡¯s side and noticing for the first time the girl¡¯s bad mood disappearing as Kari¡¯s eyes glazed over. ¡®Kings¡­¡¯ she¡¯d heard that word in old stories before. To sweeten the deal, Cas laughed: ¡°And you could be my loyal court assistant instead of my errand girl. How does that sound?¡± A hint of a smile came back to Kari¡¯s features. ¡°See! I knew you¡¯d come along!¡± Cas had been implacably happy ever since she¡¯d made this discovery. Whether it was Kari¡¯s recent mood, the village troubles, or even annoying visitors with make-up problems, she just felt that there was nothing that could keep her down. Because, now, she had a plan. First step was training all the slimes to go in the right direction. That would go a long way to increasing water supplies over the next few years. Then, making new slimes. A decade or so from now, that would the good basis for a lake, then the city. And then¡­ well, the world was their oyster at that point. With the resources of a city at their disposal, they¡¯d have the ability to do anything they wanted. Send out expeditions into the desert, beyond the desert, make contact with other civilizations, establish a trading outpost. She¡¯d be playing an RTS at that point! Slime sage for the win! Of course, first, she had to get a few delicate resources on hand first. Oh, right, the resources¡­ ¡°I¡¯ve got to go tell Nemaris!¡± Cas remembered. She hadn¡¯t even told the village elder about her grand plans yet! Stupid research! Why did it have to be so interesting? Cas raced for the doorway. Her large body jiggled against the sudden acceleration, knocking back to bump against her sample table, which Kari sprung to steady as Cas rushed to her impromptu meeting. ¡°Be careful!¡± Kari yelled after her, voice half-inflected with worry and annoyance. ... The call instilled a familiar, carefree feeling in Cas. In fact, her recent weeks in the village had all had that tenor of nostalgia in them because, truth be told, the community here was something special. Annoying gossipers, overbearing fashionistas, roguish-storyteller-gym bros, and grey-haired elders alike¡­ the people here had no trouble treating her like family. None of them felt embarrassed to come to her with their troubles, or to offer their help to what they saw as hers. It was a feeling of community Cas hadn¡¯t experienced since she left her home town back on Earth. It was a feeling of community she didn''t know she''d missed so much, and for Cas it felt like she was living through a second childhood in this dreamy desert village. In fact, it felt like she was living in an idealized childhood. Ideals hardly lasted in the real world, however. For some time afterwards, Cas would look back on this period of her life with some regret because of what she -- in the light of her happy life -- had allowed herself to ignore, even when the truth came knocking at her door. Cas brushed aside her cloth door and ¨C with great surprise ¨C forced herself into a skidding halt. The girl leapt back gracefully, landing with a happy, backwards march that almost left her dancing. Stopping herself, Nadia stood back up into a slouch and graced Cas with an apologetic smile. ¡°Sorry,¡± she said, starting her sentence abruptly. ¡°I know I wasn¡¯t invited, but I was talking to Kari earlier and¡­ well. Actually, I guess I should say my name first. Hi!¡± she said with a sudden energy, as if restarting her sentence, ¡°my name is-¡± ¡°Nadia!¡± Kari interrupted, her earlier, worried tone completely taking over as she stepped out of the hut. ¡°What are you doing here?¡± she pointed at the girl, ¡°I told you, we don¡¯t need any invitations! Cas ¨C I mean the Sage, is very busy right now!¡± ¡°I know,¡± the girl stepped forward. ¡°I just wanted to speak to the Sage really quickly!¡± she explained pleadingly. ¡°She¡¯s busy,¡± Kari replied coldly. Kari ¨C still growing familiar with her new role as Cas¡¯ assistant ¨C had been growing sterner and sterner with interlopers. However, the panic in her voice rung strangely in Cas¡¯ ear, and the smile that the new girl ¡®Nadia¡¯ wore was so sad that Cas couldn¡¯t help herself: ¡°Kari,¡± she raised a stalk, speaking with a professionally measured tone, ¡°It¡¯s fine. Sometimes we need to hear the villagers out, don¡¯t you think?¡± ¡°I did hear her out, and I told her not to come here!¡± Kari explained, panic intensifying. ¡°I told you not to come here!¡± she sent an accusing glare over at the girl, who could only send a pathetic smile over as an apology. ¡°Kari, It¡¯s fine. I¡¯d like to talk to her.¡± Cas spoke more authoritatively this time, and Kari fell silent, a helpless grimace coming over her expression. Cas than turned over to the girl, who¡¯s beautiful face was still smiling, even as her body looked on the verge of collapsing from nervousness. ¡°Hey hun, it¡¯s ok.¡± Cas spoke softly, unnaturally adopting the mannerisms of her aunts, and feeling thankful for having done so ¨C her normal personality felt dangerously unqualified as she looked into the scared eyes and smiling cheeks of the girl. Nadia remained silent, shaking in place and fox ears flickering wildly in the wind. Her lips drew down into smirk as her eyes closed shut over her tears. ¡°Honey, what¡¯s the matter?¡± Cas asked, taking a more serious tone, always feeling at a loss with crying children. ¡°Please¡­¡± the girl said after a while, the word spoke with hope and questioning. ¡°Please, could you let me stay with you, too?¡± Cas hesitated. ¡°Hun¡­ don¡¯t you have parents you can stay with?¡± The girl laughed. Or, maybe it was meant to be a scream. It was hard to tell with the admonishment in her voice. ¡°Don¡¯t be funny!¡± she laughed. ¡°You have to know what I am by now! I wouldn¡¯t be coming to you if I were anything else, would I? Haha!¡± The laugher quickly died into sobs as the girl fell onto hands and knees, smile disappearing from sight as she beamed it down at the desert. ¡°I¡¯m¡­ I¡¯m an Unari, like she used to be.¡± She lifted a hand to point at Kari without looking at her. ¡°I¡­¡± she stopped to let out a choked sob. ¡°It¡¯s my last week here. My name is Nadia, and, and I¡¯m¡­ I don¡¯t want to die!¡± she let out a choked cry. Cas, if she¡¯d had the strength to listen to her brain, would have shut down the girl¡¯s hopes immediately here. She would have stopped the girl from making the impossible ask before putting her through the heartache of being denied it. However, whether she had that strength or not was moot, as the girl suddenly broke out with a wild cry: ¡°Please!¡± she asked, hands clenching divots into the dirt. ¡°I¡¯ll do anything, just save me, too!¡± And so, the end of Cas¡¯ childhood in this new world came to an end, with a whimper. Mistakes Nemaris had his nightgown on. With it, and the white moon-light it reflected so plainly, the village elder had the figure of a spirit from the distance, and he¡¯d been a happy one up until the moment Cas approached. Heretofore, Cas had only met with Nemaris in the most official capacity. Sometimes she ran into him in the village square; but their run-ins there were short and had the air of running into your supervisor at the grocery store: that is, they were quickly escaped from. Suffice it to say, she¡¯d never seen much of him outside of his position as village chief. Still, it was surprising how much of a professional mask he could construct while wearing casual clothes as he looked her in the eyes and said: ¡°No.¡± A note of finality taking his voice. A small child, barely five years old, sat on Nemaris¡¯ knee, pretending to be occupied by the straw toy in his hands, though his ears perked in a quite obvious fashion as Cas spoke. ¡°I know better than anyone in this village what the Oasis is capable of supporting, Nemaris.¡± A challenging note rose up in her voice. ¡°Yes, you¡¯ve said quite enough about growing the Oasis.¡± Nemaris stood up and placed down the child, seeming done with this conversation. Tapping the boy¡¯s shoulder, a few whispered doors prompted the child to leave, who quickly made his way past the fluttering door of the house. Nemaris bowed before taking his leave. ¡°I thank you for your visit, but I don¡¯t see what your fantasies have to do with my responsibilities as chief.¡± He moved to follow the child, stopped at the still fluttering entrance by the surprising energy in Cas¡¯ words. ¡°It¡¯s not a fantasy!¡± Cas almost yelled. ¡°At least¡­ it¡¯s no more a fantasy than saving the Oasis was in the first place. As I remember it, you were the only one who believed enough to let me try. Why lose faith now?.¡± Nemaris shut his eyes painfully, resting a hand against the doorframe. ¡°I¡­ I didn¡¯t believe you¡¯d save the Oasis,¡± he admitted, as if remembering something terrible. ¡°Then why?¡± ¡°I suppose I was desperate enough to grasp onto your promises.¡± A sad smile adorned the chief''s features. ¡°But you were right!¡± Cas spoke a bit more energetically, now, trying to keep the man¡¯s attention. ¡°I¡¯m telling you, I can grow that Oasis and you¡¯ll never have to sacrifice another child again!¡± The village elder was never one to show emotion. Still¡­ the long pause that followed shocked Cas with how carefully Nemaris attended to it, as if hesitant to speak. ¡°I suppose I shouldn¡¯t doubt you," he admitted coldly. "You''ve done impossible things before.¡± ¡°Yes?¡± Cas interrupted rudely, pushing for a quick answer. Nemaris let out a sigh. ¡°If¡­ you find a way to increase the Oasis¡¯ waters, then we can speak of saving more children.¡± He was trying to be kind, Cas understood, but she couldn¡¯t help the caustic undertone in her voice: ¡°So, we¡¯re just going to let children die until then?¡± Nemaris'' kindly voice turned sharp. ¡°Cas. I am forever grateful for all that you have done, but I will not have you stealing food from our mouths.¡± Nemaris had turned around by now, and he looked knowingly to the crease in the cloth door, where a small figure was attempting to eavesdrop in the amateurish manner of all children. The elder only let out a half embarrassed smirk at the attempt before turning his cold attention back to the Sakkari. His voice was still cold, but his expression was plaintive, as if begging her to understand. ¡°We¡¯ve been letting them die for generations, Sage. This tradition is older than either you, or I, or anyone still alive in this village. If you¡¯ve truly found a way to subvert it ¨C if you¡¯ve discovered the means to grow the Oasis ¨C then I will bow my head at your feet. However, ideals can not feed a village. Nadia¡¯s time has come, and I will not be handing over the rations to sustain her until your far-flung dreams come to fruition.¡± His words had an air of finality that Cas couldn¡¯t accept. She spoke against them. Cas knew as the words left her lips that they weren¡¯t rational; she had no rational objections to arm herself with. Instead. she found herself speaking from instinct. The thought of Nadia¡¯s tearful face was painful to her, and like a child flinching back from the hot stove, Cas grasped at anything that could deny the reality. ¡°We don¡¯t have to sacrifice her.¡± Cas tried to keep the desperation from her voice. ¡°If we can just hold out until I fix the Oasis-¡± Nemaris interrupted her, showing impatience for the first time. ¡°Oh?¡± he intoned sardonically. ¡°Pray tell, how many seasons will it take for this dream to bear fruit? You said training the Sakkari would grow the Oasis by threefold¡­ how long for that simple task?¡± Cas fell silent at that, abashed. ¡°Well?¡± Nemaris pressed. Cas answered with a defeated voice, ¡°It might take five years.¡± Nemaris, to his credit, kept any note of triumph out of his: ¡°And for making new Sakkari, for growing the Oasis by a thousand fold, as you¡¯ve promised¡­ how long for that?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± Cas admitted, truly showing sadness for the first time. ¡°I just don¡¯t know where to begin yet.¡± Nemaris slid his hand softly down the door frame. ¡°There are fourteen children that will leave the village over the next five years. That¡­ will not be a number we can comfortably support, I¡¯m sure you can understand.¡± Cas, downcast at the apparent failure of her argument, at saying something so hopeless, couldn¡¯t muster the energy to call him back. Sighing, and looking over his shoulders for anyone that might hear them, Nemaris spoke with a neutral tone. ¡°You may find our ways¡­ unpalatable, but we¡¯re not lawless¡­¡± he hesitated at this. ¡°What I mean to say is: it is not our custom to harm anyone unless they have broken a law.¡± Cas developed a caustic tone as she answered: ¡°The Unari-¡± ¡°The Unari are bound by law to walk into the desert, yes, but whether they stand in the village or not, they are always under the protection of our laws.¡± ¡°...I don¡¯t understand.¡± Cas was able to tell that he was handing her a lifeline, but what... Nemaris only knelt closer. ¡°I¡¯m saying that, by law, the Unari must leave the village border, but ¨C¡± ¡°But they don¡¯t have to die,¡± Cas¡¯s voice expanded with understanding. ¡°My hut is outside the village border, after all,¡± she continued, growing excited. Nemaris was quick to temper her expectations. ¡°I can not give you more rations than has been allotted for yourself and for Kari. It will be a hard life, but Kari has yet to grow, and Sakkari have little need for food, so I think you¡¯ll be able to manage¡­ at least until you grow the Oasis.¡± Cas could only look on in disbelief as Nemaris continued. ¡°It¡¯ll be your choice whether you still take her in, under those circumstances. But, should you choose to accept her into your house, then I can guarantee she won¡¯t be touched by anyone in the village.¡± Cas only looked on in disbelief. Softly, Nemaris shifted his weight, the sand shifting noisily underneath him. Unprompted, he stopped at his doorway, looking back after he''d parted the curtain: ¡°Do you know, even at my age, there are nights I wake up disappointed that the world can¡¯t be what it is in my dreams.¡± This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. Cas let out a laugh. She had a hundred thoughts, but could only muster a simple, ¡°thank you, Nemaris.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t mention it.¡± And the white cloth fell like a curtain behind the man, obscuring his dreadful expression from sight.
Cas took the long way back to her house, winding between the scattered huts that were organized around the town square like thrown jacks. The town had no roads. Except for a long straightaway of clear land Cas was certain had been formed unintentionally, every other sightline being blocked by a hut that had been placed at some claustrophobic distance from the central well. Eventually, she breached the last ring of houses, and her hut was in sight. It was deep into winter, now. The Oasis, normally abuzz with crickets and night-warblers, fell into dormancy; and with the Oasis silent, and the winds died down, the whole world was left feeling empty. The sky was crowded with stars; a sight Cas was unused to, having grown up always in proximity to light pollution. Seeing it now, however, it seemed strange to Cas that such a brilliant display of lights could go on with such silence and coldness. ¡­. Kari was waiting for her when she finally returned home. The girl paused in the middle of her pacing once Cas was within view, hurriedly stuffing the half eaten jerky she¡¯d been gripping into her side satchell. Cas, through proximity to the girl, knew Kari didn¡¯t have an appetite past mid day. She also knew the girl never ate while walking unless it was in service to her nervous eating habit. Kari stood with a guarded front as Cas approached, arms hanging at her sides and face purposefully blanked of all expression. Cas was unsure what to say to her. Kari stabbed straight to the point. ¡°You¡¯re letting her stay here, aren¡¯t you?¡± she accused. ¡°I heard what Nemaris told you! He¡¯s not going to give you anymore rations, but you¡¯re letting her stay here anyway!¡± Cas was aghast as the forcefulness of the girl¡¯s accusations. She replied automatically, ¡°Eaves dropping again? Kari, I¡¯ve told you-¡± ¡°Just answer me!¡± Kari yelled and pleaded at the same time, tears running down her cheeks. ¡°Yes, I listened in, but it¡¯s because you keep lying! You lied about the Oasis. You lied about the monster! And I never would¡¯ve known if I didn¡¯t listen in! ¡°We¡¯re supposed to be friends,¡± Kari cried. ¡°I just want to know what you¡¯re going to do, and you never tell me! And now you¡¯re keeping her here with us even though she can¡¯t stay.¡± Cas was stung by the surprising honesty of the proclamation. Cas had lied about the Oasis, and the monster. But¡­ that hadn¡¯t been important, had it? Well¡­ It had never seemed that important to Cas, but to Kari ¨C to a girl who¡¯s survival was dependent on Cas¡¯ decisions ¡ª Cas was beginning to appreciate what a harrowing experience being lied to could be. ¡°Kari,¡± Cas took a formal stance with the girl, speaking in an even tone she hoped would calm the child. ¡°I¡¯m sorry I wasn¡¯t honest with you about the monster and the Oasis. It didn¡¯t seem importan-¡± Cas stopped herself there, rephrasing. ¡°I was only doing that to keep the villagers calm. I didn¡¯t want to panic them, and I never wanted to panic you. I¡¯d never lie to you about this, though. I¡¯d never lie to you about your own safety.¡± Cas cursed herself. The words seemed empty even when they were true. She hurried to bolster herself. ¡°Those lies were just for the villagers. You know I tell you everything I can. You¡¯re the only one who knows everything about me, after all.¡± Cas looked around herself, and let the shock of transformation blast through her. There, she changed into her human form, allowing a genuine expression to run through her face. Kari took on a more forgiving posture, though it was one that gave no ground to her initial displeasure as she repeated her first phrase. ¡°You¡¯re still going to let her stay, aren¡¯t you? Nemaris wouldn¡¯t have told you that if you didn¡¯t want to.¡± ¡°I am,¡± Cas answered, confused. ¡°Just until we can train the slimes.¡± ¡°You said it would take years to grow the Oasis,¡± Kari spoke. ¡°So?¡± Cas said, taking on a more assertive note. ¡°So?¡± Kari repeated the word like it was something stupid. ¡°Nadia has to go!¡± she pointed out into the desert. ¡°We can¡¯t have her staying here!¡± Cas disturbed and frightened at the words Kari chose. Apparently, it showed on her face, to tell by the abashed, though resilient, look Kari took. ¡°Kari¡­¡± Cas paused, unsure of how to proceed. ¡°Where is this coming from?¡± Kari turtled in on herself, unable to look into Cas¡¯ suddenly human eyes. ¡°I¡¯m saying there¡¯s no point to keeping her around and suffering on half rations for all those years. It doesn¡¯t make sense to save her right now! If you¡¯re going to save the Oasis, we can wait to take people in when you¡¯ve actually done it!¡± Cas grew a frown. Kari¡¯s attitude disturbed her, and she lashed out against hearing it. ¡°And what?¡± she asked sternly. ¡°We should let her die. Do you know that¡¯s what everyone said when I told them to save you? Do you think I should have waited until things ¡®made sense¡¯ to start saving people when you were in danger.¡± Kari flashed a hurt look at the comparison. ¡°I¡¯m not like¡­ I thought we were friends!¡± It was a childish argument that Kari provided, but Kari was a child, and she¡¯d never looked the part more than at this moment, as she struggled and failed to hide her shaking sobs. ¡°We are friends!¡± Cas consoled, rushing to take the girl¡¯s hands in her own. ¡°That¡¯s why I asked them to save you! That¡¯s why you¡¯re here! What does that have to do with Nadia, though?¡± Kari spoke with surprising venom, pulling her hands away. ¡°It has everything to do with this! If we were friends you wouldn¡¯t¡­ I could be sure you wouldn¡¯t¡­ I¡¯m afraid you¡¯re going to¡­¡± Kari cut herself off three times, thinking better of it and growing frustrated at the thought before finally falling back to her reliable accusation. ¡°You¡¯re going to let her stay here!¡± ¡°Yes, and what¡¯s the matter with that!?¡± Cas was growing frustrated and panicked, tried to keep any hint of anger out of her voice as she addressed the girl. ¡°Why?¡± Kari said through her sobs. ¡°Why are you saving her if she¡¯s not your friend?¡± ¡°Because I can,¡± Cas spoke gently, reaching out to take Kari¡¯s hands again, ¡°because It wouldn¡¯t be right to let her die.¡± Kari kept herself out of reach, turning away to hide her expression from the girl. ¡°That¡¯s stupid,¡± she sniffled. ¡°Kari!¡± Cas reprimanded, sounding more afraid than angry. Kari only choked out another sob. ¡°You¡¯re saving her for no reason. And what happens when Doret has his birthday next month, and Sebit after him! Are you going to save them, too? Are you going to keep taking people in until we all starve to death?¡± Cas surprised herself with her answer: ¡°I¡¯m not going put anyone at risk if I don¡¯t have to.¡± She normally wasn¡¯t one to dodge a question like that. Kari, if she noticed the vaguery of the answer, only replied: ¡°I thought we were friends.¡± ¡°We are friends,¡± Cas replied plainly. ¡°Then prove it!¡± Kari turned back around. ¡°Promise that you¡¯ll put me first, before anyone else!¡± Cas was confused at the proclamation. ¡°What¡­ Kari, what are you talking about?¡± ¡°I mean, if you have to choose to save someone, between me and Nadia, promise me that I¡¯ll be the one you pick!¡± Cas answered: ¡°Kari, I know it won¡¯t come to that.¡± ¡°But what if it does?¡± Kari begged. There was a note in Kari¡¯s voice that was terrified, and pained, and which inflicted Cas with the terror and pain of a responsibility she didn¡¯t want. She didn¡¯t want to be responsible for choosing which child died. She didn''t want to be in the presence of such a rightly terrified girl. She didn¡¯t want to answer, and ¨C in order to avoid the pain of considering such terrible thoughts, Cas reflexively escaped the question. ¡°I don¡¯t want to think about that right now, Kari." She spoke sternly for the first time, annoyed at being cornered with such intense questioning, "don¡¯t ask me that again.¡± Cas looked up at Kari¡¯s face too late, at the truly hurt and betrayed expression. Kari, valiantly disposed herself to masking a neutral expression. Soft freckles reminded Cas of the stars, and Kari was a twin to the night sky, confusing Cas with how much tumultuous emotion could be expressed so coldly. ¡°Wait,¡± Cas stepped forward, and Kari stumbled back, staying away. Cas still didn¡¯t understand Kari¡¯s emotions. She didn¡¯t understand why she was so hurt and why she ran away from her into the village. Chapter 22: Economics Kari returned and apologized by the next morning. She even sought out Nadia and apologised to her for her earlier attitude. Cas was unable to enjoy the triumph, however. After all, Kari¡¯s actions were quite forced by her position. For all practical purposes, she was at Cas¡¯s disposal and had nowhere she could turn to. Cas was left feeling that she should have reached out before Kari returned, but things had already fallen into place around her before she could act. A new routine had developed in Cas¡¯ household. Nadia was ¨C for the first time in her life ¨C busy with something. Today was the start of the week-long birthday that had been prepared for her, and ¨C lacking any experience in scheduling ¨C her visits to their place were often very late and irregular. This left Cas and Kari alone together, and their interactions had turned icy and awkward at every turn. Cas, for her part, did decide to save Nadia from her fate, and although she had made up her mind to accept the girl into her house¡­ for some reason she procrastinated on announcing it to anyone. She wasn¡¯t sure why she did this. Perhaps it was because of the recent fight with Kari that had rattled her, or simply uncertainty as to how to go about it, but it remained that the only people in the village that knew of her plans to save the girl were Kari and Cas herself. Nadia, for her part, whenever she did visit, never brought up the subject of her staying. Apparently embarrassed at the show she¡¯d made, everyone in the household pretended her request had never happened, and they were all quite happy to talk of the most inconsequential things whenever she did visit. Of course, Nadia ¨C pulled in a hundred directions by the preparations for her birthday ¨C could only visit for a few scattered hours throughout the day, and she seemed to be wearing a new outfit every time she did. Her latest visit had been in a brand new shawl decorated with wild-flowers that had been organized tastefully around the collar. ¡°So¡­ yeah!¡± she concluded with a smile as bright as the winter-flowers poking up against her cheeks. ¡°Mom said everyones invited to the day party, and there¡¯s going to be drinks and¡­ oh!¡± she said as if remembering something she¡¯d been told was important, ¡°there¡¯s going to be a give away of Kamari powder for the first visitors! Everyone¡¯s invited, and you¡¯re part of everyone, so¡­¡± The girl let the sentence die there, looking down abashedly at her toe, which dug a trench in the dirt. ¡°I¡¯d love to visit,¡± Cas answered serenely, hating herself for still not finding the right way to tell the girl she was saved. ¡°I¡¯ll be busy,¡± Kari answered politely, if a little too immediately. ¡°Oh!¡± Nadia¡¯s smile was halfway between gladness and disappointment. ¡°Well¡­ I¡¯ll see you there, then!¡± With that, she took her leave, and once again Cas was left to face the dreadful reality of being left alone with Kari. Cas felt no ill will towards the girl! She just didn¡¯t know what to say, as Kari immediately turned and went about cleaning the clay cups for the third time that day. Cas raised a stalk, attempting to think of something she could say before giving up and heading to the door. Perhaps she¡¯d visit the party early. It was probably best to give Kari some alone time before forcing a talk, she decided.
The economy of the village was an alien one. Being so isolated, and dependent on a single water source, the important daily commodity in this place was survival. It wasn¡¯t the desperate starvation one might have imagined. The villagers, despite their deprivation, had planned their society quite meticulously. Every household had exactly the amount of food they needed, and not a morsel more. This ride on the edge between starvation and sustenance showed itself in a thousand ways. For one, the people here never took food for granted. Mealtime was at noon, and every child and man rushed home to stare at the cooking fire like it was the latest episode of a soap opera, and what few mealtimes Cas had been invited to showed her just how much a group of people could talk about the coming meal without getting bored of the conservation. Whenever they ate, they licked their bowls clean. It was quite different to Cas¡¯ experience of staring at a packed fridge and giving up on fad diets. So, naturally, all parties were potlucks, and Kari could see the tower of smoke that rose up from the village square before she¡¯d even left her yard. Once she¡¯d approached closer, she could see that several apothecaries had been hired to maintain a series of still flames around the well, where an abundance of people crowded around to stick their eclectic kebabs into the flames like smores. Well¡­ perhaps pot-luck was the wrong word, Cas gathered as several people argued in the line to the cooking fire. Bring your own meal, seemed more appropriate, to tell by how reluctant anyone was to share their meals, unless of course they thought they could make a winning trade with their neighbor, that was. A familiar face stood out in the distance. Nadia, by now bedecked with an entire garden¡¯s worth of flowers, sat on a makeshift throne made out of woven grass atop a nearby hill. Her natural state was an advantage to the adage, ¡°smile and wave¡±, which she executed to perfection, whenever any of the myriad crowd clamored for her attention. To the side of the whole affair, a band of farmers played a myriad of reed instruments in accompaniment with chanting vocals. To tell by how little they enjoyed themselves as they sat stiffly to the side, they¡¯d obviously been hired to perform their duties. And that was the other strange thing about this village. Money was a non-starter here, and no one was allowed to have more than they needed of food ¨C the only truly vital commodity ¨C but still, some people here were wealthier than others. This was obvious, to tell by the size of the party Nadia¡¯s mother had been able to organize. Cas wondered for a moment who that woman was, and what she might have which could have incentivised so many people to gather. Vaguely, she recalled that promises of free drinks and Kamari powder. Kamari powder¡­ that term reminded her of something right before the a cloud of the valuable material burst into the air before her. Through her coughs, the stylish woman that had bumped into her apologized, rubbing at her eyes. ¡°Oh, look at me!¡± she chastised herself, ¡°already thirty and still not looking where I¡¯m going. Oh, but please, have a chalice of Kamari powder for visit- oh!¡± Tami¡¯s eyes flashed open once she got a look at the person she was attempting to gift Tamari powder to¡­ that is to say, the same person who¡¯d given it to her in the first place. Cas, for her part, was too surprised to be annoyed, though the flush of embarrassment that took the woman¡¯s face was gratifying. ¡°Oh! Great Sage! How wonderful of you to visit!¡± she bowed deeply, discreetly hiding away the clay chalice of Kamari powder in her veil. ¡°Uh, huh¡­¡± Cas intoned. ¡°I¡¯m glad to visit. Though, I can¡¯t help but be surprised to see you giving away what you worked so hard to have me make.¡± Tami quickled looked askance before answering. ¡°Well, you were an exceedingly generous Sage to give the amount that you did. What sort of person might I be if I didn¡¯t follow your example and give out my riches freely?¡± She spoke with an affected regality, naturally rising to take an angelic pose with her words. Cas¡­ wasn¡¯t buying it. ¡°Freely?¡± Cas questions. ¡°You mean, freely as long as everyone shows up to this party and does what you say?¡± she gestured to the musicians at the side. ¡°Well,¡± Tami shrugged casually, ¡°nothing in this world is truly free.¡± Shameless, Cas thought, though she couldn¡¯t help ignoring that thought for a far more pertinent realization. ¡°You¡¯re Nadia¡¯s mother, then?¡± Cas asked. ¡°Ohaha!¡± Tami let out a truly embarrassed laugh that left Cas feeling a bit rude at having asked. ¡°Well¡­ I suppose one could say that, yes. She¡¯s my daughter.¡± Tami waffled about the point a bit before recollecting her usual composure and playing the perfect hostess. ¡°It means so much to me that you¡¯d take the time to visit my daughter¡¯s birthday. I hope you¡¯ll make a habit of that over this week. We have so much planned!¡± ¡°Oh, perhaps,¡± Cas attempted to avoid the woman¡¯s piercing gaze. ¡°I actually just came to stop by. I should be leaving soon-¡± ¡°Oh, nonsense,¡± Tami interrupted, reaching out to reflexively grasp Cas¡¯ hand before realizing the Sakkari lacked such an appendage to be controlled by. Recollecting herself, she coughed and continued, ¡°you absolutely must stay until dinner proceedings. You¡¯re my new guest of honor, after all!¡± ¡°Oh, but I really-¡± ¡°Oh, very well,¡± Tami said with a tone of painful acquiescence. ¡°I won¡¯t ask you to stay the night, but you must at least say hi to the birthday girl. It¡¯s the least custom you could observe.¡± Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. Cas¡­ really did not want to talk to Nadia at the moment, and quickly looked for any avenue of escape. As if sensing her trepidation, Tami quickly leapt in with a soothing note in her voice. ¡°Oh, if I must bribe you. How about this? I understand you¡¯re always on the look out for rare plants to study. Well, if you¡¯ll look over there¡­¡± Tami gestured to her daughter sitting on the straw throne, as well as the vibrant bouquet that rose about her head like a stiff collar. ¡°You¡¯ll see,¡± Tami noted, ¡°the bright blue flower on the armrest. It¡¯s not pressed,¡± she said with a sort of bragging tone, ¡°it¡¯s a winter daisy. It¡¯s one of the few that sprouted this season, and I can promise it¡¯s the only one that anyone¡¯s been given permission to cut. You won¡¯t find an opportunity to study a flower like that for a long time, I can promise you that. ¡°So, why don¡¯t you just stay for a short five minutes, and I can promise that delightful flower will be yours to take.¡± Despite her colorblindness, Cas could pick out the winter daisy from the other flowers. It had a life and vibrancy lacking in the others that had been dried and pressed like museum pieces. A short glance at her material¡¯s sheet confirmed to Cas that she¡¯d never tasted that flower¡­ and she¡¯d always been a completionist about such things. Besides, winter flowering plants were often very unique things. And, it wasn¡¯t like she was eager to go back to the awkwardness with Kari, in either case. Slowly, over the course of Tami¡¯s precisely presented speech, Cas found herself swayed enough to acquiesce, ¡°maybe for just five minutes.¡± It was a hesitant agreement from Cas¡¯ end, but the smile that adorned Tami¡¯s features in response was sweet, like a spider that had caught its prey. ¡­ And so, Cas spent the next few hours failing to extricate herself from the series of meetings with important personages and dinners and talks that Tami ¨C whether by promises or social pressure ¨C endlessly managed to include her into. It was a learning experience for Cas everytime she managed to find an avenue of escape and Tami so deftly closed it off for her. She realized. Tami was rich ¨C if she could be called rich ¡ª not because of any abundance of Tamari powder, but rather because of a peculiarly developed talent the woman had for getting other people to do as she pleased. And currently, much to Cas¡¯s chagrin, she was pleased to have The Great Sage attending her party perpetually. Still, social niceties or no, Cas had gotten her flower, and she was quite determined to leave. ¡°Oh, but won¡¯t you please stay just a little longer?¡± Tami begged assiduously, crouching down as she followed the slime at her slow pace. ¡°No,¡± Cas said tiredly, having had enough payment for the day, ¡°I don¡¯t believe there¡¯s anything more for me to do here. Thank you for your hospitality,¡± turning her eye back around to leave. ¡°Oh, but you won¡¯t have to do anything at all!¡± Tami assured. ¡°I apologize if I¡¯ve worked you too hard, but the party is beginning, now, and I can promise you¡¯ll be free to enjoy yourself. Besides, I¡¯ve prepared something for you-¡± ¡°Trust me, I¡¯ve had enough preparations for one day,¡± Cas said, absolutely certain that nothing promised could convince her to stay a second longer. The knowing smile Tami threw back at her seemed amused at her certainty. ¡°Oh?¡± she lifted a pretty finger to press against her chin. ¡°But I¡¯d heard you were looking to train your Aura. Sin is meant to replace one of the flute players tonight, but I could give him special dispensation to train you instead. What with him living so far away, I¡¯m sure this would be a rare and prized opportunity.¡± Apparently, Nadia¡¯s penchant for smiles was hereditary, to tell by the comfortable, arrogant, kindly smile that graced Tami¡¯s overconfident face. It was as if she were already certain of her victory. It was an arrogance that Cas could hardly stand. It was an astounding display of obliviousness to haughty conceit that was nevertheless absolutely justified as Cas deflated and asked: ¡°When is he due to arrive?¡± Tami rose up in a chipper clap. ¡°Oh, who can say with that man. I¡¯m certain he¡¯ll arrive by the end of the day, though. Until then, you wouldn¡¯t mind meeting with-¡± And so the rest of Cas¡¯s day went like a puppet show, dancing on the marionette strings Tami had planned out for her until, like a bastion, Sin arrived, and Tami ¨C ever a woman of her promises ¨C provided her a surprisingly natural escape from the conversation they¡¯d been having with the Fari elder.
Cas, after her twentieth rep, dropped the stone boulder with a soft thud. ¡°Ok,¡± Sin nodded, apparently pleased with the progress of her strength training, and said the words which Cas had ¨C in the back of her mind ¨C been salivating to hear. ¡°Strength training,¡± alone, had done a lot for the Sakkari in her. Increasing base strength from 2 to 3 might have looked unimpressive on paper, but the resultant changes were well worth it. Her body, for one, felt¡­ firmer, and rather than flattening against the force of gravity, rose up into a more spherical form whenever she let herself relax. Shape change improved as well. The skill didn¡¯t level up, but the shapes she created were crisper in their detail, and more resistant to deformation, tougher. It made her wonder exactly what it was she trained when she lifted the boulder. She didn¡¯t have muscles that could be encouraged to grow. In fact, all she¡¯d ever done when lifting the boulder was shape change her stalks to a new location against resistance. Perhaps that encouraged her shape-change ability to develop more. It was something she¡¯d have to study more¡­ later, because right now Cas was ¨C as previously attested to by her salivating thoughts, obsessed with learning about Aura manipulation. Now, of course, both aura manipulation and training shape change were fascinating topics with many undiscovered mysteries about them. However, Cas was ¨C for the moment ¨C more interested in Aura manipulation because¡­ Well, come on, it was Aura manipulation! You know, raise your hand, glow blue, go pew pew and blow up rocks with your mind kind of aura manipulation. Cas spent the entirety of her Siablo III career playing casters for a reason! That regenerating, blue MP bar was the lifeblood of all the fun she¡¯d had in the game. So, despite the fascinating questions that arose about how slimes grew stronger, Cas was at the moment busy trying not to explode into hysterics at the idea of learning actual magical, woo-woo super-power stuff! ¡°Teach me, teach me, teach me, teachmeteachme, me, me!¡± Cas hounded at Sin¡¯s shins, circling him like an over excited roomba. Emphasis on trying. Sin took the demands with his usual good humor, and ¨C after Cas had been calmed down and the class room set ¨C the man stood in the center a makeshift circle he¡¯d drawn in the ground. The circle was four paces wide, and Sin walked around it, dragging a foot along the border to deepen the trench. Coming to the start and end of the process, nodding with a satisfied expression at the stage he¡¯d set for himself, Sin stepped over the border and took a stand. Normally, Sin was a magnet for the audience of children that followed him around. Even now, twenty paces distant, a half-hearted game of marbles had been set up by the village children, who pretended to play even as they stared over at the natural spectacle that was Sin. Tami, ever the gracious hostess, had done something which kept the children from approaching closer and disturbing the lesson, though it seemed even her charming ways weren¡¯t enough to keep Cas completely isolated, as even some of the adult men decided to take their smoke breaks within easy listening distance of the man. Apparently, it wasn¡¯t just Cas that felt excited at seeing the aura lesson. Cas found all of this interesting, and broached the man ¨C who¡¯d been getting ready to start his lesson. ¡°Do they not know how to manipulate aura either?¡± Cas asked, growing a stalk in the direction of the sparse crowd that had developed, keeping her voice low so as not to let them hear. ¡°Ha!¡± Sin let out a boistrous laugh. ¡°I doubt there¡¯s a babe alive that doesn¡¯t know how to use their Aura. You¡¯re quite the exception here, Cas. However, some people are better than others, and I¡¯m the best there ever was!¡± he gestured to himself with a proud smile. ¡°Besides, lady Tami has convinced the lot of these dogs to hold a wrestling competition. I gather they¡¯re here to see if they can spot any weaknesses.¡± Sin laughed boldly over at the men, most of whom looked away and pretended to find sudden stains on their smoke pipes that needed wiping. It was a funny sight, but Cas wasn¡¯t in the mood to laugh. She was excited to learn, of course, but there was a certain severity to her emotion that didn¡¯t allow her to take any part of this frivolously, because Aura manipulation was a serious, serious priority for her, and Cas wasn¡¯t willing to take it for granted. With that familiar tinge of focus whenever she prepared for a lesson, Cas honed in on Sin and his makeshift stage. The chattering children and smokey men in her periphery faded away, and Cas was all focus. And Cas wasn¡¯t merely attentive, of course. In her, she had the decade of intense schooling, from her undergraduate to her post graduate career, wherein she¡¯d spent her time learning to learn as it were, picking all the tricks for being an effective student. ¡°Well,¡± Cas smiled and took her ready seat, saying to Sin, ¡°I¡¯m glad to have the opportunity to learn from such a renowned expert.¡± The most useful of these lessons was, of course, to flatter your supervisor first thing in the morning. ¡°Oh, great Sage, you¡¯re too kind,¡± Sin almost blushed, quickly returning to his more professional stance, ¡°but onto the lesson.¡± Lifting a leg, sin dropped into a shoulder-width stance in the center of his ring. ¡°Sage, It¡¯s clear you¡¯ve grown strong enough to begin touching your soul.¡± Sin looked straight ahead as he spoke the words, chanting them as if they were an oft repeated formula. Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, his words seemed to match his energy, which Cas could suddenly feel! It was a thrumming, white hot energy that resonated with her own and ¨C looking closely ¨C she could see that Sin looked brighter all of a sudden, as if an invisible halo flashed around his silhouette. The scene in its totality felt holy to Cas. Sin spoke in that prescribed, chanting, staccato rhythm. All the while, that invisible light was growing, spreading like great wings on either side of his figure, and Cas felt all of this as she¡¯d never felt any lesson before. Immediately, she felt embarrassed at having attempted to apply her scholastic experience to this. She didn¡¯t know how, but Cas could feel that this¡­ this wasn¡¯t a lesson that could be learned by analysis and memorization. ¡°Cas,¡± Sin spoke her name for the first time, drawing her from her reverie. ¡°Can you hear me?¡± ¡°I can hear you,¡± Cas attempted to match his formal language. She could feel the energy, and intuitively guessed that there was a simple totality to the whole thing. She remembered all those Zen Koan¡¯s she¡¯d never understood, about how the truth was nothing, and was to be understood intuitively, without discursive thought! She remembered all that Taoist sage advice she relied upon whenever she failed to study for an exam. ¡®The right effort was no effort. The right understanding was not attempting to understand!¡¯ ¡°Cas. Listen carefully now,¡± Sin prepared. ¡°Yes,¡± Cas whispered hoarsely, ready to receive that riddle, that simple, elegant spark of knowledge that would unlock all her potential at once! ¡°Channeling one¡¯s aura¡­ is a simple, eight-step process.¡± Sin spoke suddenly, maintaining that liturgical voice which echoed regally ¨C sounding more like the fitness-gram pacer test, now, for some reason. Cas immediately woke up from her dreams of enlightenment. ¡°Pardon?¡± she asked with an innocent voice. Chapter 23: Make Up Sin hadn¡¯t been lying. The method to accessing your aura was quite an involved and precise process. It was far from the CTRL+M key sequence Cas had grown used to in Siablo. The first step was focusing, and that came easily enough to her. The next was ¡®sitting in the silence of her mind¡¯, a task which Cas¡¯s year-long stint in a cave had prepared her immaculately. The third step was to find that ¡®spark¡¯ inside of her, and steps four through eight were buried unattended somewhere in her notes, busy as she¡¯d been failing to succeed at step three. Night fell, and Sin ¨C with an uncanny insight into her progression ¨C patted a strong hand on her back with a gentle smile. ¡°You¡¯re a quick learner!¡± he commended with a winning smile. ¡°It isn¡¯t often people learn to still their minds so naturally, but I think it¡¯d be best if we continued the rest of the progress another time. Come to me when you¡¯ve found that spark.¡± Cas didn¡¯t argue. Despite her earlier intention to leave the party early, it had gotten late, and Cas was surprised to find herself among the stragglers. Being a potluck, there wasn¡¯t much set up to be done, so the party dispersed more than it ended. People flaked away from the main mass in groups, and the space around their training area was especially barren. The previously interested children and smokers having left after the first thirty minutes. Sakkari were hardly interesting sights, after all, and watching a meditating Sakkari was perhaps even less interesting than watching grass grow. Cas, against her better judgement, took a shortcut through the central square, were a few of the women were chattering eagerly around a fire, and the fari Apothecary was taming the last of the dying flames. Past all of this, in a particularly empty section of the village square, Tami sat on a basket by her hut. Sitting cross legged below her, Nadia patiently waited as the woman attended to the flowers woven into her hair, delicately removing them one at a time. Cas had just come into view, and Tami whispered something down to the child below her, who beamed and quickly left, flicking her shawl over her half-finished hairdo. Tami smiled at her. ¡°Girls!¡± she laughed, ¡°they¡¯re always more fond of running about than getting their hair done!¡± For some reason, Cas moved closer to the woman, something in her smile seeming to invite her for a quiet conversation. The immediate surroundings were empty of anyone. Still, Tami took a careful look around before addressing the Sakkari. ¡°So¡­¡± much like her daughter, the woman¡¯s nervousness was conveyed through a smile. Unlike the girl, however, there was something deliberate about the woman¡¯s expression, as if it had been designed to draw Cas into a sense of comfort. ¡°How did you like the party?¡± the woman asked. Cas thought of saying something sardonic, comparing it to a prison, but something drew her towards the more sincere expression. ¡°I¡¯m glad to have come.¡± Tami brushed aside a strand of dark hair from her face. Her fox ears were large and dark, and the large tufts of fur at their tips were brushed up like eye-lash extensions, giving the woman a funny expression whenever she flickered her ears nervously, as she was doing now. ¡°My daughter¡­¡± the woman said. Cas remained silent, unable to express her own nervousness and seeming all the colder for it. Tami took a deep breath. ¡°I¡­ suppose she¡¯s already asked you, hasn¡¯t she?¡± ¡°She has,¡± Cas said. Tami was a beautiful woman, notably so in this village, and her beauty was always highlighted by the proper control she seemed to have over every aspect and expression of her life. Her makeup, her hair, her emotions¡­ It was quite a sight how all of that deteriorated at once, however. Slouching, her shawl drooping beneath her chin into a messy arc, Tami¡¯s face contorted into a fearfully embarrassed posture, shame dragging her ears into drooping winks. ¡°My daughter is an Unari,¡± she admitted gracefully, speaking the fact with an unabashed voice. ¡°I¡¯m sure you know what¡¯s to become of her, but¡­ she can¡¯t contribute to this village, ever. She¡¯ll never give me any grand-children, I know, and she eats enough for two, aha!¡± Tami let out an uncharacteristically nervous laugh. ¡°Can you really blame me if the tenderness of my heart keeps me from abandoning her?¡± Tami seemed to be asking the question genuinely. Cas answered. ¡°I can¡¯t blame you at all. In fact, I actually-¡± Tami, in the haste of her speech, continued strongly, rising up into a straighter stance even as her face fell into deeper dejection. ¡°Well¡­ I¡¯m sure I¡¯ve made quite the impression since we¡¯ve been introduced. I¡¯m quite the figure around here, actually.¡± The boast came naturally to Tami, though without the usual spirit that distinguished the woman. ¡°Like Sin, for example, I got you an early meeting with him, didn¡¯t I? And I¡¯m sure I could be of more use to you. ¡°If¡­ if it¡¯s not too much to ask, great sage.¡± Tami stuttered her words out. ¡°If you could do me the greatest favor I¡¯ve ever received. I¡¯d be forever in your debt.¡± Tami bowed in her seat, bending over so that her face hid itself facing her thighs. Cas had already made up her mind to save the girl, by this point, of course. She¡¯d just yet to find the right time to announce it. Looking at the desperate woman as she was now, however, Cas thought it would be a good enough time to do so now, and said. ¡°I was planning to save her in either case, lady Tami,¡± speaking in that affected politeness the grown ups here used with one another. ¡°Your daughter will-¡± ¡°Really!?¡± Tami, for her part, abandoned all sobriety, popping up like a spring, blasting Cas with a smile so brilliant it almost blinded her. In a family known for their smiles, Tami¡¯s was the brightest and most genuine Cas had yet seen in this village. It made her feel happy just looking at it, not to say what Tami was feeling, as the woman rose up into a stand, shivering as if warm water were running through her frozen body and attempting valiantly to keep quiet in the evening. ¡°Really?¡± she asked again, looking almost tearful. ¡°Yes, really,¡± Cas answered. It was strange. All this time, she¡¯d been worried and afraid about what taking Nadia in would mean. She¡¯d been terrified of the responsibility and potential consequences. But, through all her ruminations, she¡¯d never once imagined that she might ever feel this happy, as the crying mother embraced her in a sobbing hug.
Tami had naturally lauded her with all the thousands of colorful complements and blessings the people of this village had at hand. Cas had, of course, heard them all many times over, being the savior of the village and all. Still, Tami¡¯s rendition reminded her of one of the stranger phrases the villagers promised:: ¡®I will feed you with the marrow of my bones if I must!¡¯ It wasn¡¯t meant to be a literal phrase, of course. Still, Cas couldn¡¯t help recoiling at the imagery of seeing people as food, and then ¨C after a moment of dispassionate thought ¨C she realized that, technically speaking, people were food, being made of the stuff after all. And that dark thought sparked a bright idea. ¡­ In truth, Cas wasn¡¯t sure why it took her this long to think of something this obvious. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! Kari trudged in through the door, dropping the basket of Korren stalks at her feet, where in Cas picked them up and began shoveling them into herself. Korren plants were the staple crop of the five villages. In earth terms, they were like a very short stalk of corn, with a large bulb of grass-grain growing at the tip of the thick stalk. The stalks themselves were inedible, but were still harvested diligently, being mostly used for their fibers which ¨C by the summer ¨C would be ready to be turned into fibers for clothes. It was a very efficient plant. However, upon eating them, and paying a little attention to her materials sheet, it was easy to see that they had everything required to make human food. They had carbs, sugars, vitamins, salt¡­ it was all just locked away in a thick forest of cellulose and other indigestible stuff. Searching quickly in her material¡¯s sheet, Cas found that Tanti grass was an edible plant with a similar ingridents list, and ¨C remembering the taste of that plant, recalling it¡¯s floppy, watery leaves and acrid flavor ¨C Cas set about making it. By now, there was five pounds of Korren stalks floating inside Cas. It was tough material, almost woody in texture, and it resisted her at every turn. It was an action a lot like chewing for her. Instinctually, she just knew where to move the food, how much saliva to add, how to avoid biting her tongue. In service of this analogy, she¡¯d even conjured some harderend teeth and a set of jaws that set about masticating the crunchy stalks. Green, acrid juice spilled out into her as the crushing jaws pressed the stalks. The chemical bath that was her body heated up, almost foaming reactively as it stripped away everything from the now bleached looking strands of fiber, her interior warbling as everything swirled together like a blender and the previously stubborn strands fell apart of their own accord, and there Cas juggled all the requisite materials expertly into their final products. New Material Produced: Separated Korren Fibers! New Material Produced: Separated Plant Blood! Chemistry 101: +29xp Kari looked at the updates with a little interest. The Korren fibers, almost four pounds of silky, pressed strands she regurgitated onto large rug made of the same material. They ¡®plant blood¡¯ she was sure was probably chlorophyll, and that was absorbed with little fanfare. What interested her more was the third and final byproduct of the reaction. The system didn¡¯t acknowledge it because it wasn¡¯t a ¡®new material¡¯. No, rather it was a copy of something Cas had eaten before: the edible Tanti Grass. Or, at least her attempt at copying it. Cas spat out a green block of food that looked a lot like vegan spam. The block slid out of her like it was a cassette tape, dropping onto a bowl that had been set infront of her and jiggling there like a block of soylent green, not that Cas could tell the color. ¡°Try this." Kari raised an eyebrow and plucked a corner of the gelatin between her fingers, popping it between her teeth and chewing with a neutral expression. ¡°Well?¡± Cas asked with interest as Kari swallowed. Kari shrugged. ¡°It¡¯s fine.¡± Cas giggled. ¡°Sucess! By the way, what color is it?¡± Kari still wasn¡¯t in the mood to take part in their habitual revelry, turning away with a neutral mask. ¡°You¡¯re thinking of feeding her with this, aren¡¯t you?¡± she asked accusatorily. ¡°What¡¯s wrong with that?¡± Cas said, ripping away a root portion a Korren stalk and analyzing it. ¡°Where are we supposed to get more of these plant stalks?¡± Kari challenged, allowing a sour expression to show on her face for the first time all day. ¡°We¡¯re not going to get more rations, you know? And You barely made a single bowl of food from all this!¡± Kari gestured at the four pounds of plant fibers Cas had thrown up beside her. ¡°We¡¯ll trade,¡± was Cas¡¯s simple answer, still analyzing the bright roots of the jagged plant stalk. ¡°We can let people know that¡­¡± Cas paused to mull over the offer for a second. ¡°Right. If they give us their stalks, we¡¯ll give them half the food we make with it. It¡¯s not like this town doesn¡¯t have enough rugs, and I¡¯m sure everyone will appreciate having a bit of extra food for the winter.¡± ¡°And where are we supposed to get water!¡± Kari stood up, throwing another challenge at the plan. ¡°It¡¯s not like you can make water from stalks!¡± ¡°Actually, I can,¡± Cas corrected happily, ¡°though you¡¯re right it¡¯s not much. I can make the rest up from human waste, though!¡± Kari grimaced, reminding Cas of what more human sensibilities thought of the idea. ¡°Well¡­¡± Cas corrected herself, ¡°I can make a clone body that does that for me.¡± Cas laughed with some embarrassment. Kari shot up in a rage. ¡°She can¡¯t stay here!¡± Cas¡­ in truth, still didn¡¯t understand why Kari was acting this way, even as she¡¯d been expecting the reaction. Still, she was careful not to make the same mistakes as last night. ¡°Why not?¡± Cas asked, careful to keep her tone open and curious. Kari calmed down at that, sitting cross legged. ¡°I¡¯ve been eavesdropping again,¡± she admitted. Cas didn¡¯t bother to interrupt her with a lecture. ¡°Elder Nemaris¡­ he was talking to the other village elders during Tami¡¯s party. He said you wouldn¡¯t interfere with the tradition, and that Nadia wouldn¡¯t cause trouble by staying¡­ he doesn¡¯t expect you to succeed, and he¡¯s promising the others you¡¯ll give up. If you do this and keep taking kids in, he¡¯ll be embarrassed.¡± ¡°So?¡± Cas said. ¡°Let him be embarrassed.¡± ¡°No, you don¡¯t understand. He¡¯s kind of a jerk sometimes, but he¡¯s a good man! And if he falls out with the other Elders¨C¡± ¡°I know he¡¯s a good man, Kari,¡± Cas was careful to couch her words in agreement. ¡°That doesn¡¯t mean we let him do whatever he wants, though, or are you saying I should¡¯ve listened to that ¡®good man¡¯ when he told me to let you die?¡± Kari stepped back as if stung. Cas winced at this, but continued gently. ¡°I just mean¡­ why are you so eager to get Nadia out of here, Kari?¡± Cas¡¯s tone was pleading and scared. ¡°This isn¡¯t like you.¡± A short, choked sob was Kari¡¯s answer. ¡°I don¡¯t know!¡± she cried, falling to her knees and admitting everything. ¡°I know I shouldn¡¯t feel this way, but no good thoughts come when I see Nadia¡¯s face!¡± Kari broke down completely at this. It was strange to see such a cheerful and stoic girl crying for the second day in a row. Cas couldn¡¯t help noticing how confused the girl seemed at her own emotions, as she clawed and scratched at her own heart, willing her tears to stop and not understanding why her body disobeyed her so. Squeezing her eyes shut, clutching at her shawl, Kari bowled over on her knees. ¡°I¡­ can¡¯t feel anything but hate when I see her, Cas. I feel like she¡¯s ruining the life I finally have now. I feel like she¡¯s stealing the life I never thought I¡¯d get, and I know it¡¯s wrong but I can¡¯t help it!¡± Delirious run-on sentences were the only tool Kari had to express herself, and she tried desperately to fit them together in some way that made sense. ¡°I¡­ I was prepared to die when my birthday came,¡± Kari said suddenly, a strange calm overcoming her voice even as sobs wracked her. ¡°I thought I was being brave then, but I wasn¡¯t! I was scared and couldn¡¯t handle it, and I¡¯m scared, now! I¡¯m scared that you¡¯ll choose her over me! I¡¯m scared that you¡¯ll choose anyone else!¡± Kari looked up just in time for a young human girl with strangely dark skin to bowl her over in a painfully tight hug. Cas squeezed her arms closer around the girl, the large shawl she¡¯d been wearing as a slime fell over her figure like a poncho, and it wrapped around the weeping girl like a blanket. It was, in truth, an objectively uncomfortable experience. The desert heat, the extra layers, and the painful hug were a bad mix, but it was the sort of discomfort that distracted Kari from her dying heart. Cas wasn¡¯t prepared to deal with this. She could feel her inadequacy before the task. Still, she poured every ounce of sincerity and effort she had in her when she hugged the girl even tighter and said: ¡°I¡¯ll never choose anyone over you, Kari.¡± ¡°Liar!¡± Kari spat. ¡°I was listening when Tami told you all those things ¨C ¡° another sob that shook through both their bodies ¡° ¨C about how she could get you whatever you wanted.¡± The level of spying was surprising to Cas, but she immediately dropped her admonishments. Those could come later. For now: ¡°She did,¡± Cas admitted, ¡°but all I promised her was that I¡¯d help Nadia. You¡¯re my best friend Kari. You¡¯re my best friend in this whole world, and I¡¯ll never let anything bad happen to you, ok?¡± Cas wanted to pull back and look the girl in the eyes, but was almost afraid to let go over her in order to do it. Eventually, however, Kari grew restless in her embrace, and Cas was face to face with her again. Knowing better than to press for an answer, Cas simply sat on her knees, waiting patiently as Kari composed herself, and ¨C with a final few sniffles ¨C forced a smile in Cas¡¯ direction. ¡°That¡¯s a false smile,¡± Cas said with light admonishment. Kari giggled. ¡°Yeah. It¡¯s hard to smile when you¡¯ve been crying all day, haha.¡± ¡°Then why?¡± Kari paused, a quizzical look in her eye which quickly turned downward. ¡°To say sorry,¡± she said at last. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t have said all that stuff about Nadia. I¡­ I¡¯m ok with her staying here, now.¡± Kari said. ¡°I¡¯m still feeling sad, now, but¡­ I want to help you take care of her!¡± Cas laughed lightly. ¡°You¡¯re still open for that court advisor position?¡± Kari smiled, and choked out a short laugh. A laugh that was forced but which Cas didn¡¯t think was strange enough to press into. ¡°I¡­ I¡¯ll try,¡± Kari smiled, looking more natural already. Chapter 24: Red Handed Word of Tami¡¯s celebration ritual for her daughter slowly percolated beyond the borders of her village. Before night had fallen, thorough visitors and dealings, every one in all the five villages had been made aware, and by sunrise of the next day, the normally quiet village of Kedu had turned into a metropolis. As attested to before, city planning was a non-existent concept, so there were no streets to be crowded. However, the scattered houses, and the pockets of space between those houses were soon crammed with visitors, well wishers, and party crashers from all the surrounding five villages. Traversing the village at the best of times required continual trespassing through people¡¯s front yards. Now, however, every attempt to get somewhere required traipsing through five communal feasts and ten private conversations. And, at Cas¡¯s, snail¡¯s-pace crawl, she was left floating in the perpetual awkwardness of a woman who had to squeeze her way down the long side of a packed movie theater. ¡°Sorry, sorry,¡± she crawled her round body past a small brunch of laughing people, accidentally bumping the wooden ¨C and thus very valuable ¨C coffee stand the lady of the house had been roasting some beans upon. Cas could hear the ancient wood creak, and she could see everyone¡¯s present smiles straining as they tried not to show any distress at the great Slime Sage. That was the worst part of being the Village hero, Cas supposed. It was hard to have honest conversations with the people around you. ¡°Sorry again! I¡¯lll pay you back for any damages,¡± Cas yelled back, rushing to escape the awkward scene and taking a whole ten seconds to do so. ¡°Oh, no! Great Sage! It¡¯s no trouble at all! The lady of the house assured, panic in her voice at having insulted the hero. She attempted to stand to pay her respects before a quick ¡®no need¡¯ from Cas rebuffed her, and made her all the more confused and worried at having offended the Sakkari. Perhaps if the problem had been solved in a day, it would¡¯ve been better. The excitement would¡¯ve been more intense, but would have flashed away after a week. However, healing an Oasis was a lengthy process. The slimes that were now freely able to escape the caven still had a long trek through the desert sands, and catching the scent of the degraded pathways they¡¯d carved took time. So, the Oasis healed slowly, and continually, and every week there was a new milestone and record water level to keep the village gossip mill perpetually occupied about how great the Oasis was doing and about just how thankful they were that the Sage arrived in time! ¡°Oh, great sage!¡± Cas passed by another trio of huts, all constructed facing a central, shared front yard that was currently host to another breakfast party. This group, of course, stood and prepared to offer a respectful invitation to sit with them: ¡°No! That won¡¯t be necessary, really!¡± Cas assured, rushing away before they could insist and turning a corner to another brunch group, who were also standing with exaggerated looks of amazement and awe¡­ Huh¡­ ¡ª-------------- Declining invitations was a strange thing in Nemorian culture. This was because, among the Nemorians, declining an invitation was considered the polite way to accept. Here, saying, ¡°Oh, no, I absolutely couldn¡¯t accept your free food,¡± was usually accompanied by taking a plate. It was a polite gesture Cas was familiar with back on earth. However, here, it was taken to a new extreme, as ¨C if you actually did want to say no ¨C the offering party would usually be required ¨C out of politeness ¨C to offer again¡­ multiple times. For someone as popular as Cas, in such a crowded environment, this was a death sentence. So, naturally, Cas was prepared for war, and she came packing her nuclear deterrent: Kari. People still invited her out of politeness, of course, but Cas found they were quicker to accept a declination when there was an Unari in the mix. Kari was all too happy to be useful. In fact, following their reconciliation, Cas found the girl had been happier and more pleasant than ever. She stood up straighter, had her ears perked up at attention, and Cas even caught her smiling when she was alone! It was a complete transformation in the girls demeanor that Cas was happy to see. ¡°So, so, so, are we going to pick up Nadia now or should we wait until the party?¡± Kari paced around like a caffeinated chipmunk around the stationary Sakkari. ¡°I think we should do it now. It¡¯d be a good surprise, or maybe it wouldn¡¯t be a surprise. Do you think Tami¡¯s already told her?¡± Cas, who¡¯d been valiantly trying to focus on the aura, despite her blindness, started seeing the double edged nature of this new and improved Kari. ¡°Probably,¡± Cas answered slowly. ¡°Oh! Yeah, I guess she would. But what if-!¡± ¡°Trying to focus,¡± Cas intoned purposefully. ¡°Oh, right!¡± Kari acknowledged, a little embarrassed. Taking in the quiet, Cas focused again on trying to find that ¡®spark¡¯. The village was crowded, the Oasis more so, and Cas¡¯s hut ¨C normally understood to be a sacred place meant to be left alone ¨C was crowded with tourists. So, they came here, sitting in a shaded corner of Tami¡¯s farm land. It was quiet here. It being winter, and with Tami having thrown such a wonderful party, the surrounding fields were left empty as everyone decided to reschedule their week-long vacations to right now. Still, sound carried well in the dry air, and she could hear occasional roars of jubilation coming from the village in the distance. The wind was in their direction, and she could smell that something large and fragrant had been set on fire. The wind and the smoke it carried caressed over the barren and tilled fields, and she could hear sands shifting like the sea in the distance. Cas had hardened a blinder around her eye, and she could feel the crystal gyrating inside of her. It wasn¡¯t a deliberate motion on her part. The crystal just moved whenever she tried to look for that ¡®spark¡¯ inside of her. It moved left, it pointed up, and currently it was making strange swirling motions around a point in her lower body. Of course, her blinder moved to keep pace with the eye, and the view didn¡¯t change. In fact, after hours of trying, it seemed ridiculous to Cas that she could try finding it like this. After all, in some sense, she was her eye. She moved wherever it moved, and that spark always seemed to be somewhere inside of her, like it was somewhere behind her field of view. At that thought, the eye flipped around like a coin, spinning faster and faster about its axis as ¨C like a dog trying to chase its own tail ¨C it, on instinct, tried to follow Cas¡¯ intention to see behind itself. Of course, Cas understood that was impossible. Wherever the eye looked, it¡¯s perspective would drag along with it. It could never see behind itself because the periphery only existed where she wasn¡¯t looking. And then Cas found her spark, and her whole world lit up. Aura Unlocked! New Vital Stat: Aura! Aura Level Updated: -> LVL 1! Cas dissolved her blinder, and Kari came into view. The girl sat with her back against a wall, hugging the thin strip of shadow that bordered along the structure, her toes dancing on the dangerous border between shadow and sunlight. ¡°Kari.¡± She looked up at Cas. ¡°Get Sin,¡± she said. ¡ª---------------------------------------- Sin was back in Fari village preparing for the wrestling match, so Kari had to be dispatched by herself to get him. Of course, Cas could¡¯ve gotten there in a quarter of the time by flying, but once again she was faced with the inconvenience of her own unwillingness to reveal her abilities to the villagers. It was strange how long she¡¯d kept up the charade, but it just never seemed to be the right time. First, the Oasis was in danger, and she didn¡¯t want to appear suspicious, then there was the celebration she didn¡¯t want to interrupt. Really, though, Cas ¨C usually an ¡®honesty is the best policy¡¯ sort of person ¨C didn¡¯t see any problem with revealing the truth now, and would have told the villagers already, had Kari not been so adamant that they keep the secret between them. Still, that decision came with its consequences, and Cas had to make the long crawl back to the village alone. This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Her recent updates had given her a lot of reading material, however. It was all very interesting. Interesting as the status screen appeared, however, it just didn¡¯t hold a candle next to her Aura. It wasn¡¯t a visible thing, her Aura ¨C rather, it was something understood. Cas just knew she had an Aura, and she knew that it was everywhere! It was inside of her, outside of her, it was in the ground, the sky, the stars. She could see her aura everywhere she looked, and she could feel its presence everywhere else! It left her with a strangely serene feeling, like being drunk without the loss of coordination, and it felt like nothing could bother her. A villager who¡¯s name she didn¡¯t know approached her. In her face was that familiar look of magnanimous humility as she prepared to invite Cas to tea. Cas didn¡¯t feel any frustration as she made this twelfth refusal, however. After all, the woman was her Aura. At least, Cas truly believed that to be the case as the woman¡¯s smile changed course into disappointment. ¡°Surely, you must say hi, at least!¡± the woman insisted with a politeness that could hardly be refused. ¡°Absolutely not!¡± Cas replied with a cheerful voice. Cas was honestly cheerful, too. Right now, Cas felt incapable of anything other than serenity because her Aura was everywhere! That meant she was everywhere! And if she was everywhere, how could she be annoyed at herself? It was a strange sensation to be so calm. It gave her a bravery she didn¡¯t expect to have when she confronted Nemaris. ¡­ ¡°I heard you¡¯ve been telling the other Village elders that you don¡¯t expect me to succeed,¡± Cas said. Kari had told her as much last night, in fewer words. Cas decided to expand on what Kari had eavesdropped for Nemaris: ¡°I heard,¡± she continued, ¡°that you¡¯ve been telling the other Village elders that Nadia wouldn¡¯t cause any trouble by staying, and that she wouldn¡¯t stay for long once I failed to take care of her on limited rations.¡± Nemaris looked cornered against the wall of his hut, looking over his clay cup at her. Cas, had spent all last night agonizing over how to say this. In fact, she hadn¡¯t even been certain that Kari had been telling the truth! Something about the recent discovery of her aura made the accusation flow effortlessly, however. ¡°I was surprised to hear this because¡­ well, I wasn¡¯t even aware we were going to be spilling that secret to anyone in the village, much less bad mouthing each other in the process.¡± Nemaris, for his part, looked merely confused. ¡°Of course I told the elders,¡± he answered. ¡°We tell each other everything of importance.¡± Whatever serenity Cas had developed with her Aura seemed to be temporary, and annoyance sprung back up. ¡°Oh? And what about your promise that I would fail? I¡¯d assumed you¡¯d be a bit less antagonistic in this regard.¡± Nemaris looked conflicted. ¡°I only told them my honest thoughts,¡± placing his cup down onto the plate. ¡°I told you about the laws as a favor, Sage. It doesn¡¯t mean I expect you to succeed, and it doesn¡¯t mean I¡¯m willing to put my name into that madness you¡¯re concocting. If you want to keep the Unari in your hut, fine, but I won¡¯t be associated with it.¡± Nemaris sat back against the wall, arms crossed and closed to further conversation. ¡ª--------- ¡°Whoa! Calm down there!¡± Sin warned with a jolly figure. Cas, frustrated, stopped her attempt to imagine her body. Finding the ¡®spark¡¯ inside of her had been easy enough for Cas. Lacking a human body, with all its flowing blood, and heart beats, and stomach growls, finding the dim essence of aura inside of her was a relatively unobscured process. The next step, however, was to ¡®imagine the form of her body¡¯ and Cas, being an amorphous blob that didn¡¯t have a set form, well, it wasn¡¯t exactly- ¡°Easy!¡± Sin warned. ¡°You¡¯re already trying to compress your aura! We don¡¯t move onto step six until we do everything beforehand, understood!¡± He seemed panicked for some reason ¡°Try that again, and you¡¯ll blow your arm off!¡± Cas guessed that might have been the reason. Cas sighed. ¡®Imagining¡¯ such a fluid body was hard to do precisely, especially considering how dull her sense of touch was in this form. She guessed that she¡¯d probably need to do this step in her human form¡­ which she couldn¡¯t do now because she was still hiding her transformation ability. Sin apparently mistook the cause of her dejection. ¡°Ease up,¡± he consoled. ¡°Honestly, you¡¯ve advanced surprisingly quickly at this. Usually it takes most kids several weeks to get this far.¡± ¡°Kids?¡± Cas interjected, looking over at Kari. ¡°Well,¡± Sin looked abashed, ¡°we don¡¯t teach them anything past step three until they grow older. You¡¯re still doing great, though. You¡¯ve got an ability to focus that I¡¯ve hardly ever seen!¡± ¡°I spent a lot of time alone in a Cave,¡± Cas supplied. Sin didn¡¯t know how to respond to that, so he moved on. ¡°Still, I¡¯m surprised you¡¯re having trouble,¡± Sin looked at her appraisingly. ¡°Usually things go fairly smoothly after someone finds their spark. I mean, people¡¯s emotions generally flatten away for the first hour after someone awakens their aura. Did something happen to frustrate you before we showed up?¡± Cas only sighed again. An hour of enlightenment and she wasted it talking to upper management. ¡°Nothing,¡± Cas replied to Sin and Kari¡¯s awaiting looks. ¡°It¡¯s nothing. I think I¡¯ll have this figured out by tonight. Do you know when I can expect to learn the rest of the steps?¡± Sin hmmed. ¡°Well, the most difficult steps are over. I¡¯d say you can learn the rest of them in a day, as long as you know what to look for.¡± Cas didn¡¯t have any expression, but the downward cant of her crystal eye revealed her to be overthinking things. ¡°Actually,¡± Sin said. ¡°How about this. Do you know what your skill is, yet?¡± ¡°Skill?¡± Cas asked. ¡°Oh.. you don¡¯t know?¡± Sin brought a hand to his chin. ¡°Hmm.. well¡­how to explain¡­ you know how everyone¡¯s different, right?¡± Cas nodded. ¡°Well, skills are like talents. They¡¯re complicated things someone can do with their aura without having to learn all the eight steps.¡± ¡°Ok.¡± Cas floated her eye up to the surface of her body with great interest, ¡°and what¡¯s your skill?¡± ¡°Sensing,¡± Sin smiled proudly. At her inquisitive gaze, he only laughed, ¡°I could explain further, but I think a demonstration would be faster.¡± Slowly, he reached out a hand towards her, ¡°If you¡¯re ready, I can help you use the skill.¡± Cas wanted to believe. ¡°You¡¯re saying I can use your skill when I can¡¯t even get past step three without blowing myself up?¡± She sounded incredulous. Sin laughed. ¡°You¡¯ve already awakened your aura. Technically you can do anything as long as you have that. The rest of the steps are just¡­ techniques to help you use your aura more actively. Skills, as I¡¯ve mentioned, don¡¯t need that, besides, I¡¯ll be keeping an eye on you the entire time. What do you say?¡± ¡­ Of course, Cas agreed. Sin had uncanny insight into her progression, and guided her smoothly. Though his hand was inches away from her surface, Cas felt she could feel the shadow of the appendage as it instructed her aura to make alien motions, and that feeling of everywhereness returned for an instance before disappearing. It wasn¡¯t just her aura that disappeared. It felt as if the whole world was gone, now, unable to obstruct her from seeing all those living creatures that had previously been hidden away. She was sensing, Cas realized. It felt like when she¡¯d read Sin¡¯s character screen, but more intense, and for everything. The formerly plain fields now frothed with life, with fungi and hibernating tubers and all the burrowing creatures that bubbled just beneath the surface. Cas was left with a feeling like butterflies in her belly as she felt all those creatures at once. It was so much. In fact, it was too much. Everything blended together into static and nothing stood out from the endless mire of life that surrounded her. Distantly, she could hear Sin talking easily to her. ¡°Overwhelming isn¡¯t it? Don¡¯t worry, it¡¯s easier in the desert. Try focusing on your aura, remember what it feels like when its active, see how to sticks to the shape of your body?¡± Cas felt the sphere of aura around herself. She could also feel a faint ghostly shape of her human form standing around it, somehow. Still, that explosive nebula of life around her was an enticing distraction, and she couldn¡¯t help glancing over at the intense show. And, there, camouflage against the background signature of life, Cas sensed a more human figure, fox ears flickering nervously atop her head. She looked over at Sin, who seemed focused on guiding her aura. Could he really not sense her? Cas then realized that the figure was only visible because Cas recognized it. She wasn¡¯t sure who, but it was someone Cas had been in the presence of before, someone she bothered to remember. What were they doing out here in the middle of a celebration, though? Cas wandered away, the sensory cloud fritzing away as soon as she disconnected from Sin. Sin looked at her. Glancing back, Cas gave a whispered warning. ¡°Someone¡¯s here.¡± Cas wasn¡¯t sure why she decided to investigate. It was none of her business, but she was a curious sort. Why was that person here now? They should have been in the village celebrating. Why did they seem so nervous? Why were they moving as if they were trying to hide? Why were sneaking into the granary? Why did they seem so familiar? In an isolated community like this, people showing up in the fields wasn¡¯t a strange occurrence. But all those questions hounded her as she led Sin and Kari to the squat, wooden structure where she¡¯d last sensed the figure. Now that he was looking for it, Sin nodded to her to confirm the figure¡¯s presence, and all the same questions seemed to run through his mind as he led them round the back of the storehouse, crouching low and taking careful steps. Soon, he was pressed against the front wall, his breath reaching past the edge of the open door. Looking back, he nooded, and Cas shook her eye in assent. They all stepped forward, shadows stretching into the building, casting the girl into darkness. Cas stared at the sight, feeling lost at the turmoil of emotions it caused. Cas was surprised at the culprit. It was Yessina: Kari¡¯s older sister, and Korivenna''s assistant. She was also confused. Yessina stood near a pile of granaries, holding a cloth bag full of flour and roots which she was trying to stuff into her side satchell. It was incontrovertible, obvious, undeniable, Yessina was stealing food. Cas was confused, in turmoil. The sight felt like a parody to her. The closest experience she¡¯d had to this on earth was when she¡¯d caught her niece sneaking sugar. Back then, she¡¯d been able to laugh at her niece, to find it cute how she denied eating sugar even as powderfuls of the stuff puffed out from her lips. This was quite a different sight, however. Yessina¡¯s face was far from wide-eyed surprise. It looked more¡­ fatalistic, almost as if she¡¯d been expecting to be caught. She also looked terrified, and that abject terror infected Sin and Kari and Cas, too, because everyone in this room knew the law of the village: The punishment for stealing food was death. Personal Questions ¡°I¡¯m telling you. Korrivenna has to be making her do it! Yessina would never steal by herself! She wouldn¡¯t steal a leaf!¡± There was a hint of desperation in Kari¡¯s voice, as if clearing her sister¡¯s name was something of great importance to the girl. Cas hardly understood it. For her, food was perhaps one of the only things it was ok to steal. The villagers had a different relationship to the substance, however. They saw and treated food as something almost sacred. It was the one thing in the village that was shared communally, and ¨C unlike everything luxury rug and prized wooden object ¨C it was the one thing who¡¯s theft could never be forgiven. Kari was on the verge of tears as she tried to convince Cas, and to convince herself, that Yessina would never stoop to such acts. So Cas played along. ¡°Of course, Korivenna would make her do her dirty work,¡± she replied easily. Kari didn¡¯t fully believe, but seemed comforted by the agreement. Naturally, Cas and Kari hadn¡¯t been eager to turn Yessina in. Sin, perhaps because of his soft-spot for children, had barely swayed over to their side on the matter, though he did have a long and thorough talk with the girl about the wrongness of stealing before promising to let this slide and letting her go with a ¡®don¡¯t do it again¡¯ attitude. Nodding slowly, the girl had turned away and slowly plodded in the direction of Korivenna¡¯s hut, not caring for the morsels of food she¡¯d been clutching so tightly seconds ago, apparently having lost her appetite. Kari, despite her relative safety in this situation, as well as Cas¡¯s apparent agreement that Yessina had to be innocent, was in full panic throughout the entire day It was night time, now, and Cas was making her usual preparations to go to the cavern when Kari broke the silence. ¡°Wait¡­¡± Cas looked up from where she was tying a small bundle of cloth full of sample collectors, packing it lightly enough for [Killer of Omens] to carry. ¡°I don¡¯t want you to go to the mountain tonight.¡± Cas tilted a quizzical head. ¡°I don¡¯t know why!¡± Kari preempted her question. ¡°But¡­ can you please stay here? Don¡¯t go, please.¡± Cas looked out the window towards the dark spire. Being so busy, she¡¯d missed the opportunity to visit the cavern for several nights in a row, now, and she was itching to see how some experiments she¡¯d started there were progressing. And they were important experiments, too, time sensitive and necessary to figuring out how to create more slimes. Cas wasn¡¯t sentimental enough to abandon something so important just because of the vague unease of a little girl. ¡ª--- Kari, as it turned out, had excellent puppy-dog eyes. Having fox ears was an advantage in that regard. So, Cas had spent the night practicing her Alchemy. After all, it wasn¡¯t often one had the opportunity to show off in front of a crowd. Today, the third day of Nadia¡¯s birthday celebration, was also the first day of the wrestling tournament that had been set up in honor of the young girl¡¯s coming of age. The sport, it seemed, was quite the attraction, as all the disparate cliques and brunch tables set up throughout the village converged into a massive crowd in the village square, where a clean, dust circle had been drawn next to the well and the wrestlers stood off to the side, shirtless and rubbing dust all over themselves. It was here that Cas noticed something strange. The people here¡­ were really beautiful. It was like a town of beauty models. Everyone was fit, had clear skin and perfect teeth. Heck, the wrestlers didn¡¯t even look that different from the average man! Stranger yet was Cas¡¯ reaction to all of them. Back on earth, she might have taken an interest, but now¡­ Cas could tell they were beautiful, she could even appreciate their good looks, but it felt more like she was appreciating a field of flowers rather than taking any personal interest in them. ¡°Oh! I¡¯m so glad you came early! The athletes have been making a row about starting before the sun comes up.¡± Tami came into view, her words obscured lightly by her pretty face. Now that Cass was in the mood to notice it, she realized that Tami, despite her overbearing personality, was astoundingly beautiful, and it wasn¡¯t just the makeup talking. For a moment, Cas was entranced by her attempts to understand the face before she was suddenly knocked by into reality by the latest, audacious statement from the woman. ¡°...so, for that reason, I¡¯ll have to ask that you take all the blame for taking Nadia in.¡± If Cas could¡¯ve blinked, Tami¡¯s radiant features would¡¯ve looked like strobelights as she stared up at the woman. She didn¡¯t even have the decency to look embarrassed, straight face all the way through as she said that sentence. ¡°What?¡± Cas said, poison in her throat. She flashed a glance over at Nadia who ¨C while nervous ¨C seemed otherwise unaffected by the prospect of being abandoned by her mother like this. ¡°Why would we do that?¡± ¡°Because one of us needs to stay in the village¡¯s good graces,¡± Tami answered simply. ¡°I don¡¯t suspect my neighbors are going to be happy to hear you¡¯re keeping another Unari here. ¡°And I promised to help you from within the village, didn¡¯t I? It¡¯ll be harder to do that if I¡¯m shut out of the politics here.¡± ¡°So, you¡¯re just going to pretend to disown your daughter when I take her in?¡± Cas asked. Tami looked casually down at her fingertips. ¡°Actually, I¡¯m thinking of disinviting her from the rest of the celebration right now. That¡¯ll be sure to cause rumors, and It¡¯ll make my act later more believable if they think I knew about it beforehand.¡± Cas had to admit, that was pretty smart. Granted, she didn¡¯t think any of it would be necessary after her show today, but it wouldn¡¯t hurt to go along with it. ¡°Ok,¡± Cas nodded. ¡°I guess we can do that after my presentation.¡± ¡°Oh, excellent!¡± Tami brought the heels of her fists together under her chin with a cheery figure. Quickly kneeling down she snatched her little girl up in a deep hug before spooling her back by the shoulders, pinching her cheeks and taking in every little feature of the girl. ¡°Oh¡­ I¡¯m going to miss you so much!¡± the woman smiled, seeming, to Cas, oddly happy at the prospect of never seeing her child again. ¡°But you¡¯ll be alive! Promise me you¡¯ll take care of yourself without mommy to watch over you, ok?¡± ¡°I promise,¡± Nadia nodded serenely, for the first time showing a plain expression that wasn¡¯t covered by a smile. Cas thought she saw Tami¡¯s lips quiver a little before she pushed away from the girl, standing up and turning away from all of them. ¡°Well¡­ whatever your show is, do it soon. The competition is starting soon¡­ I have to see to that.¡± Tami walked away quickly, and Cas was left dizzy in how quickly the woman managed to say her goodbyes. It had the air of someone ripping off a bandage, and, off in the distance, Cas could see that Tami was already engaged in lively conversation with some of the referees, matching her daughter in how much she overcompensated with her smile. ¡ª------------- It was amazing what one could take for granted. For example, Cas¡¯s ability to turn Korren stalks into food. By now she¡¯d done that old trick so many times it was positively mundane. Silence was another thing she took for granted. Ever since the party had begun, the airwaves were always dancing in a background hum of conversation that never fully settled. Right now, however, as Cas stood on stage next to fifty pounds of clean Korren fibers and ten pounds of food. The crowd of hundreds had been dead silent for the past two minutes, now, staring in disbelief as they crowded at the edge of the squat building atop which Cas had elected to make her demonstration. Cas, still talking in that boisterous, Vaudeville accent, felt suddenly out of place in front of the congregation of silent people who looked past her at the large bowl behind as if it were a reliquary. ¡°Ok!¡± Cas said, self conscious over how much her voice echoed in the serene quiet that now hung over the crowd. ¡°We will be serving this food after the first round of matches¡­ so, enjoy yourselves!¡± And, quickly, she crawled down the side of the building. ¡ª---- Back at the building, several men had leapt onto the ten foot tall roof, and had created an assembly line to carry away the loose tufts of fiber and large bowls of food. The crowd, like a large, stunned creature just getting its bearings, started slowly talking again, conversating amidst themselves about the amazing thing they¡¯d seen and of what it would mean for their village. The reactions were varied, but, to a man, they all were happy. ¡°I¡¯m not happy with what you¡¯ve done,¡± Nemaris said, confronting her outside the edge of the crowd. Well, almost all of them were happy. ¡°Why?¡± Cas teased, more focused on squeezing her body into her shawl than she was entertaining the man. ¡°Are you disappointed that I¡¯m not going to fail as spectacularly as you¡¯d hoped?¡± ¡°You¡¯re trying to use the food you¡¯re going to make to support the Unari,¡± Nemaris accused. ¡°What¡¯s the problem? You said I could save the Unari as long as I had the means ¨C ¡± Cas¡¯s slime shawl slipped onto her with a snug flap ¡° ¨C and now I have the means.¡± ¡°This isn¡¯t what I meant. If the villagers see¨C¡± ¡°I think this conversation is over Nemaris,¡± Cas parroted the man¡¯s words back at him, already walking away. ¡°I¡¯m sorry if I¡¯m not failing as you expected, but, well, I¡¯m not that sorry, actually.¡± ¡­ Nemaris didn¡¯t call after her, and Cas had barely made it ten paces when she turned a corner and ran into another familiar face. It was the Fari elder, looking spry despite his old age as he caught her in that all-knowing smirk he always seemed to wear, though this time it was painted with regretful undertones. Kari struggled not to express her frustration. How many of these people would she have to deal with. ¡°I¡­ take it you¡¯ve finally found a way to support more than one Unari,¡± he suggested, gesturing to the bowl of manufactured food the men were taking away. ¡°It doesn¡¯t taste that good,¡± Cas answered, drawing a laugh from the elder. ¡°Nemaris has already expressed his displeasure, I take it?¡± ¡°He has. I¡¯m surprised you haven¡¯t complained sooner. I was told he let you know about my plans quite a while ago.¡± ¡°We have no method of recourse,¡± the elder replied dejectedly. ¡°Despite the ruckus you¡¯re causing, you haven¡¯t broken our laws, and so they still protect you.¡± ¡°Ruckus?¡± Cas was truly offended now. ¡°I just found a way to give everyone more food for free! How is that anything but a good thing.¡± ¡°Oh, it¡¯s a great thing!¡± the elders'' eyes opened wide in surprise. Putting his hands together, he bowed lightly in Cas¡¯ direction. ¡°Don¡¯t take us as your enemies, please. We elders¡­ we¡¯re old and level headed for the most part. We¡¯ve seen our villages through much, and I more than most. However, the people are often blind to the larger picture, and I worry that ¨C once they realize what you¡¯re planning¡­¡± he paused, trying to find the right words. Cas elected to find those words for him. ¡°Once they realize what I¡¯ve done, they¡¯re going to be too busy enjoying their free food to care! Why do you all have to make such a big deal out of nothing! Didn¡¯t Nemaris tell you? This ¨C ¡± she gestured to the bowl of food ¡° ¨C is only the beginning! Soon enough, we¡¯ll grow the Oasis and have more food than we know what to do with!¡± The elder considered her words heavily, looking as if he were searching for the right path in a minefield. ¡°Perhaps,¡± he aquieced. ¡°However, while an abundance of riches is a fine thing, I don¡¯t think it will bring the happiness you¡¯re imagining.¡± ¡°Well, poverty is giving me enough headaches all on its own. Will that be all?¡± Cas was growing short. ¡°Just one last thing,¡± the elder said with a forgetful voice. ¡°You see, I¡¯m always one of the first people to catch a new rumor, and I¡¯ve just heard that Nadia is going to be spending time away from the celebrations. It appears there¡¯s been a falling out between her and her mother.¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Cas said, playing her natural pokerface. The elder tsked with a sad and dissapointed look. ¡°Well¡­ I should expect you to know this, but don¡¯t expect that young Nadia will be happy to survive in your household under the circumstances.¡± ¡°What are you saying?¡± ¡°The village has a way of affecting people, and children are more sensitive to such things. Even if Tami is faking her displeasure, I doubt Nadia will be happy to separate from her family and live as a pariah with you.¡± ¡°Who said Tami was lying?¡± Cas grew a little panicked Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. ¡°Well, whichever may be the case,¡± the elder threw a knowing smile, ¡°I think you¡¯d do better to include Nadia in your household. I doubt she¡¯ll be happy eating all alone in that hut of yours. Food for thought,¡± he finished, turning to get back to the awaiting crowd, which was roaring now as the referee yelled, and the first match started. ¡ª--------- Nadia was quietly fired from her job as the centerpiece of the proceedings. In the hullabaloo of the wrestling tournament, which had taken center stage, this change went mostly unnoticed, though some couldn¡¯t help whispering about the now empty grass throne which had previously held the girl of honor. Tami played her part well, growing distant and spending most of her time locked away in her hut. This also meant that, for the first time, Nadia had the free time to spend her day with The Great Sage, toiling under her guidance as they trawled through the desert. Nadia felt a bead of sweat running down her nose, hanging annoying at the tip and wobbling like a pendulum as she trudged up the final arc of the hill. Ahead of her, she pushed a boulder that was half her height and ten times her weight, carving a dark trench up the incline. ¡°Hahh, hahh!¡± she felt her breath go whoozy as she stopped the boulder, her entire body tinted brown with dust as she dragged herself out of the desert sands onto the rocky shore, where she leant against her prize. ¡°Is this¡­ is this what you guys do everyday?¡± she asked, looking back out to the empty desert as if wondering if it wasn¡¯t the better alternative. ¡°Basically,¡± Kari deadpanned, leaning back on her hands as she lay down on the grass. Nadia held a terrified look, and Cas yelled with a disappointed glare over the distance. ¡°Kari! Stop scaring the girl!¡± Despite her annoyance, she hardly looked away from the six foot hole which was rapidly being fillled back in with sand. There, striated patterns of glowing slimes were layered in patterns too complicated for her to make heads or tails of. Maybe it was because they were breaching in this region? ¡°What are we doing?¡± Kari asked, strolling to the edge of the hole, hands in her pockets. Nadia, not having developed the courage to address Cas directly yet, shadowed Kari with a curious expression on her face. ¡°I¡¯m trying to find out how the slimes move underground,¡± Cas answered, magnifying stalk patrolling the edges of the hole, cursing as another gust of wind collapsed more soft sand into it. ¡°Did you guys move those boulders out of the way?¡± ¡°Uh huh.¡± That was Kari. ¡°Y-yeah!¡± Nadia attempted to overcome her sudden shyness with bravado, sounding more pitiful because of it. ¡°Well, you guys can have the day off,¡± Cas was glued to her study. ¡°Ok,¡± Karri said, immediately leaving. ¡°But¡­ are you sure,¡± Nadia began, before a stray hand caught her shawl and dragged her along behind the departing Kari. Ahhh¡­ peace. And in that peace, she looked at the depths and the random densities of slimes she found layered beneath the surface and¡­ still couldn¡¯t make heads or tails of what she saw. What made it all the more difficult was the sun. Freshly exposed to the light, the glimmering slimes underground quickly withered under its glare, winking out like exploding stars before Cas had any chance to get a proper count. Strangely enough, the slimes underground seemed more sensitive to sunlight than the ones which occasionally peeked above the surface. Perhaps they were unprepared for it? Stretching out a magnifying stalk, Cas peeked at a region of wel lit sand, zooming in on a glimmering little sakkari that, for a brief second, reflected the sunlight before the entire scene was engulfed in shadow. Confused, Cas drew back her stalk. The fresh perspective revealed the shadow to have a human figure, haggard triangles hinting at fox ears above its head. Looking up, Cas was once again surprised by a familiar face. ¡°Elder Korivenna,¡± Cas replied with a crisp formality. ¡°Sage,¡± the old woman nodded. Was she here to tell her off about Nadia? Cas thought and dismissed the idea. It was unlikely Nemaris would go out of his way to tell the old woman that, they never seemed to have the best relationship. A brief moment of silence followed, and Cas ¨C bubbling with annoyance from her data collection ¨C let it show. ¡°Is there some reason you¡¯re here to see me? It was an unspoken agreement, I confess, but I¡¯d assumed we were both content to let the other alone.¡± Korivenna pulled out a surprisingly pleasant smile. ¡°I hope you¡¯re not one to take my earlier treatment of you personally. After all, you were a monster with an unlikely story.¡± ¡°And I¡¯m supposed to believe you like me all of a sudden?¡± Korivenna¡¯s smile thinned into a more honest flat. ¡°I don¡¯t like anybody, dear. However, I am honestly grateful at that miracle you concocted with the Oasis. No matter my personal feelings, I am a fan of not dying.¡± Huh¡­ maybe she¡¯d been too harsh on the old bag. Still, Cas was eager to get back to her data collection, and Korivenna seemed just as eager to get to the end of this conversation, suddenly breaking from her more sociable tone to ask: ¡°My fool apprentice Yessina tells me you caught her in the act. Is that true?¡± ¡°I did,¡± Cas answered plainly. ¡°Well?¡± ¡°What?¡± Cas looked confused. ¡°Why didn¡¯t you turn her in?¡± the woman asked, ¡°even you must understand by now that was a crime.¡± ¡°Because I don¡¯t believe in ¨C¡± Cas paused¡­ she definitely wasn¡¯t against the death penalty. She swiftly course corrected.¡°Because I don¡¯t believe in letting children die because of someone else¡¯s crimes.¡± At this, she looked knowingly at Korivenna. ¡°Are you accusing me of something?¡± Korivenna asked. ¡°I¡¯m saying I¡¯ve seen Yessina. That girl isn¡¯t capable of making a decision like that by herself.¡± Korivenna didn¡¯t look half as offended as Cas would have liked. ¡°So what if I told her to steal it? It was still her decision to follow my orders. Besides, get that disgusted tone out of your tongue! If you¡¯d truly cared, you could have turned that idiot girl in and it would¡¯ve been my head next to hers. Do you have any idea how much I risk being that Unari¡¯s guardian?¡± Korivenna spat the word Unari. Cas spat her name. ¡°Korivenna. Leave.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll leave when I please,¡± Korivenna answered as if she were talking to a toddler. ¡°I simply want to ask why you didn¡¯t turn her in? You could still do so now. You have the witnesses, and that¡¯d take care of me.¡± Normally, Cas¡¯s eye was a subtle thing, able to flicker all about. But, inside her magnifying stalk, Cas¡¯ leftward gesture was evident. ¡°Oh?¡± Korivenna guessed, ¡°looking over to where Kari was ¨C in the distance ¨C still dragging along Nadia. ¡°Do I sense favoritism.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t,¡± Cas answered, goaded from her previous posture of silence. ¡°I simply have a rule against harming children. Unlike you, most people don¡¯t enjoy tormenting others.¡± ¡°Curious,¡± the woman had an appraising look in her Cas didn¡¯t like, ¡°I never expected you to be so sentimentally stupid. You do understand we don¡¯t live in a world where every child survives, that¡¯s precisely why the law-¡± ¡°The law is idiotic,¡± Cas spat, speaking roughly enough that even Korivenna was forced into silence. ¡°Trust me, Korivenna, your small mind may not be able to grasp this, but I¡¯m creating a world where that won¡¯t be necessary, and, right now, you¡¯re interrupting the creation of that world, so, kindly, please leave.¡± Korivenna, sensing there was no more information or entertainment to be had, merely nodded. ¡°I have your guarantee you won¡¯t be reporting what you saw, then?¡± ¡°You had it before you came,¡± Cas answered, and ¨C not acknowledging the woman any longer, turned her attention back to the pit, where the great shadow disappeared, and the sunlight returned, and the sakkari were cooked to death in the intense sunbeams. ¡ª------ The following days passed by simply. The tournament continued unabated and, as it reached its climax, the town was crowded more than ever with wrestling fans and prospective gamblers alike. Cas, Kari, and Nadia, for their own reasons, avoided the town during this period. Cas, for her part, had reached a new peak of popularity after creating food. Walking through town before had been hazardous to her social battery, but ¨C considering two of her last three visits had included catching people praying in her direction ¨C she was firmly settled on avoiding all conversations until the winds of her apotheosis had died down. Kari, though she¡¯d never admit it, was afraid of running into her sister. And Nadia, in order to sell the illusion that Tami had disowned her, was effectively banished from the village proper until the final day of her coronation, where she would undergo her walk into the desert. As a result of all these circumstances, all three of them spent the next three days quarantined in Cas¡¯s house. Despite her best nature, Cas had been dreading taking Nadia in, and not for the most noble reasons at that. You see, Cas was dreading the inclusion of a second child into her small hut because¡­ well, it was two freakin'' children! Decades of propaganda from child hating college students, and years of real world experience from bratty elementary schoolers had taught her to fear the prospect of children in a small space. This was made all the worse by the fact that they were all stuck together in a single room, which was packed full of wooden furniture and a dozen slime clones and delicate experiments which needed a gentle hand. These fears turned out to be unfounded, however, as Kari kept up her streak of good natured helpfulness, and Nadia was¡­ incredibly quiet. Cas had spent the majority of those three days entranced by a new method to train slimes, and so was in no position to notice the outside world, much less quiet children, but ¨C on the third day ¨C Cas realized something: Nadia had spent the past four days with them, and not once had she spoken directly to Cas herself. She was hardly a shy child. She talked with Kari well enough, especially when she thought Cas wasn¡¯t near, but ¨C as far as the Sakkari went ¨C the girl wouldn¡¯t utter a word unless spoken to directly first, and even then she generally drew upon one and two word answers to get her by. Cas was sympathetic to the girl. She was moving to an unfamiliar environment and going through alot of stress. To top that all off ¨C being perfectly honest with herself ¨C Cas was not that great of a caretaker. For the most part, she¡¯d spent the last few months treating Kari like a lab assistant and ignoring her for hours at a time while digging through the desert. She¡¯d kind of failed spectacularly to console the girl at the first real trouble they faced, and ¨C despite her promises to do better ¨C she was quickly reverting back to her old habits of getting lost in her work. Kari had to ask her to stay the night with her last tuesday¡­ the same night her sister had barely escaped a death sentence, and Cas had been too focused on her experiments to consider the girl¡¯s feelings that night! Cas cringed internally at that memory, at how she actually had to be convinced to stay the night with the girl. ¡°Oh what difference will that make when she¡¯s sleeping - stupid!¡± Cas repeated her words to herself with the benefit of hindsight and a judgemental attitude. So¡­ yeah, Cas was particularly sensitive to her recent failings, and had promised to do better. She didn¡¯t try and smother attention onto the girls or anything like that. However, when on that last night, Nadia finally gathered the courage to address her directly in that quiet voice of hers. ¡°Uhmm¡­ Ms.. Ms Sage?¡± Cas immediately set down her mini slime clone, letting the frothing creature tick around her desktop like a wind-up alarm clock, finding herself with the sudden ability to completely ignore the experiment as she focused her attention onto the girl. Nadia, apparently sensing the sincerity in the Sakkari¡¯s attention, broke more easily into her main point, her smile warbling at the edges with nervousness. ¡°Do¡­ do I really have to go to the party tomorrow?¡± Cas immediately understood the girl¡¯s meaning. Tomorrow was the last day of her coronation. It would be the culmination of all the fanfare of the five villages that had been organized. It would be the day where she was supposed to walk out into the desert, carrying all the blessings of the village. It would also be the day where she would refuse to do that, and where she would come to live with Cas instead. Cas had been short with the elders and their constant portents about how this was against the law. However, Nadia was a child, and the one who would be taking center stage, at that. Cas, of course, knew that ¨C in the grand scheme of things ¨C with the recent discoveries she¡¯d made on that table behind her ¨C this would all come to nothing once the Oasis grew. However, looking into the girl¡¯s eyes. Cas understood immediately that this wasn¡¯t the time to debate with the girl about future possibilities. She was a young girl who had to endure the judgement of everyone she knew tomorrow, she was a child who had to do the brave thing and escape death; and, she¡¯d spent the entire day looking queasy over the prospect. Cas reached out a stalk and took the girl¡¯s hand. The girl, wearing a more comfortable smile, now, took that as permission to go forward. ¡°Mom¡­ mom, she told me that she won¡¯t be able to be with me when I do it tomorrow. She¡¯s going to stay away.¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Cas confirmed, gripping the girl¡¯s hand tighter. ¡°She¡¯s going to help us from inside the village, so she has to pretend not to agree with our actions.¡± ¡°I know,¡± Nadia nodded bashfully, looking down. ¡°That means I won¡¯t be able to talk to her again.¡± Cas resisted the urge to start expounding about her Oasis growth project. ¡°At least for a little while,¡± she said. Nadia blinked away a fearful smile and looked up at Cas with a hopeful cant to her ears. ¡°Do I still have to go tomorrow? Can¡¯t we just tell them I won¡¯t be doing it here?¡± Cas shook her head. ¡°I won¡¯t make you go, but your mother said it¡¯d be best if we tell everyone at the same time. If we hide away, it¡¯ll make it seem like we¡¯re doing something wrong.¡± Nadia looked confused at that. ¡°Aren¡¯t we?¡± she asked. Cas tried valiantly to keep the anger, and sadness from her voice as she processed the question. ¡°We¡¯re not doing anything wrong,¡± she answered. ¡°Your mom is doing a really brave thing, and you are, too.¡± Nadia, with the wide-eyed moral flexibility of a child, seemed willing to accept that answer with little pushback. Still, she looked down again, hiding her face. She had a habit of pointing her face away whenever it wasn¡¯t a smile, and even her voice seemed devoid of all joy as she admitted: ¡°I¡­ I still wish my mom could be there.¡± The voice saddened Cas, and ¨C reacting again as if flinching from pain ¨C she reached forward to address the girl. This time, however, her words were far more measured. ¡°Your mom won¡¯t be there,¡± she answered, ¡°but I¡¯ll be there, and so will Kari, and we¡¯re going to stand by you, and we¡¯re going to take you in, and you''re going to be our new sister.¡± Nadia sniffled, half laughter and half tears. ¡°I¡¯m not your sister, though.¡± Cas answered swiftly, taking her hand tighter. ¡°We¡¯re going to treat you like one, though. We¡¯re going to let you live with us, and feed you, and make sure all your days are happy as can be!¡± Cas forced a cheerful tone in her voice. ¡°I have a plan to make the Oasis bigger, and give the village more food, so we¡¯ll be able to be happy together, soon, too!¡± Nadia only sniffed, able to lift her face back up, which was freshly decorated with a more genuine smile. ¡°Really?¡± ¡°Really,¡± Cas nodded. ¡°From today onward, you¡¯re our family, ok? That means we protect eachother, and laugh together, and sing songs, and we¡¯ll even cry when the other is sad.¡± Nadia giggled. The girl was truly happy, Cas realized, but her hackles were raised, and her ears were stiff. Talk was cheap, after all, even children realized the emptiness of promises, even when they came from people they trusted. So, Cas, taking a deep breath, took the final leap. ¡°Also, Nadia?¡± ¡°Yes?¡± ¡°Being family also means we share eachother¡¯s secrets, and I have one secret to show you, that only Kari and I know about.¡± Cas had mastered the transformation by this point, and that allowed the changes to take place with an elegant smoothness, as she grew taller and the stalk changed into a smooth, human hand which quickly stretched to cover Nadia¡¯s hand in its warm embrace. Nadia looked wide eyed. Cas only giggled, her shawl feeling ticklish on her sensitive human skin, and otherwise unable to fight away the giddyness which accompanied this form. ¡°Surprising, isn¡¯t it?¡± Nadia, still wide eyed, could only manage a nod of amazement. But her eyes quickly cooled, and her ears relaxed, and a smile took her face as understanding cooled her features. ¡°You understand why I¡¯m telling you this?¡± Cas guessed. ¡°Yeah,¡± Nadia said, quickly feeling more confident, either in the trust Cas was willing to show, or perhaps simply because the surprise of the revelation had blown away all other emotions. ¡°Good!¡± Cas clapped her hands cheerily. ¡°So¡­ we¡¯re family now, ok? And that means we¡¯re going to stand by you. You have to keep this a secret for now, though, ok?¡± Nadia nodded. Cas noticed that she looked a lot more confident than she had all day. Cas also noticed that she had an honestly sad expression. Cas was happy to see that. Tomorrow was going to be a sad day, after all, especially with Tami¡¯s absence. And, Cas was also happy to see that Nadia ¨C for the first time in their presence ¨C was able to wear a truly sad face, without a smile to cover it. Cas laughed¡­ ¡°you¡¯re not smiling this time.¡± Nadia smiled, this time honestly, as she touched her face and giggled. ¡°I only did that in front of mom.¡± And, suddenly, a bashful look to her face, one which Cas was keen to notice. ¡°Yes?¡± Cas asked. Nadia, despite the intense taboo against the act, however, quickly acquiesced to her curiosity. ¡°Uhm¡­ if you don¡¯t mind,¡± she said, ¡°can I ask you a personal question?¡± Chapter 26: Coming of Age ¡°By the goddess, Nadia! You can¡¯t just ask people why they¡¯re black!¡± Kari admonished the girl as if it were the most obvious thing. ¡°I¡¯m sorry!¡± Darla panicked at the reaction, ¡°but she just said I was allowed to ask her a personal question and, well,¡± she gestured at Cas, ¡°like, it¡¯s the most obvious thing about her! She¡¯s black!¡± ¡°I know she¡¯s black, Nadia,¡± Kari said with the voice of a veteran who¡¯d been around the block, ¡°we don¡¯t talk about it.¡± Cas put up a slight bit of offence, ¡°hey, I never said-¡± ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s kind of rude to ask in the first place, actually,¡± Kari was on a roll, and apparently not in the mood to acknowledge her own hypocrisy. ¡°Sorry! Why didn¡¯t she tell me not to ask in the first place, then?¡± Nadia was tittering on her toes, flashing her hands about in defensive expressions of innocence. ¡°Because you can ask-¡± Cas began. ¡°Because we don¡¯t mention her blackness!¡± Kari yelled as if embarrassed infront of guests. The girl had been obviously unhappy at Cas sharing her secret without her approval, and it seemed that frustration was leaking into the garnish of admonishment she relished hazing the new girl in. Nadia bounced ¡°Her hand¡¯s aren¡¯t black, though, are they ok to ask abou-?¡± Cas, by now, had had enough. ¡°Ok, stop!¡± she shouted, coming in between the girls, feeling hot with embarrassment. ¡°Just stop talking about me being black, ok? It¡¯s really not that big of a deal.¡± The girls did stop at that, staying still, and sending side eyes to one another. And then Kari broke. ¡°Ok, but, why are you-¡± ¡°Because my parents were black!¡± Cas said, too flustered to care about giving a proper explanation. Nadia piped up. ¡°Ok, but why were they-¡± ¡°Because their parents were black, and their grandparents were, too! It¡¯s melanin all the way down, ok? It¡¯s just how people where I¡¯m from look.¡± The girls seemed to accept that as an answer, though Cas couldn¡¯t help noticing the still living embers of curiosity that lit up Kari¡¯s features. Taking a sympathetic stance towards the girl, Cas regretfully called on her, ¡°Yes, Kari?¡± ¡°Why are you so much older?¡± the girl asked. Cas looked down at herself, and found that the ground was farther away than she remembered. Instinctively, she reached for a mirror before remembering that those didn¡¯t exist in this village. She looked all around her, to the paneless window and the menagerie of rugs that filled her hut¡­ not a single article of glassware in sight. Something glinted, however, and Cas ¨C noticing that the jittering slime she¡¯d let go of had settled down ¨C picked it up in her hand, bringing the creature up to her face, turning her face as she tried to make sense of her distorted reflection. ¡°Ugh!¡± Giving up the futile effort, she turned to the girls. ¡°Kari!¡± she said, ¡°how old do I look?¡± The girl seemed unusually shy with her answer. ¡°Uhm¡­ you look¡­ like you¡¯re in the prime of your life!¡± she answered, smiling before darting her gaze down to her toes. A glance at Nadia revealed the girl was doing everything possible to avoid eye contact. Maybe it was considered rude to guess someone¡¯s age here? Perhaps it was related to the taboo against asking personal questions. After all, maybe guessing too accurately would imply someone was looking at their character sheet¡­ wait a minute. With a familiar drag of intention, Cas pulled her status sheet into view. New information was present, and ¨C it was something Cas felt she could remember. Cas listened to her body, and the answer she found there matched her sheet. She was sixteen years old now, as opposed to twelve. In fact, it was strange to her how she¡¯d know she was twelve before and not thought to question that fact. Cas looked closer at absorption on her status sheet. Whew. Cas felt a bit of wind leaving her sails at the XP requirements for the next level, but¡­ it seemed her maximum mass had increased without need for a level up. Apparently, she¡¯d unintentionally put on some weight over the course of her experimentation with clones and food¡­ much like on earth, in fact. Unlike on earth, her weight seemed to be directly correlated with food. Strange to say, Cas didn¡¯t remember weighing that little when she was sixteen, but ¨C extrapolating from the current data ¨C it stood to follow that she¡¯d reach her twenties in ten more pounds. Cas took a little more interest in her human body than usual. It felt¡­ more competent somehow. Her stats had gone up commensurately on her status sheet, but the numbers were hardly a prosaic enough representation of how she felt. Ignoring the stares of the children as they followed her around the room, Cas paced from wall to wall. Cas¡¯s hand felt lighter as she raised it up, curling it into a tight fist. In fact, her entire body felt lighter, like she was made of steel springs instead of rubber bands and balsa. She felt¡­ denser. It wasn¡¯t anything spectacular. She was still a sixteen year old girl, and she was quite certain that Kari and Nadia both outshined her on all physical fronts, but compared to the twelve year old she¡¯d grown accustomed to, this was like a memory of her golden years. More than that, however, was how the whole world changed in accordance with her. Looking at Kari, the girl seemed shorter, yes, but something in Cas found it hard to treat the girl like a friend. The girl looked¡­ cuter, now, somehow, like a little sister. This left Cas feeling a lot more protective and responsible for her. Of course, Cas had always looked out for the girl, but before she¡¯d been doing that out of habit, because she¡¯d remembered that that was how an adult like her was supposed to behave. Now, however, she felt that long forgotten instinct to cradle the girl and shelter her from the world. Resisting the urge to pinch Kari¡¯s cheeks while making baby noises, Cas turned around, eyes dancing wildly around the world as a whole puberty¡¯s worth of context suddenly gave a different meaning to all the familiar sights. It was an ineffable difference, but it was strongly present in everything. The ground, her experiments, the night sky, the empty space between her and everything else, all of it looked the same but was recognized differently. It reminded her somewhat of her brief serenity after unlocking her aura. Speaking of which¡­ Cas sat down in lotus position, giving a brief reply to Kari¡¯s questioning look: ¡°Doing aura stuff,¡± before closing her eyes and searching in the darkness for a hint of that spark. A timeless period followed as she grasped hold of her aura, and she effortlessly remembered the steps, as Sin had instructed them. Her aura was always present, so she began at step four: recall the shape of her body. Her new body, tingling with unfamiliarity, was easily noticed by her, and she could feel a sensation like a blade sliding into its sheath, as her form vibrated into itself. Steps five, six and seven fell like dominoes straight afterwards. Her aura calmed, falling like a wet leaf against the surface of her body, a deep breath ignited the energy in her belly, and intention brought it up to her throat, shooting like a geyser onto that pin-point particle of concentration which floated in another dimension. All of it was done with effortless intention on her part, and now all that remained was, ¡­ ¡°You¡¯ve graduated to the eighth step already? Good man!¡± Sin clapped her on what he assumed was her back, sending her sliding forward a few inches before looking at her apologetically, ¡°or, rather¡­ good Sakkari!¡± Cas amiably accepted the congratulations, though she was eager to move from talk to action. ¡°You never told me what the eighth step was, though. I assumed it was something too dangerous to do alone.¡± ¡°Aha!¡± Sin apparently found something funny in her worry. ¡°Not in the slightest. The last step is the easiest! In fact, if you gave it a bit of thought, I¡¯m sure you could discover it by yourself without guidance. I just neglected to tell you because¡­¡± ¡°Because¡­¡± Cas parroted. Sin laughed as a crowd of children suddenly appeared around the Sakkari, ¡°Because it¡¯s tradition to test someone on the day they learn aura control!¡± Sin snapped his fingers, and the children had already taken Cas by her stalks, dragging her away like good little henchmen. ¡°Of course I couldn¡¯t let you learn it all on your own and skip out on all the fun! ¡­ Cas hardened some eyebrows into existence on her surface. They were carved into a displeased look as Sin circled round her, addressing the crowd like he was a lion tamer and she was the half-time entertainment. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Today was the final match of the wrestling tournament. Unsurprisingly, Sin was competing in the final bracket, and it seemed the anticipation of the match had made him livelier than usual. ¡°Oh, my dear friends and compatriots!¡± he began with his usual voice of showmanship. ¡°It is my great honor to be the one among us lucky enough to say: that I guided our local Sage through her first steps into adulthood!¡± Understanding looks went through the crowd just as Cas¡¯s manufactured eyebrows turned confused, and particularly lively cheer arose which Sin had to speak over. ¡°And so! And so, as a preamble to the greatest wrestling match of this tournament!¡± At this another great roar rose up from the croud, as Sin pointed a hand over at the competitors corner, ¡°I thought it proper that we all bear witness to her first and crowning achievement in Aura control.¡± Sin smoothly turned to let the audience¡¯s expectant gazes slip past him and onto the awaiting Cas. Cas, left with nothing else to do during Sin¡¯s speech, had gathered enough context to figure out that mastering the eight stages of Aura control was some sort of coming of age ceremony here. She still hadn¡¯t divined what the eighth step was supposed to be, however. Sin stepped in behind her, placing a clay tablet before her. Cas whispered at him hotly. ¡°I did not agree to a public presentation.¡± ¡°Sorry,¡± Sin gave her an unapologetic smile. ¡°But this is how we welcome people into the community here.¡± Cas, still speaking in a stage whisper, exclaimed, ¡°I don¡¯t even know what I¡¯m supposed to do.¡± ¡°It¡¯s easy,¡± Sin assured, ¡°just follow the seven steps, and then release the energy.¡± ¡°Release the energy? Where?¡± Sin had just finished setting up the clay tablet, leaning it up against a set of bricks so that the flat side faced her like a karate board. ¡°Where do you think?¡± was the only answer that came from his smiling teeth. Cas took a deep breath into her air pocket. It didn¡¯t do much for her biology, but it was a good cue. Her aura was always active ever since she achieved the third stage, so Cas was happy to start at the fourth. She grew a stalk, imagining every detail of the new appendage, as well as the mass it was attached, to, hardened the tip, and felt the weighty energy of the morning star she¡¯d grow atop the stalk, stored with tremendous energy as she sprang the seventh step. And then, like pressing a trigger, she released all that energy and her false arm sprang forwards, flashing through the intervening space and smashing into the clay tablet with a pitiful *dink*. The hardened tip of her stalk bounced clean off the tablet, winding back on itself. Shuddering a bit against its brick supports, the tablet stood otherwise unaffected, a small, cracked dent in its center the only evidence as to Cas¡¯ efforts. And the crowd went wild. A roar so loud that Cas couldn¡¯t believe it to be anything other than patronizing went through the gathered masses, and even Sin ¨C with his naturally honest smile ¨C came stolling with a jolly clap which encouraged everyone else onward with cheering her. Looking around, Cas saw that ¨C despite her unusual popularity ¨C the reactions seemed genuine. Or, rather, they seemed standard. It was like¡­ you know you go to a quinsinera, or birthday party, or graduation, and everyone¡¯s there making a happy face and bringing flowers for what is ¨C objectively speaking ¨C just another average party. Well, it was like that. The reaction was perhaps overblown, but it wasn¡¯t malicious in its manufacture. That was perhaps standard for coming of age ceremonies, Cas supposed. Sin, still laughing, seemed to have an insight into her feelings as he knelt next to her, taking the clay tablet up as if he planned to frame it. ¡°Dissapointed?¡± he asked. ¡°Am I that easy to read?¡± Cas stared blankly up at him with her billboard eyebrows. ¡°No,¡± Sin lied, ¡°It¡¯s just how I felt when I first started learning. You¡¯re a quick study, but it takes years to master aura manipulation. I¡¯ve been practicing for over a decade to get to my level.¡± He gestured to himself with a proud thumb, letting out a mischievous grin at Cas¡¯s exasperated countenance. ¡°Haha!¡± he let out that short laugh of his. ¡°Don¡¯t tell me you expected to be a master after a week of training. No, you still suck at this, trust me. I could see that from over there,¡± he gestured to where he¡¯d been sitting. ¡°Still,¡± and here Sin stopped laughing, speaking more seriously, ¡°you¡¯re past the largest hurdle, now. You know how to manipulate aura." Slowly, the man reached a long arm out, hand bladed, and pressed his fingertips against one of the bricks. ¡°All that¡¯s left is to continue sharpening the knife. Stick to that and eventually¡­¡± Sin let his arm do the talking, as he flexed his shoulder, shifted his fist and suddenly a loud cloud of dust replaced the brick, a wave of landing shrapnel panting the dirt with pits behind it. Cas took his words to heart, and lifted her stalk, putting all her might into another strike aimed at the remaining brick. Her stalk flopped into the dirt like wet spaghetti, drawing another laugh from Sin and intense panic from Cas. Searching inside herself, she found her aura was back at stage three. ¡°Oh, come on!¡± she yelled. ¡°Are you saying I have to go through all those stages every time I want to move a muscle? It takes me ten seconds to do that!¡± Sin was beside himself with hysterics at the continual pranks reality seemed to be playing on the Sakkari. ¡°Did I not mention that!?¡± he laughed, drawing a large glare from Cas and calming a bit. ¡°But, yes, you will have to do that as a beginner. Once you¡¯ve mastered the steps, you can learn to bounce between the sixths and seven stages eventually, but¡­ I think that technique is a bit beyond you at the moment. Your stage five is looking a bit messy.¡± Cas ground out. ¡°Thanks for the critique,¡± looking sadly down at her literal noodle arm. A harsh clap on her back sent her sliding forward. ¡°I¡¯ll tell you this, though! You¡¯ve been missing my matches. Why not watch this last one, and see what Aura can really let you do."
Naturally Cas wasn¡¯t one to decline such an invitation. She¡¯d never been a fan of watching combat sports back on earth, or any sports for that matter, but maybe all earth sports were just lacking superpowers. The tour de france exploded in popularity after doping, after all. Still, this wasn¡¯t the tour de france, and Cas was consequently able to stay awake through the entire match. It had been an interesting start. For one, there were three people in the circle. Sin stood on one side, facing two opponents who he¡¯d called out quite explicitly. They didn¡¯t seem to carry as much confidence as their numbers should¡¯ve allowed. Sin, for his part, strolled with an easy swagger on his side of the circle, gesturing to the crowd and flaring that invisible aura of his yet higher, drawing interested notes of amazement from the audience. Above him was the usual head tag for the man: The other men flared their own auras, apparently trying to match the show of strength and drawing quieter cheers from their village compatriots. Cas was no longer confused about the matchup. The referee, an older man who looked completely unimpressed by the whole affair, stood in the center, raising his arms out to either side. As a neighboring spectator had kindly explained, the rules of the match were as Cas had expected. Much like standard wrestling, touching the ground with your back, or stepping outside the ring was considered a loss. Unlike standard wrestling, however, the referee yelled ¡°contestants make ready!!¡± and Sin and the two men simply walked towards the center. No low crouching, no searching for the take down, they just stood there, with maybe a hint of a ready stance as they shifted their weights forward and tensed themselves. ¡°Contestants make set!¡± the referee yelled, and even Sin stopped his merry making, eyes glinting like steel. The referee walked backwards, taking a full step outside of the ring. ¡°Fight!¡± he announced, with a downward chop of his hand. The match started. ¡°Winner!¡± the referee announced in the next moment, walking through the man-sized cloud of dust that billowed over the ring to raise Sin¡¯s victorious arm. Cas didn¡¯t see the fight, but she could remember having seen it. It was that strange phenomenon when something happens too quickly, and you¡¯re left unable to react or even understand it in the moment, but otherwise perfectly capable of looking back on the event in the most minute detail. Cas, stunned into silence as the crowd flowed around her to congratulate their champion, ran back the footage in her mind, trying to process what had happened. When it was happening, the event had startled Cas. People just weren¡¯t meant to move that fast, and the horrible noise the fight had created, it was like two giant sparklers bursting in quick succession. Those two sparkler bursts of motion where the only things she¡¯d made out. In a blur, the first of the two men had kicked high at Sin¡¯s head, the loose pants-leg of his shawl letting out fluttering bangs like a beaten carpet. Sin swam under the strike. He must have, at least, and he was behind the men. Before they could react, and before Cas could see, he lifted his knee high¡­ and then the men crashed out of the ring, digging trenches into the dirt with their faces. And those very same men, a little disoriented but otherwise unharmed, now had smiles on their dirtied faces as they moved to congratulate the victor. It was an amazing sight, but that adult perspective she¡¯d caught last night didn¡¯t allow her to enjoy it so simply. A cold thought Cas had never appreciated snaked into the back of her mind. These were dangerous people.
The time for the Nadia¡¯s leaving ceremony approached, and the girl was stopped at the outer bounds of the village by Kari. As Tami had suggested, Kari gave the girl a reed necklace, a traditional symbol of welcoming someone into your family, and Cas went up to make the announcement. Crawling forward, she presented the young girl infront of her. ¡°As is tradition, the Unari Nadia has walked out into the desert. However I ¨C who would have use of her as an assistant ¨C have therefore decided to take her into my household. I remind all of you, that it is against the law to harm anyone who lives lawfully, and Nadia has broken no laws.¡± It was mid-day now, and it was silent. Noon was considered the best time for the ceremony, the sun was considered a mercifully quick killer. Noon was also a strange time, however. It was a quiet time when everyone in the village went indoors to hide from the sun and to take a break from work. No one here was accustomed to being outside at this time, and so the world, with its short shadows and bleached sands, looked like a strange and ghostly apparition. It looked unreal, and the villagers looked at it like it was a stranger. Self consciously, Nadia shifted in her shoes. The villagers were giving her the same look. Just hours ago, they¡¯d been cheering for her ceremony and carrying on all their dealings with her with obeisance. Now, however, tired and hot and shielding themselves from the sun with their brows, the Villagers remained perfectly silent and ¨C to a man ¨C turned their backs on the girl and walked away. The ceremony had concluded, and ¨C unusually ¨C there were no honors or joyful exhortations given. Chapter 27: The Thanks You Get Kari had complained of embarrassment at her role in Nadia¡¯s ceremony.Cas had lightly chastised the girl, but was quick to mend over any hurt feelings ¨C afraid to disturb the sudden peace that had developed in the household. Busy as she was with the thousand details of village management, Cas could hardly afford another headache. And in truth, for those few days following the conclusion of Nadia¡¯s ceremony, Cas had catapulted herself into a de facto leadership position. Her food creation alchemy was the cause of this, as well as the main subject of her efforts in the following week. Numbers talk, and ¨C as she¡¯d measured it out ¨C counting Korren stalks, Handiti husks, and other miscellaneous vegetables, Cas could, with some measure of competence, transform about ten percent of that extraneous mass into food; so ¨C considering all the resources the village had at her disposal ¨C Cas projected that she could increase the Nemorian¡¯s total food supply by a whole, astounding, massive¡­ two percent. The villages being currently able to support about five hundred people, two percent extra would mean enough food to support¡­ ten extra people. Of course that didn¡¯t sound like much, but Cas appreciated how much food it took to support ten people for an entire year; and, recalling Nemaris¡¯ words, there were fourteen Unari scheduled to be let go over the next five years. Assuming that the village supported an average age of twenty, and assuming a child could survive on half rations for five years¡­ Cas figured she could comfortably take in all the Unari for¡­ Five years was her worst case scenario. That would be long enough to train the slimes. Once she¡¯d learned how to do that, the Oasis would grow by twenty percent, the groundwater levels would expand by twice that, and carrying capacity would accordingly rise to 700. By then, Cas ventured, they¡¯d have enough time and resources to let her rest easy while she figured out how to make new slimes. It was quite the straightforward plan, and she let the villagers know. The villagers didn¡¯t care. As far as they were concerned, in the days following the impromptu festival, she was that broken vending machine which gave away free snack bars on sixth¡¯ street. They could come to her with Korren roots, and Cas would give them all the fibers and half the food. Keeping half the food would give her enough food each year for five people. Five was less than fourteen, of course. However, stockpiling the excess they had in the early years would allow them to tide over the later years ¨C when she had more children to take in. Despite the straightforwardness of this plan, Cas was still beset on all sides by a thousand details. She had to test if the food she made could be stored long term. Unlikely. She had to check if using antibiotic plants could make it last longer, an effort which served to make Kari throw up when she tried to eat the stuff. Of course, in a desert environment, the Korren stalks themselves could be stored for years, but then Kari had to find out if dried out Korren stalks could be turned into food. Thankfully, they could, but that required supplementing the water content, and so she had to negotiate special water rights with the village, lobby for the building of storage huts near her house, organize the transportation of stalks from the other villages, all while being hounded for her miracle food from literally every living person in this entire Oasis. It was a stressful time. Although, in hindsight, it all seemed so petty and small, and she wondered how she¡¯d allowed such trivialities to distract her from- ¡°Nadia!¡± Kari snapped, ¡°I told you to get your butt out of bed two days ago!¡± Cas sighed, almost thankful for the small distraction from her hectic planning. Inside was Kari, doing her best not to let the days of building anger show as she chastised the blanketed figure sulking on a sleeping mat near the experiment table. ¡°No!¡± Nadia said with a spoiled tone, showing a bit of backbone even as she hid further into her blankets. Kari had been embarrassed by the conclusion to the ceremony; Nadia was mortified. Kari only clenched her fists harder, eyes twitching manically. Cas was sympathetic to both sides as she stepped in. ¡°Come on Kari,¡± she whispered gently. ¡°Why don¡¯t we give her more time?¡± ¡°More time!¡± Kari snapped like lightly to get in Cas¡¯ face. ¡°She hasn¡¯t left her bed all week! I¡¯ve been doing all the work here and all she¡¯s managed is to make this room smell like sh-¡± ¡°She¡¯s going through a lot right now, Kari,¡± Cas eased. Strange to say, she found her more adult oriented worldview maintained even outside of slime form, and she found it easier to talk to Kari like an adult. Kari seemed to chafe under the new tone, however, bristling as she spoke: ¡°you¡¯re siding with her!?¡± She gestured at the sack of sadness Nadia had cocooned herself into. ¡°I went through the same thing? Why are you babying her?¡± A note of genuine hurt at the sheer unfairness of it all inflicted Kari¡¯s voice. ¡°Kari,¡± Cas said sternly, ¡°we said we were going to treat her like a younger sister, right? So that means we¡¯re going to be patient. If she needs time, you give her time.¡± Despite her advice, Cas herself was growing short on patience. Over the past week, Kari¡¯s acceptance of the girl had slowly been stripped away by the pressures of actually living with their new housemate, and the girl¡¯s veneer of perfect sorority had tarnished, and these arguments had slowly become a more and more regular occurrence. Cas, of course, always tried to de escalate, always to bring some semblance of peace, but over the course of dozens of arguments and hurt feelings, she had become exhausted with walking on eggshells around Kari, and ¨C in that most recent statement ¨C she¡¯d lost the energy to maintain that ever-patient voice, and Kari ¨C she could tell by the look in the girl¡¯s eyes ¨C had noticed. The girl didn¡¯t look either angry or embarrassed, rather defaulting to that neutral mask of indifference Cas had become familiar with. ¡°Ok,¡± she said simply. ¡°Kari¡­¡± Cas said sadly, trying to call the girl back, but her charge had already taken her past the violently fluttering door curtain.
Kari returned the next morning. Cas, having spent the night stewing with her misdeeds, elected to skip any lectures. The details of the village food issue were still on her mind, and ignoring the issue was the most her drained mental faculties could offer as a solution. Cas knew of course, that that was not a good solution, but she figured it would have to do for now, as she stood in front of the first shipment of Korren stalks, a short ton of bundled branches that were lined outside her hut, and which were currently being fed into Slime Clone 10 by a still expressionless Kari. The representative who¡¯d been sent by the village had a plastic smile which refused to leave his face. It had gotten awkward after the first ten minutes, and Kari took her time with the final bundle of stalks. So Cas tried small talk: ¡°I¡¯m surprised everyone decided to just send one representative with the shipment. I¡¯d assumed every family would come with their own bundles,¡± Cas said. The man laughed a polite, and therefore fake, laugh. ¡°Oh, maybe if this was just a matter of rug fibers, but you¡¯ve transformed it into a story about food. The elders have decreed that Korren stalks are now communal property.¡± He gestured a thin hand out to the mountainous strands of plant fiber that towered over the mole-hill bowl of food which had been created thus far. ¡°Right,¡± Cas nodded her crystal in assent. ¡°Although, if I may?¡± the man asked. ¡°You may,¡± the Sakkari answered. ¡°Some of the farmers worry. Normally, they fertilize their fields with the rotten husks of their extra stalks. May this not degrade the farmland.¡± Cas was unsurprised at their worry. These people were very in-tune with their environment, and seemed very keen and prudent planes about it. ¡°There¡¯s no need to worry,¡± Cas smiled. ¡°My clones are able to turn waste into fertilizer.¡± His fake smile grew a little disgusted, and Cas¡¯ felt herself growing a little more annoyed at the man¡¯s prudishness. Eventually, the last of the Korren stalks were processed, and that thankfully signaled the time for the man and his retune to leave. The bundles of fibers were efficiently processed into bales. Cas had been expecting pack animals, but quickly remembered the extraordinary strength of these people as they simply hefted a dozen stacks each. Then, of course was the matter of the food. The quantity of food produced was far less, but the attention paid it was far more, as the people ¨C ignoring the massive bales of fiber they¡¯d set aside ¨C hungrily and scrupulously counted through the allotment of food Cas had set aside for them. Half of the food she¡¯d made had gone into one bowl, while the other half was placed into a clay pot destined for her storage tent. Cas acquiesced to their demands to weigh the two morsels. Able to measure quite intuitively the amount of material she piped through her spout stalks, Cas was unsurprised when the movers found no difference in the weights, and hid well her offense and frustration when they demanded to switch allotments anyway. The leader again gave an insincere apology, and soon they were on their way. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
It was the second week since she¡¯d been invited to Cas¡¯s home, and it was the second week since Nadia had refused to come outside. Her farewell party had been an awkward one, and the judgemental glares and walk of shame the girl had to endure seemed to have quite the effect on her. Kari, by now had had more than enough, and told the girl to start pulling her weight before dragging her outside. Cas, mainly to show some semblance of even-handedness in her dealings, took Kari¡¯s side on this, deciding that it would be best for the girl to get some fresh air. ¡°But Caaas!¡± Nadia moaned with a mortified expression. ¡°They¡­ they don¡¯t want to see me! It¡¯s too soon!¡± she decided with a flourish of embarrassment, attempting to inch her way closer towards the door. Kari stopped her. Cas, gentler, decided to use words. ¡°You¡¯re going to have to go outside and face them sometime. It¡¯s better to get used to it now.¡± ¡°But-¡± ¡°This isn¡¯t a debate,¡± Cas said. ¡°Kari¡¯s been working alone these past few weeks, and we have a lot to do if we¡¯re going to get the food stocks built up in time.¡± Nadia only fell quiet, making puppy-fox eyes into the dirt. Cas sighed. ¡°I guess we can limit your outside activities to the Oasis for now. There shouldn¡¯t be many people there in the evening.¡± Nadia seemed able to accept those conditions; though still pouting, she said: ¡°It¡¯s not the number of people. It¡¯s the look in their eyes.¡± Cas tried to keep a positive smile. ¡°I know this is new for the villagers, but I¡¯m sure they¡¯ll come around. Just try to keep active in the meantime, ok?¡± Noticing that Kari still seemed unsatisfied, Cas hurried to add her new, shiny idea. ¡°Actually, I¡¯ll take care of all the errands in the village for a while, ok? Why don¡¯t you two stay here and help organize the storage tent.¡± They both seemed to quickly cheer up at that, and Cas ¨C content to see them both happy at the same time ¨C quickly left the situation as if backing away from a miraculously balanced house of cards. ¡­ Things at the village were¡­ awkward. Well, they¡¯d always been awkward, but the tenor of the situation had changed. Whereas before, there was only a professional distance of sage and villager, now ¨C traveling around the village for the first time in weeks ¨C Cas sensed that the distance between her and them was more akin to the bars one might look at a zoo animal through. There was no outright hatred in their eyes, and perhaps only a little malice, but the familiarity had gone. It was strange. Just weeks ago, she remembered when every face lit-up at her appearance. That had fooled Cas into believing she¡¯d won the Villagers¡¯ eternal gratitude. She wasn¡¯t alone in being fooled by this. In fact, in the frenzy of celebration after the Oasis had been saved, every person in the village had believed their gratitude to be real and unperishable. Once the danger had passed, however, holding onto the sakkari with all their hopes became less sweet. And things had gotten substantially more bitter following the adoption of Nadia. Still, business was business, and she had to finish her errands. By the last of her tasks, Cas was empathizing with Nadia and Kari. The atmosphere here was utterly toxic. Nothing was ever said or done to her directly, but being greeted everywhere you went with judgemental stares and indifferent attitudes was grating at best and exhausting the rest of the time. Before noon had hit, Cas found herself itching to leave this village and never return. Was this what Kari had been dealing with for two weeks? Cas found herself flinching with shame at how quick she¡¯d been to dismiss the girl¡¯s outbursts as signs of a bad attitude. Her musings about that were stopped by a pair of feet standing in her way. Cas ¨C used now to the villagers avoiding her ¨C hadn¡¯t been bothering to look out for pedestrians as she drove her body about, and so was surprised to discover the block as she lifted her gaze up and found Tami staring back at her. The woman kept up apperances, hitting her with that same indifferent stare as the rest of the villagers, but something in her eyes invited the Sakkari in. ¡°I believe you were hounding me about the matter of your payment,¡± she said, sounding intensely annoyed and speaking loudly enough for the neighbors to hear. Cas, catching on, simply answered ¨C with her own cutting voice. ¡°Yes. I consider my time valuable, and you certainly demanded a lot of it last week.¡± ¡°This way, then,¡± Tami stepped aside. ¡­ Inside her hut, once the cloth door had been let down, Tami was far more like her usually cheerful self, though she still spoke in a whisper. Cas, for the first time, noticed how much more easily she was breathing. It was embarrassing to admit, but ¨C after such a total rejection by dozens of people, the genuine smile from Tami was a more than welcome sight. ¡°So¡­ how have you been?¡± Tami greeted with a cheery pronouncement, talking about nothing as if nothing had happened. ¡±Have you been enjoying the winter climate? It doesn¡¯t last long, but it¡¯s such a joy when it comes.¡± ¡°It¡¯s been fine,¡± Cas answered genially. Tami tended to a warming tea-pot and Cas ¨C not eager to go back outside ¨C decided not to interrupt the small moment. Tami, focused on the bubbling tea, allowed the conversation to lapse, an uncharacteristic lapse for the experienced hostess. Cas, wanting conversation, decided to skip the small talk. ¡°I¡¯ve noticed people seem unhappy in the village,¡± Cas broached. It was an obvious statement. In fact, it was so obvious Cas wasn¡¯t even sure why she¡¯d bothered to say it. Her words were automatic, and dressed up in the stock tones she used to garner sympathy with her friends. It was the kind of obvious statement meant to draw out supportive statements and cute ¡®awws¡¯ that preceded a speech on how everyone else was at fault. Tami ran roughshod over those expectations. ¡°Well, of course they¡¯re unhappy with you, darling,¡± she said with an obvious gesture of her painted nails. ¡°You¡¯ve got more food than you could ever need and you¡¯re asking for more.¡± That, truly took Cas by a surprise. ¡°Food?¡± she asked. ¡°What about Nadia?¡± Despite her blunt air, Tami still pulled a sympathetic attitude. ¡°That¡¯s a part of it, I suppose. There¡¯s a reason we ask Unari to leave, and you are allowing them to stay. I suppose everyone sees that as a waste of valuable food.¡± ¡°I give them half of what I make!¡± Cas protested. ¡°Yes,¡± Tami acknowledged, pouring a loud cup of tea, ¡°but you could be giving them all of it. That¡¯s not very difficult accounting.¡± ¡°Really? That¡¯s what everyone¡¯s been giving me the evil eye over?¡± Cas took on a superior tone. ¡°How fickle can those people get? They were worshipping me yesterday because I saved the Oasis! That should be a bigger deal than not getting food that wouldn¡¯t even exist without me.¡± ¡°I¡¯d be careful with that reasoning,¡± Tami warned, drawing an intensely annoyed glare from Cas. Taking a patient breath, Tami went back to explain. ¡°People were thankful when you saved the Oasis. I was, too, back then. And, trust me, there was nothing fickle about our feelings for you back then. We were all terrified of dying, and you saved us! There¡¯s no greater debt than a life, and the whole village owed you theirs.¡± Tami spoke of all this in the most dialectical tone. ¡°If you¡¯d asked anyone back then ¨C if you¡¯d asked me ¨C they could have honestly told you that they¡¯d be your friend for life!¡± ¡°Or for two weeks,¡± Cas interjected bitterly. Tami only smiled. ¡°I know it seems frivolous, but it¡¯s not, truly. Everyone really did feel thankful when you saved their lives, and they really did believe that they¡¯d always stay by your side.¡± ¡°Ok,¡± Cas said growing impatient with the explanation. ¡°What gives? I¡¯ve saved their lives and they¡¯re treating me like I¡¯m a stray dog. I mean¡­ I¡¯m not asking for hero-worship. In fact, I was getting sick of that, but is a little courtesy too much to ask?¡± Tami only laughed. ¡°¡®What gives¡¯ is that you¡¯ve already saved their lives. You should never trust your own convictions when under duress, much less other people¡¯s. When you¡¯re hanging from death, a thorny handhold can seem pleasant.¡± ¡°I¡¯m a thorn now, am I?¡± Tami ignored her to continue. ¡°Now that they¡¯re safe, however, once they get home, the people realize you have dozens of times more food than any family is allotted, more than could feed a large family for two winters. A single person having so much is¡­ unprecedented, and jealousy is a new feeling for our humble village.¡± Tami proposed all this with an almost academic cadence, painting a picture which seemed to disturb Cas with its clarity. ¡°I¡¯m saving it so I can take in the Nadia, and the others after her. I need the food if I¡¯m going to save them. I can grow the Oasis. I just want everyone to be alive when I finally do.¡± Her voice shook with strange emotion as she tried explaining herself. Tami smiled. The expression didn¡¯t reach her eyes or her voice as she answered: ¡°Come now, you don¡¯t expect charity towards Unari to win you any favors, do you? I have a daughter you¡¯ve helped, but most people aren¡¯t so willing to look at it from that perspective.¡± She looked aside sadly. Cas grew frustrated, ¡°Oh, come on! I¡¯m giving them half the food I make! They even thanked me when they received it!!¡± Tami¡¯s look of mirth reached her eyes this time. It seemed Cas had finally made a funny mistake.¡°Oh, that¡¯s a double edged sword there, darling. People thank you to your face because you control the food. Later, they hate you even more because you¡¯ve bought the thanks of people who feel they should rightly despise you.¡± Cas only looked on in disbelief. ¡°Being hated is one thing, but buying good wishes is another thing entirely. You have so much food, after all, isn¡¯t it unfair that you should use it to twist the sanctity of human emotion?¡± Tami was speaking with a parodical style unusual to her. She was speaking playfully to spare her feelings, Cas knew. But the woman was quite blunt with her words despite the tone, careful to express the severity of how bad her situation had gotten. ¡°People in this village have never known a time where they weren¡¯t living with just enough food to live, Sage. That shared suffering is perhaps the one thing that binds us together. You, taking so much food for yourself instead of giving it to the communal¡­ well, people see it as stealing food, and they think you¡¯re using your power to get away with that theft.¡± ¡°So what? I¡¯m just supposed to let the Unari die? Is that outcome really so important to you people.¡± Cas knew she was being unfair generalizing Tami in with the rest of them. She felt guilty seeing how quickly the woman rose to answer, ¡°no! That is¡­ if you want my advice. I think if you took in less food, and struggled through instead of building a surplus, that might show the rest of the people that it isn¡¯t easy for you?¡± ¡°It isn¡¯t easy for me,¡± Cas roared. ¡°Do you have any idea how much I worry? I¡¯m going to have to support fourteen Unari by the time five years is up! I¡¯m going to be their only way to survive. Do you honestly think I¡¯m hoarding that food for its own sake? I need it for them?¡± Tami¡¯s next words, spoken with guilt ridden eyes, shocked her. ¡°Do you have to save all of them?¡± Cas reeled back, feeling her crystal retreat to the back of her body. ¡°What¡­ why are you even saying that?¡± ¡°I just mean to say. It might be better for the unari already under your care if you played nice with the village, took less resources for yourself.¡± Cas caught on. ¡°You mean it would be better for Nadia?¡± Tami answered with surprising honesty. ¡°It would. But its not merely a mother¡¯s selfishness. The way things are¡­ you¡¯re building a shelter for those children, but you¡¯re isolating them from their home.¡± ¡°The village is isolating them,¡± Cas hissed. ¡°Maybe, but I fear you¡¯re offering a life no one would choose to live. I see you¡¯re content, Sakkari. You have no need of anything, but these children ¨C even living such lives as they have know nothing other than this village. Taking them away into the lap of luxury and turning the village against them like this¨C¡± ¡°I¡¯m not turning the village against them!¡± It was strange. Cas liked Tami. She respected her. Yet, she¡¯d never hated someone so clearly before. Tami was patient as always. ¡°You¡¯re not considering all their needs, Sage. I¡¯m a terrible mother, I know. I maybe have no right to make any demands after turning my daughter over to you, but¡­ even when I was a young mother, I understood that Nadia needed more than trinkets and food-¡± The ceramicware clattered as Cas dropped it, spilling dark tea over the rug as she ruffled back towards the door. ¡°Thank you, Tami, for everything,¡± she said, not feeling her own voice. ¡°I¡¯ll be leaving now.¡± Thankfully, Tami had enough self awareness to let the Sakkari go. Chapter 28: Line Graph Nadia and Kari were arguing again¡­ as always. Usually, the verbal combats were unserious, and often started more out of habit than real feeling. Today was no different. This time, the disposition in the tent was quite a happy one as the girls talked about the most interesting subject in the village and, for the first time in months, came to an agreement upon the matter: Cas had turned into a square. Kari threw up a tight bundle of dried stalks over to Nadia, who threw them in the Sakkarina ¨C a small, sparkling slime-thing made in the image of their benefactor. Nadia, noting the similarity, stabbed the stalks into the waist-high Sakkari. The figurine of their boss warbled and foamed into an opaque mass, dispensing a block of food before crawling aside to the next bowl in the line. ¡°Yeah, she makes us work all day and spends all her nights flying away to the spire. I know she¡¯s hardly an interesting person to talk to, but her clones are even less entertaining than that!¡± Nadia caught another bundle, stretching her voice to make sure the private conversation intruded into Cas¡¯s personal space. Kari, noticing the tell-tale flicker of annoyance in Cas¡¯s crystal, let out a mischievous smirk as she riffed on the subject. ¡°You know, Nadia, you¡¯re not wrong. I think the great sage might¡¯ve lost her touch.¡± Nadia batted back, ¡°maybe she just doesn¡¯t care about us anymore. She has her own children now,¡± batting a clone with a playful flick of a plant stalk.. ¡°Oh, but she can¡¯t make any more of them, can she?¡± Kari said. ¡°I guess we¡¯re safe as long as she still needs people to do all her work for her.¡± At this, the girls ¨C seeing the last of the korren stalks had been consumed, along with all the day¡¯s topics of interest ¨C frolicked away into a field of giggles that was soon muffled by the tent door. Cas was on the other side of the tent, doing her best to pretend she couldn¡¯t hear the children and failing. Looking back from her work, Cas oversaw the massive arch of the tent, and the large pile of haphazardly placed Korren fibers that had been bundled underneath it. Kari and Nadia had been meant to organize the product before leaving, but once again let their good feelings lead them away before finishing the task. Cas decided not to reprimand them. It was rare to see them both happy at once, and she¡¯d worked too hard to maintain the good atmosphere to interrupt it now. Still, Cas couldn¡¯t help but feel a bit peeved. Their complaints were made with a joking tongue, but there was a force to them that told Cas the feelings expressed were genuine. In truth, they were right to complain. Cas had been avoiding them lately. Well, not avoiding, per se, but ¨C ever since she¡¯d turned sixteen, she found it hard to relate with them in the same way. Looking back, it was surprising to her that she¡¯d ever agreed that ¡®friendship¡¯ was the right way to relate to a twelve year old in her care. And it was so many other things that changed as well. For one, she never allowed Kari and Nadia to leave their compound anymore. The change in viewpoint when she aged up had come packaged with a greater appreciation for consequences. Up to now, she¡¯d allowed Kari to see too much¡­ the village and all its associated crap would only stress her. The next Unari was due to be released within the month, and Cas was careful to not to have a repeat of Kari¡¯s breakdown during Nadia¡¯s arrival. Several months had passed since Nadia¡¯s arrival, however, and things had thankfully settled into a manageable equilibrium. Kari was happier, now, and by all appearances she got along with Nadia. Perhaps Kari even believed her new and warmer feelings for the new girl were genuine, but Cas knew differently. The happy atmosphere had been one she had to scramble to maintain. She¡¯d had to act a bit mean to get the girls to sympathize with each other more than they did with her, and she was quick to interject herself into any conversation between the two that started with an ugly look. In truth, despite her most desperate efforts, the girls hadn¡¯t become quick friends or even slow acquaintances. She wouldn¡¯t go as far as to say that they hated each other, but often they got into arguments, and sometimes those arguments turned ugly. There were many hurtful things that could be said to an orphan, and the girls ¨C often buffering under the turmoil of their new lives, were quick to find cutting words that left Cas¡¯s blood running cold. And, with her new sense of objectivity, Cas was able to see that almost all those troubles were Kari¡¯s fault. Cas monitored the girl closely as a result, and she¡¯d become familiar with her habits. Kari had been more of a pariah than the usual Unari. Never having been invited to knitting circles or the other coming of age ceremonies the girls of the village had made into games, Kari was unused to interacting with others, and ¨C having spent that free time wandering around without purpose ¨C she was even less inured to the rigors of a regular work schedule, as Cas had deemed best for her stability. Among the Unari, Nadia was perhaps at the extreme opposite end of this spectrum, being the most gregarious loner the community had ever seen. Mainly due to the influence of her mother, Nadia had been a somewhat well accepted community member ¨C as much as an Unari could be ¨C before her ostracization. Nadia had been a regular pillar of the community. As her mother had taught her, she smiled at everyone in a way that made them feel blameless, and everyone smiled back whenever they saw her. Nadia had had a sad life, but it had been a far happier existence than the one Kari had been saddled with, and that weighed Kari down with jealousy. Cas could see the dark emotion bursting at the girl¡¯s seams, and that sometimes, when the day grew too long or they were made to work in a climate that was too hot, the seams weren¡¯t strong enough to hold. ¡°Just shut up!¡± a harsh spirit took over Kari¡¯s voice, and Nadia¡¯s response fought back tears as she exclaimed: ¡°What is wrong with you you friendless freak!¡± ¡°Your mom can¡¯t even visit you!¡± ¡°At least my mom had the guts to talk to me in the first place!¡± ¡°I said shut up!¡± now Kari¡¯s voice was tearful, and Cas had already burst past the tent at this point, screeching to a halt just after the mood had done the same. ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± Cas asked with her newly adopted ¡®auntie¡¯ voice, careful to let her concern overmask her annoyance. ¡®What could it be now?¡¯ Her thoughts were using her old ¡®Cas¡¯ sardonicism, however, and were not similarly restricted. ¡°She started it!¡± Nadia pointed up at Kari from where she¡¯d been pushed into the dirt. Kari threw her hands down with an indignant gesture. ¡°She wouldn¡¯t stop talking when I told her-¡± And so the excuses ran on, and Cas hardly listened to them, paying more attention to their facial expressions and general demeanor ¨C two avenues of communication the girl¡¯s hadn¡¯t learned to lie through. She also tried to focus on her thoughts, having to work hard to keep them unsaid. ¡°She shouldn¡¯t get to tell me what to do!¡± Nadia pointedly retorted. ¡®How could this happen? Things were going so well!¡¯ Cas Lamented. ¡°Why are you being such a baby!¡± ¡®She didn¡¯t make Kari work too hard today. They were even laughing just seconds ago!¡¯ ¡°Stupid!¡± Kari yelled. ¡®What happened to that good mood? She¡¯d done everything right.¡¯ ¡°Orphan!¡± Nadia bit back. ¡®Why did they always have to do this?¡± ¡°Unari!¡± both cursed in a drawn out harmony. ¡°Shaddduuuuup!¡± Cas blew her top, and each girl stopped, marking their surprised halts with characterful poses. Nadia, on her feet by now, stood to attention, eyes flickering about in slight panic at the new situation. Kari¡¯s demeanor was still more surprised, but her eyes held a more challenging look. Cas herself partook in their surprise. This was the first time she¡¯d raised her voice at the girls. Granted, she¡¯d never made any commitments to speaking sweetly, but the unexpected outburst went generally against the ¡®patient and understanding¡¯ tone she¡¯d accepted as the hallmark of good parenting, and the reason for her disturbance disturbed her all the more because: since when was she their mother! Disorienting weight of sudden responsibility aside, the mood had gone and thoroughly soured in the wake of their mutual outburst, and Kari and Nadia both stood mummified in bandages of anticipation, looking to Cas for guidance. Still reeling from her newfound sense of parental responsibility, Cas halfheartedly conducted a forced resolution to the whole affair. She suspected that the initial fight had indeed been Kari¡¯s fault, as was often the case, but she forced a mutual apology from the girls, fearing that Kari wouldn¡¯t be able to handle any more perceived slights. Kari hardly seemed impressed with the consolation, and Nadia was all the more incensed, able only to manage a muffled ¡®¡¯s not fair¡¯ with a hoarse voice as she walked away to her tent. Cas resolved to apologize to Nadia later, when a more sane conversation could be had about this. Apologizing was an empty gesture, Cas Understood. And, planning to apologize was even less substantial a form of redress. Still, it assuaged Cas¡¯s guilt somewhat to add the future apology to her itinerary. In the back of her mind, Cas understood that putting anything on her to-do list was tantamount to admitting she¡¯d never do it. It wasn¡¯t without some dim hope of eventual getting-to-itism, however, that Cas opened her status sheet to the notes section, and placed in her itinerary, in the one hundred and twenty sixth place: ¡®apologize to Nadia for being unfair¡¯. Her guilt flared up again with the realization that this was the first item on her list to in any way consider Nadia. She barely had time to process such guilt before the next distraction, however. ¡°Sage Cas! We humbly request entrance!¡± Panicking, Cas realized the time and at her list. Number 6: the highlighted number read, ¡°turnover food to Village ambassador.¡± ¡°Kari, Nadia!¡± Cas called, and the girl¡¯s obeyed the implicit command without argument. They never had a good time meeting with villagers nowadays, so they hid away and Cas went to greet the ambassador. Ambassador was perhaps overly grandiose a title for what was going on, but Cas found no better words to describe the situation as she headed towards the edge of her enclave. Her ¡®house¡¯ had expanded quite a bit in the preceding month. A circus of tents now rose like mountains around her lonely hut. Most of the tents were still empty, but by the day the village''s stores of dried Korren roots, Nandab seeds, Katri figs ¡ª essentially their equivalents of sunflower shells and orange peels ¡ª filed into her tents and her care. Cas had to take special care to time things so that deliverers would only show up when Kari and Nadia were out in the desert on some manufactured task or another. On days like this, when she failed to plan appropriately, things grew sullen. It wouldn¡¯t be right to say that the ambassador scared the girls. Rather, Cas had worked hard to create an island of serenity in the confines of her encampment, and the constant intrusions reminded the girls of the outside world, which neither of them had any happy memories of. ¡°Kari¡­¡± Cas peeked an eye stalk past the tent flaps the girl had hidden behind. ¡°Yeah,¡± the girl answered, her former rebelliousness overpowered now by a defeated tone. ¡°Are you doing ok?¡± The girl turned away with a huff. ¡°Leave me alone.¡± Cas quickly retreated.
Cas¡¯s itinerary had grown to five hundred before the week had blown over. Strangely enough, however, the more items there were on the list, the less Cas found herself able to care about it. By now, the grand mass of issues had tumbled over into absurdity, as the issues to the problems quickly became issues unto themselves. The village had agreed to make her more permanent storage houses, but were dragging their feet about the issue, hence the need for the rapid erection of new tents. But erecting new tents would require workers which ¨C considering harvest season was upon then was proving difficult. She¡¯d also have to renegotiate delivery times with the village. Item one hundred and twenty eight on her rapidly growing list. That would also be a good time to discuss how losses were to be distributed between their respective food rights: Item one twenty nine. She¡¯d also have to rework Kari and Nadia¡¯s work schedules: that would be one thirty. ¡°Cas!¡± Kari¡¯s panicked voice pulled at Cas, and her heart sank when she arrived at the food storage tent to find the reed baskets had been chewed through, mice droppings and half-eaten bars of food where her supplies were meant to be.
Strangely enough, growing older wasn¡¯t all it had cracked up to be. Along with her mental maturity had come a greater appreciation for consequences. Just a few months ago, Cas had been able to bear the responsibility for five hundred lives with blas¨¦ imperturbability, but now she was in fits because a couple of rats had eaten a week''s worth of food. What if the mouse population grew? What if more came? What if she couldn¡¯t store enough food and had to ask the village for more of theirs! Oh, they wouldn¡¯t like that, not at all. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. In short¡­ being 16 was stressful. Cas was pacing feverishly in her tiny hut, hands clenched behind her as Kari and Nadia sat on a wall, watching her like a tennis match. Of course, Cas was still intellectually an adult despite being mentally a teenager. She wasn¡¯t sure quite how that worked, but it gave her half of the perspective she needed to understand that she was blowing things out of proportion. After all, despite the setbacks, at least Cas had a plan. All she had to do was follow the set steps, and this would all fade away like a bad dream. The village was dragging its feet about constructing mud houses for her to store her rations, and frankly the village had become very hostile to receiving her presence, much less listening to her requests. And then there was Kari. Kari, Kari, Kari. The girl was naturally stressed by Nadia¡¯s arrival, and the next Unari was due to arrive in two weeks. Two weeks could be a very short time when it kept you away from uncomfortable topics. Nadia had been a saint, putting up with Kari¡¯s hot flashes, but Cas couldn''t guarantee the next Unari would be so patient. In fact, Cas hasn¡¯t even been able to get a hold of him with how everyone was avoiding her in the village. What if he was more ¡®dennis the mennis¡¯ than ¡®poor little orphan boy¡¯? That wouldn¡¯t be convenient. Either way, this was not the best time to be making drastic changes to their living arrangements. Maybe Kari would get used to new roommates though? Cas hoped with feverish determination.
Strangely enough, despite the organization involved in constructing the new storage basins, the constant bitching from the elders about taking away their workforce, the warming weather and general hostility from the village, Cas had managed to gather mental bandwidth enough to make Kari and Nadia¡¯s acclimatization to the new Unari a priority. ¡°It¡¯s done!¡± Nadia had a talent for seeming jovial, and Cas almost belived her smile was because of reasons more honorable than simply having finished the work. Still, it wasn¡¯t all drudgery. Even Kari managed a proud look round the newly decorated tent. A woven rectangular strip ran along a harsh, tent wall. It was a crude imitation of the belts the men wore for wrestling competition, made with fewer colors and sized for a child. ¡°I heard he liked wrestling,¡± Kari admitted, abashedly, trying to dodge the overly proud look Cas was shooting in her direction. ¡°I told her he liked wrestling,¡± Nadia leapt in loudly, pushed away from the spotlight by a pouting Kari before giggling. Cas was in bliss. The past few weeks she¡¯d worked hard to maintain an atmosphere of peace around the girls, not working them too hard and giving them enough responsibilities to distract from their life.. It had worked, and Cas ¨C despite her snobbish dismissal of ¡®artificial¡¯ moods ¨C clung on to the feelings she¡¯d cultivated like they were her final lifeline. After all, weren¡¯t all emotions just creatures of their enviornment, so what if she had to work hard to maintain their happiness? It was as real as anything else wasn¡¯t it. Besides¡­ She looked over the rest of the tent, stocked with food, and toys and decorations gathered up by the rest of them. It looked like a home, and decorating it had made them seem like a family, and once the newest Unari was safe here, maybe they¡¯d feel like one, too. ¡­ The village was a harder nut to crack than the girls. Ugly glares tracked her whenever she went into the interior, and whispered curses followed her out. The name calling wasn¡¯t too bad. The Nemorian language was quite a formal one, and curses rarely got more intense than things like ¡®rabble rouser¡¯ or ¡®wicked one¡¯ or ¡®liar¡¯ or ¡®thief¡¯. Cas was beyond caring about their opinions at this point, however. She controlled the surplus food that they needed, and she had plans to grow the Oasis enough to control their tempers other wise. She didn¡¯t want their opinions, and they couldn¡¯t stop her from taking in all the Unari in the world if they tried. Still, despite this strong stance, Cas never forgot that, there actually was someone in the village capable enough to stop her ¨C she just never imagined they actually would. ¡­ ¡°No,¡± the boy said again, bright eyes darting away from her as if it were a nervous habit. He was a fresh faced young boy, with round features and a very good grasp of language that was surprising considering his age. They were out beyond the border of the village, though still close enough that the villagers gathered on the edge could hear Cas¡¯s growing yells. ¡°What do you mean ¡®no¡¯? You¡¯re coming with me and that¡¯s that!¡± Cas took his arm, and the boy pulled it away. ¡°I don¡¯t want to go with you,¡± his hesitating voice pronounced. ¡°It¡¯s wrong, and you¡¯re a demon anyhow! I''m going to the desert.¡± "Wait, wait," Cas coaxed gently, speaking to him as one might hold an egg-shell. "I''m not a monster, you know that. I''m only here to help you and everyone else, so why don''t you come with me and see what I''m really like. We''ve never met before and I really want to make you my friend." Her words were marked by a nervous and intensely friendliness, and this gave them a veneer of inauthenticity that the boy had obviously been able to pick up on. He was smart for his age, to tell by his reply: "I don''t want to take food not meant for me," he answered, turning slightly away and crossing his arms with a stiff finality. "It¡¯s meant for everyone," Cas assured, burying her anxiety with another spoonful of friendliness. "Then why are you taking it from people that are unhappy to give it?" The look of finality in his eyes told Cas it was too late to try convincing with words; the presence of armed men among the farewell crew confirmed that she wouldn¡¯t be able to force the issue with force, either. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± the boy sobbed, before she could muster another response. Soft shifts of sand pattered away from her. She could tell by the sound he was heading deeper into the desert, though the sight of him seemed to have lost all meaning for her. His figure grew smaller and dimmer in the heat-haze of the desert, and Cas felt anger warping her vision more than nature ever could. She turned her eye back to the village, the scene distorting as she she took a cow-sized gulp of air into her interior, swelling her body up into a megaphone of hate. The boy was going. There was nothing she could do about it and she¡¯d been so certain he¡¯d just come along with her and do the right thing. She should have felt loss, but it was more humiliation, to be honest. She hadn¡¯t even learned the boy¡¯s name. Cas formed a vocal chord, larger than her last one. She could feel a sob hitching it even as she prepared to talk. Of course she hadn¡¯t bothered to learn the boy¡¯s name. Silly her. She thought she¡¯d have all the time in the world to get to know him. Cas felt¡­ tormented, and that large gulp of air she squeezed down upon howled out like a megaphone at the villagers in the distance, laced with wrathful texture as she stared them all down and spoke: ¡°You absolute ingrates! Dogs, cow patties, wastrels. You!¡± she pointed at all of them in particular, ¡°you and your moronic tradition! You and your murderous, idiotic, useless religion have just killed someone who didn¡¯t need to die!¡± Cas was truly beyond herself, unable to care or even remember what considerations had made her put up with these people for so long. A man rose up with prideful features to yell back at her. It was easily consumed by the monstrous voice Cas called upon. ¡°You should have been grateful! I offer you food you couldn¡¯t save your children with and what do you do? What do you have to show for it? Starvation and curses? Have you idiots ever wondered why your children have been dying? Have you ever considered it¡¯s all your fault that you needed a Sakkari to save you from the brink of death? Do you not feel ashamed that you¡¯ve done nothing but lavish in your squalor for so many proud generations, or is begging a proud tradition of yours as well?¡± Cas meant to twist the knife, and the crowd was in an uproar they couldn¡¯t hear over the volume she mustered, but she didn¡¯t care for that at all. In fact, she hardly felt anything, not even better.
She wasn¡¯t sure. Perhaps it was her imagination, but it seemed like the boy¡¯s figure ¨C as it shrunk with the distance ¨C seemed suddenly to evaporate in the desert heat, and the crowd dispersed with it. The desert was cruel to all things. Large creatures suffered under its heat and small ones¡­ well, they just sometimes blew away into non-existence. It was a fascinating magic trick, how the droplet slimes just vanished when the sands were dug away and the sun could touch them. Kari and Nadia worked in silence on either side of her, shoveling away the sand as it slid back down to cover the pit they¡¯d just dug. Cas¡¯s research¡­ was going better than ever, now. Relations with the village had grown too cold to need overseeing. They dropped off plant matter, and picked up food wherever Cas left it. Kari and Nadia were on their best behavior. Cas had grown impatient with their fighting. And Cas¡­ Cas was a slime. She didn¡¯t need to sleep, eat, or even dream, and with the village and the Unari quiet, she was free to devote all her free-time on matters of real importance. Because, really, the villagers¡¯ feelings didn¡¯t matter, did they. Really, all diplomacy was a stop-gap measure. The real importance lay in growing the Oasis. She¡¯d been forced to parlay with the village because her plan would take years, but¡­ now that she thought about it, why spend so much effort on useless plans when she could simply speed up her Oasis rejuvenation? Cas had the past two weeks researching. Two weeks was a short time if you counted the days. But, Cas was a sakkari. She never slept, ate, or lost focus, and two weeks ¨C in turn ¨C was a long time if you counted every hour of it. Cas spent her days in the desert and her nights in the Cavern. It was on one of her morning flights between the two, when her mind wandered for lack of anything more productive to do, that Cas realized something so simple. The river of slimes flowed underground from the spire to the Oasis, protected in the cool depths for the majority of their journey. But, as they came upon the rocky ground where the Oasis lay, the slimes surfaced up from the sands early, exposing themselves to sunlight and crawling over the surface towards the Oasis. That the slimes surfaced early was, in fact, the reason she¡¯d been able to discover them in the first place. It was a wonder she didn¡¯t realize it before. In the last hundred meters before they reached the Oasis, the slimes lost eighty percent of their numbers before reaching the Oasis, of course those numbers couldn¡¯t apply to the rest of their miles long journey, if it did, none of the slimes would ever make it a mile away from the spire before they all disappeared. The answer was too obvious for her have noticed it before. The slimes were protected by the underground shade, and they stupidly lost that protection when they came up early.
There were grumblings of intense hatred as the workmen trudged about the border of the Oasis. For a people so accustomed to the desert, it seemed even the hardiest of villagers hated to work in the sandy part of the desert, much less while carrying about sixteen foot long tent poles. The solution was simple to explain: Cas would distribute tents across randomly across the border of the Oasis. Most of the losses happened fifty meters out from the edge of the grass, so that would be where she focused her efforts. In the last hundred meters before they reached the Oasis, half of the slimes surfaced above ground before reaching their destination. By her estimates, eighty percent died of evaporation before even making it. Putting up some tents over the region could reduce that enough to increase the Oasis by twenty percent, and that was before you got into the wonders of cold magic! A twenty percent improvement would increase the carrying capacity by 80 people, and that was before she counted her recycling capabilities. All she had to do was show them some early results, show them that it was possible, then she¡¯d have all the time she needed to figure out how to move the other rivers of slime onto the right path. Then she¡¯d have enough time to figure out how to induce slime creation. Cas didn¡¯t really feel excitement regarding the situation anymore. She was beyond that, but¡­ it did give her a certain amount of ease to realize that this was just what she needed. The plan was too simple to fail, and as a result quite easily explained. Really, though, it wasn¡¯t as if Cas needed to give much of an answer. She had surplus food, now that there was one less Unari to take care of, and no one in the village would say no to a well paid job, especially one that could only have benefits for the Oasis¡­ so, one by one, the tents went up, and Cas breathed a sigh of relief, and even the villager¡¯s grumblings became quiet for a brief moment.
The tents, once set up, didn¡¯t need Cas¡¯s help to cast any shade, and so she was left with a lot of free time to devote to things she¡¯d once forsaken. For instance, a talk with an old friend. It being so early in the morning, Tami was wearing a face without any makeup. Still, she was recognizably beautiful in the moonlight, and still able to muster a look of perfect sympathy as she sent a sorry look in Cas¡¯s direction. ¡°How¡¯ve you been?¡± the woman prodded softly. Cas dejectedly lowered a stalk onto herself. ¡°It seems all my efforts have sunk my reputation as low as it¡¯ll go.¡± Tami held an uncomfortable look. ¡°Oh, I wouldn¡¯t be so sure,¡± she proclaimed. ¡°It seems your reputation has quite a bit of clearance still left to fall.¡± ¡°What now?¡± Cas groaned. Cas had come on request, and had been expecting more nonsense, but she was surprised when a sharp look took the woman¡¯s eye and she leant forward in her seat. ¡°I know people aren¡¯t inclined to take me too seriously, but you have to understand that my beauty lends me a lot of ears, and people say things around me that they think I¡¯m too stupid to tell.¡± ¡°Yesss?¡± Cas said, not understanding. ¡°Wellll, I¡¯ve heard on the grapevine,¡± she leant forward closely, speaking in a normal speaking voice that ¨C for her chords ¨C might have counted as a whisper, ¡°that someone has been talking about you a lot, lately.¡± ¡°Go on¡­¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know who, but It¡¯s a person with access to the elders. I heard it second hand, so it had to be someone like that. And they¡­ well¡­ they¡¯ve been saying that you were the one who caused the drought in the first place. And,¡­ well, with your recent flagrancies¡­ I think some might be inclined to believe them.¡± Cas grew heated. ¡°They think I caused the drought somehow? Really? Why, It could just as well have been any of them that set this up!¡± Tami replied with a litigating font. ¡°Well, darling, you have to admit... it is rather suspicious that it was a Sakkari that was causing the drought, and you did show up just in time to take a place of honor.¡± Tami took a casual sip from her cup. ¡°What!¡± Cas exploded! ¡°If I¡¯d wanted ¡®honor¡¯ why would I be helping the village now!? The shade I¡¯m building around the Oasis is about to give you more water than you¡¯ve ever had! Would someone that would cause a drought go out of their way to do that!?¡± Cas was growing flustered to tell by the machine gun rattle of her speech, and Tami was quick to assuage her, gesturing her hands for quiet. ¡°Heavens, you know I don¡¯t believe those fantasies,¡± Tami defended herself. ¡°I¡¯m merely warning you about the direction of the slip-face.¡± A knock came at the door, and Tami''s bright eyes moved easily from the heavy conversation to the matter of entertaining new guests. She went out to greet the visitors rather than inviting them in, engaging them in a cheerful chatter and giving Cas enough reprieve to crawl out the far window.
The accusations against her were infantile. Opportunistic naysaying about demons and conspiracies were expected, and Cas really didn¡¯t care to address them. Still, it did occasionally pop up in the back of her mind, an impressive feat considering that, for the two weeks after the tents had been set up, Cas was obsessed. It was strange what one could become obsessed with over the course of a study. In her previous life, Cas had spent entire months where the reproductive rates of random wasp species was at the forefront of her mind. It wasn¡¯t a simple matter of importance to her, it was an obsession, something she thought, celebrated and agonized over every waking moment. Here, in the desert, that obsession was with the water level. Except here, it was an obsession that everyone shared with her. On Earth, everyone had their own private obsessions. As a result, she found few friends that cared about whatever wasp species or environmental effect she was studying. Here in the village, however, the Oasis was everyone¡¯s life line, and therefore it was a communal obsession. And that obsession was at a fever pitch, now that Cas had erected the tents and set expectations, and every day, the random, expected fluctuations of the water level were reported at high noon and awaited with bated breath. It went up some days and down others, dependent on how much sand had been kicked up into the air to give the Oasis reprieve from direct sunlight. Still¡­ over time the trend was discernible, and after two weeks it grown large enough to become obvious. That was the thing with progressive measurements: It was never clear when the obvious became true. But, two weeks after the tents had been erected, on the noon day where the water report had come in, the result was finally accepted by everyone as obvious: The water level had decreased drastically, and it was falling faster than when the drought had first started. Chapter 29: Fair A little investigation was all it took to discern the issue. Cas had placed the tents where the death rates of the slimes had been highest: a band about fifty meters beyond the borders of the Oasis. That had been a mistake. The tents cooled the sand in those areas. The lower temperature encouraged more slimes to surface, and those slimes, now coaxed away from the safety of the underground, suffered horrendous casualty rates as they continued their journey past the shaded areas and onto the sun-lit sands. This was a simple oversight with an even simpler solution. All they had to do was move the tents closer to the Oasis and the problem was fixed. The villager''s patience had worn thin, however, and things were perhaps worse than they looked, to tell by the panicked expression that dressed itself on Kari''s features. "Cas!" Kari announced hurriedly before the door-curtain had fully closed behind her. "I''ve been eavesdropping again! Nemaris is mad. He''s really, really mad!" Cas was wearing a human skin and a fatalistic expression as she toyed with a minature slime clone on her workbench. "Yeah, he probably, would be," she answered, the slime jiggled as she tapped it with her fingertip. "Did he say anything about the workmen I asked for?" Cas was genuinely curious, not in the mood to chastise the girl for eavesdropping. "Cassss!" was Kari''s shocked reply. "What?" Cas replied, indignant. "What are we supposed to do? Everyone in the village hates us!" "They hate us more," Cas corrected easily. "They always hated us at least a little." "Cassss!" Cas sighed, standing to face the girl and feeling a little vertigo from how much she towered over her now that her human figure was a sixteen year-old. "What do you want me to do, Kari?" she said dejectedly. "I already told them the mistake, and how we can fix it. All we can do now is move the tents and wait for all of this to blow over." "But, Cas, they-" "They''re really mad," Cas said shortly, resisting the urge to roll her eyes, "I get it. I''m not happy about this, either, but I can''t do more than I have! Just leave it." "Then what are we supposed to do?" came the frantic response. Cas replied shortly, losing her calm. "We aren''t doing anything, Kari. It''s not your responsibility. Just let me handle-" Kari broke. "This wouldn''t have happened if you didn''t take in Nadia!" A dim silence fell. Reluctantly dropping the toy slime, feeling herself shake as she turned fully around to face a defiant Kari, "Pardon?" Cas said. "This is all happening because you didn''t listen to me!" Kari charged. "The village hating us, the Oasis, the food!" By now the girl was once again on the verge of sobbing, though she truly didn''t want to be, and managed to hold enough composure to finish her accusations. "You''re breaking your promise. I - hic - I did everything I was supposed to. I was a good friend, and now you''ve just forgotten about me to care about sand!" Kari stamped her foot, arms straightening down her sides while clenched fists flared outwards with an angry tension that matched her squeezed eyelids. Cas was losing patience, to tell by the effort she had to exert to muster an appropriate response. "Kari!" she said, injecting a firm kindness into her voice. "I''m doing everything I can to help the village. The villagers hate me for it, yes, and that''s fine, but I don''t want you to hate me, too! I''m honestly just trying to do the right thing, and you should be mature enough to understand that that doesn''t mean I hate you." "No!" Kari stamped again. "You''re the one who''s not seeing things right! You''re being too fair, you''re not thinking-" Cas grew heated enough to interrupt. "I think I know better than some half-" Kari stood her ground, interrupting back. "pint who can''t care-" From there they both spoke, participating in a mutual tirade as each tried to speak over the other on matters both personal and private "-selfish sakkari that can''t-" "-thoughtless jerk who doesn''t even-" "-after everything, how could you not care-" "-just stop, please stop! I just can''t focus on you right now!" Cas held her head between shaking hands, all but begging to end the conversation. Though, it was her that was shortly silenced by the surprising words Kari decided to reveal. Kari, for her part, screamed. It was different from her previous yells, simple attempts to defend against being talked over. This was the distinct sound of long suppressed words escaping a tired filter. "You''re becoming just like the village!" Kari voice became hoarse from the immediate effort. "You''re acting just like them and I don''t like you anymore!" Cas felt the words like they were a steel blade slipping into her throat. She acted like it, too, choking into a silence that allowed the suddenly demure Kari to provide a quieter explanation. She looked abashed suddenly, looking down at her pivoting toes as she continued softly. "...You don''t care about me at all," Kari admitted. "All you care about is saving more lives." Cas was stunned twice over, this time from bewilderment. "Kari... you''re not making any sense," she probed. "I''m trying to save everyone, including you!" "Including me," Kari spat. "That''s what I mean," she let out a crying chuckle, "all you''re looking to do is save the village. That''s what the villagers are trying to do. That''s all they were trying to do when they threw me out into the desert. I thought you''d be different since you''re my friend, but I guess I wasn''t good enough for you to care about now that have Nadia to do all your chores for you." Kari spat the other girl''s word like it was poison. Cas froze, realizing just how much of a spider''s web this conversation was proving to be. And despite her best efforts, it was impossible to grasp just what the girl was getting at. Still, treading carefully on that next sensitive string of conversation, Cas spoke, "Kari... I don''t understand, of course we''re friends. Just because I''m helping other people doesn''t mean-" "Yes it does!" Kari interrupted. "It''s all fine now, but... I''m the oldest Unari in the village. You can only make enough food to feed four people. What happens in four years when I get bigger, and you take in six more Unari, and you''re running low on food?" "I don''t-" "Don''t play dumb!" Kari laughed meanly. "I mean, you are the great sage. I''m sure you''ll be able to figure that you could feed two children using the rations for one sixteen year old!" Kari gestured meaningfully at herself. "I''m sure you''ll make the choice that saves the most people!" Kari''s words were vindictive and plain and held quite a bit more logic than Cas had given the girl credit for. "It''s not going to come to that!" Cas answered as a reflex, feeling uncomfortable with the thought. "So you would sacrifice me if it did!" "It''s not going to!" "Just answer the damn question!" "My plan is going to make that question unnecessary!" "Your plan already failed!" Kari screamed again, speaking past the rivulets of tears that crossed over her lips. "I believed in you, but all you have are more promises! What happens if your bigger plan fails, too? What if it takes you three extra years? You''re going to have to answer that question then; but I guess you''ve already made up your mind!" And Kari was right. In a way, Cas had made up her mind. Cas knew this, too. She knew that the answer lay somewhere inside of her for ready retrieval; she just didn''t want to find out what it was. Cas collapsed, shoulders slumping, begging. "Kari! Stop asking me that right now. I''m... I''m really tired." Kari only snarled. "See! I told you. None of this would be happening if you just didn''t save Nadia!" Cas was harried, and ashamed, and surprised by this conversation. She was tired and scared because of the Oasis. She was emotional and had so far been able to handle Kari''s challanges despite the weight of her recent failure crushing her. However, Nadia was a sweet girl who''s smile she could picture in her face, and Kari''s invoking her name was just too much. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. "Stop saying such evil, ugly things!" It was Cas''s turn to scream. "This isn''t like you at all! Stop! Just Stop! I hate what you''re saying and how you''re saying it!" Kari grew indignant. "You wouldn''t be dealing with this if you didn''t take her-" Cas grew livid. "I wouldn''t be dealing with this if I didn''t save you, would I?" she said pointedly. "So what''s the difference there, exactly?" Kari shut up immediately, eyes softening into fearful circles. Cas could feel her emotions whip back in a flash. Her question had been meant to sting, and it had worked a little too well to tell by Kari''s hurt look. What had gotten into her? She couldn''t remember getting so angry since she''d been a teenager... and she couldn''t ever remember delaying an apology for so long. Time seemed to drip like molasses from that point, a perfect tension building as Cas wondered what would happen now. She thought of a Kari screaming, attacking her even, and a thousand other terrible outcomes. She''d never expected that Kari would have an answer for her, though. "The difference is," Kari took a steadying breath to suck in her tears. "Because --" Kari spoke softer, now, as if embarrassed by her words " -- I thought we were friends." The pure simpliciity of the answer suddenly made Kari look her age. It shocked Cas to remember that the girl with such worry and foresight was still only twelve. Cas started, "Kari-" The door curtain buffeted outward, reaching for Kari''s sprinting figure before Cas could gather herself enough to reply.
In all matters of importance, it was possible to come onto one side or the other. Tami, always a purveyor of popular positions, understood instinctively that -- if you wanted to affect public opinion -- it was smarter to play the role of controlled opposition, which was just what she was doing in the middle of the village square. "I''m certainty no friend of that fiendish Sakkari," Tami prefaced. "Frankly, I think you speak too kindly of her," this statement she directed at her opponent. "However --" she continued, addressing the crowd, now " -- I still struggle to understand how allowing her actions to undermine our elder is of any benefit to the village." It could be said with no uncertainty that Tami was the singular and only force in the village that so-far kept outrage at bay, and she was quite a force, to boot. Tami was a master of village politicking. She knew everybody and had some modicum of trust among them. She also had a talent for managing emotions, even when they were a great broiling mass of hatred for a monster. She wasn''t planning to make Cas a popular figure. Far from it. Rather, in her loud engagement with her neighbor Cindra -- which had by now drawn a sizeable crowd -- Cas deftly managed to pivot the issue of killing the slime into a matter of ''respect for the elders'', always a popular position for anyone wanting to stifle progress. Nemaris hadn''t signed-off on a riot, after all, and it was a time honored tradition that: "The elder''s preferences are to be respected, not liked," Tami concluded the finishing blow of her statement, speaking as if she just hated the facts of the matter that she was duty bound to speak, a face-saving measure that allowed Cindra to withdraw from the argument with some dignity, which she promptly did. The crowd, a mass of people bouncing on their toes for action, dispersed with a disappointed air. As they parted, Tami saw out of the corner of her eye, a wash of messy blonde hair. It looked like Kari. Exerting her self control, she stopped herself from staring at the girl. It wouldn''t do to be friendly with Cas''s wards at this moment. Although, she couldn''t help sneaking a glance, and she couldn''t help wanting to talk to the girl who looked so dejected.
Kari''s life had gotten worse, recently, not that she minded. Kari had lived a bad life. She''d been through worse. Before meeting Cas, she¡¯d spent years without a friendly expression from anybody; months went by between people speaking to her or even looking her in the eyes. She''d lived all her life knowing she was going to die, and it never bothered her enough to keep her from being happy. But Cas had done something far more insidious: she''d given Kari hope and crushed it. Kari stumbled in her walk, vision blurry with tears. She was outside of the village, now, away from those hateful glares that had replaced the indifferent ones. Guess she really was a fool to expect anything more than she''d been given. The world, a haze of brown and blue, rolled towards her as she continued taking hard steps, reminiscing about all the lessons she''d learned in life.
Kari had been born from a love marriage, and people are willing to take risks for love. Her parents weren''t too closely related, but they were in an allowable grey area (Nearly everyone in the village was), and they''d fallen in love. Naturally, they got married, and everything was wonderful until they had an Unari for a child. Yessina -- Kari''s older sister -- was born with a minor defect, a short pinkie finger that couldn''t bend fully. Minor as it was, however... such things couldn''t be allowed to fester in such an isolated community, and her parents had been given a second chance named Kari. Kari had been born healthy, perfect even, and was the darling of her family dinner table. Yessina had been sanctioned for the desert, at that point, and so Kari got most of the attention and most of their rations and all of their sweets; and, every night, when mother tucked them into bed, she would tell Kari: "I love you," and every night she would forget to tell Yessina the same. Kari didn''t understand this. She always thought how they treated her sister was mean. She even said as much, once, and was corrected sternly about this by mother, who said: "being fair doesn''t mean being nice, and it''s not fair to feed a dead girl". Mother used that phrase like an aphorism, pulling upon it in various situations, particularly when she brought out the broom after Kari had done something bad. Despite this, Kari felt bad for Yessina, and always managed to sneak back some rations to her sister, although she did tease Yessina about the fact that mother never pulled out the broom to discipline her. Although, maybe that was only fair. As she grew older, Kari began to understand more, and she also started fainting. No one knew the cause, but the cure was simple enough. All she had to do was have food on hand, eat it whenever she felt an attack coming on, and she would be safe! It was such a simple fix! Kari could always go around with a satchell full of rations, so it didn''t affect her life at all. It was such a minor defect! The village laws were fair between all defects, minor and great, however. She was declared an Unari, and that very night -- Kari would never forget this moment as long as she lived -- mother forgot to tell her ''I love you''. That was only fair. You couldn''t love a dead girl. Her ''friends'' also strayed further away, and so did the adults, and so did her parents, and her Kari witnessed something amazing as her life fell apart in the course of a day. Worse yet, that same day Yessina discovered her talent for magic. Because of this, her sister had been allowed to live so that she could train with Korivenna to be the next apothecary! How funny that she would lose everything the same day Yessina gained her life back. How funny that she -- who was meant to live -- would die while Yessina -- born to die -- would live. How funny that this hadn''t been enough to cure her of hope.
Kari thought of all this she trudged further into the desert. She was walking without purpose, however that alone seemed enough to bring her in the vicinity of Korivenna''s lonely hut, and a figure standing in front of her forced her to stop and wipe her tears away. "What?" she asked with a wracked voice, surprised to find her sister Yessina looking at her with a grim and nervous expression. The older girl replied simply, "Korivenna sent me. She has something very important to tell you." Yessina spoke with the staccato rhythm of a nervous child who''d been trained to follow a script, and Kari followed with sluggish footsteps. Chapter 30: Conspiracy Despite Tami''s best efforts to sabotage their progress, the villagers did eventually succeed in drafting up a plan of action against the Sakkari. No one was sure how a consensus had been reached, but sure enough it was decided that a representative would be sent forward with a message of their demands, as well as of consequences should the sage refuse to meet those demands. After a short round of voting, as well as some delicately conducted electoral fraud, Tami came out as the surprise victor. She was nothing if not good at pivoting, and she barreled straight past Nadia ¨C who failed her attempt at playing guard ¨C walking into Cas'' hut with a business-like demeanor. "I can''t cover for you much longer," she said with a short scowl down at the blob of gelatin. "I managed to get selected as the representative, but things are quickly rushing out of my hands!" Tami spoke without her usual flourishes and gesticulations, gesturing towards herself in straight lines and awaiting the Sakkari''s response with a disappointed expression. Cas answered as if every word was a stone she had to drag out of a bog. "What is it now, Tami?" Tami could hear the dejection in her voice, but cut to the point with a cold air. Now was not the time for sympathy. "The villagers want you to stop storing food beyond what your household needs. They''re also demanding that you stop attending the Unari departure celebrations.." "Ok," Cas answered, words curving down in a show of hopelessness. "It''s going to be hard to convince them-" Tami crashed her sentence to a halt. "Wait... did you just say ok?" "Yes," Cas answered, with the tone of someone rubbing a headache from their temples. "I do have requirements of my own, however." Tami leaned forward curiously. "I''m listening, though I can''t guarantee the elders will accept it." "They''ll have to accept it if they want me to continue making the food," Cas answered dangerously. Tami paused again, eyes rolling in consideration; her fox-ears curved over to the same direction in a curious display of thought. "I''ll... let the elders know that in a more private setting,¡± she tip-toed over the words carefully. ¡°What are your terms?" "I want another chance to grow the Oasis. I''ll also need another work crew, smaller than last time since the tents are already set up, we just have to move them." "Is that all?" Tami asked. "Also... I want ten percent of the surplus food generated by the growth of the Oasis?" Tami''s eyes widened at that, as if surprised at her own shock. "Are you saying you expect to grow the Oasis that much? I mean... you''d have to grow it enough to feed a hundred people if one tenth of it can feed all the Unari." Cas replied drolly. "No... I expect to grow it enough to feed eighty people. Do you think the elders will accept the deal?" she moved the topic back impatiently. Tami hesitated. "I... suspect I''ll be able to get them to agree." "Good!" Cas said, obviously forcing the cheer into her voice. "Have the work crew ready by tomorrow, please. I''m eager to forget about about this fiasco, and I''m sure the mob is eager to have the Oasis growing again." Tami smiled. "You''re that confident things will be fixed so quickly." "I''m certain," Cas said, picking up on enough of Tami''s good humor enough to briefly forget about Kari. "It''s just a simple water equation, you fix the block, things start working again. I expect to lose a lot of enemies by tomorrow, at least." Tami spoke with the heir of an expertise. "Oh, I can assure you, I think you¡¯ll find losing enemies is a bit tricker than draining the Oasis. Relationships don''t flow like water. They can come from nowhere, especially hatred.¡± ¡°What do you mean?¡± Cas asked. Tami quibbled. ¡°Well... that mysterious admirer of yours is spreading more bad rumors. They''ve taken recent events as proof that you''re exactly the monster you seem to be.¡± Cas exhaled. ¡°Well, Tami, that¡¯s only an issue until I fix the Oasis, isn¡¯t it? And I will fix it.¡± Tami riposted her own sigh. ¡°Still... don''t you think it''d be good to find out who the person is? They¡¯re certainly persistent. I don¡¯t expect they¡¯ll quiet down no matter how clear your good works become.¡± Cas paused, turning the rusty, abandoned tracks of her mind she¡¯d once devoted to conspiring. "What do you think of Nemaris?" she asked, finally. Tami seemed taken aback by the question. ¡°What do I think? Well, what is there to think? I think he''s a nice enough, man. The responsible sort, you know,¡± she waved her hand with dismissive praise, as if to flag what she thought of those sorts of people through the motion. Cas t¡¯sked disappointedly. ¡°All that proves is that he¡¯s good at getting people to like him. Frankly, if we¡¯re going to suspect anyone, I¡¯d start with him. You said the person starting the rumors was well connected to the elders, didn¡¯t you? Well, he¡¯s been a thorn ever since I fixed the Oasis, and Kari reported she heard him saying particularly nasty things about me to the other Elders. Tami took in the information with an air of suspicion. ¡°Forgive me for doubting, but I doubt a child would be invited to a meeting of the elders, much less an Unari, and those meetings are fairly well guarded against listeners-in.¡± ¡°If I can trust Kari to do anything, it¡¯s to eavesdrop where she¡¯s not wanted. I trust she heard what she said she did.¡± Tami was quick to retort. "Oh, well, even so I wouldn¡¯t blame him for harsh words against you. All of this is happening in his village after all. It''d be a bad look if he took a disinterested stance." "Hmm¡­" was all Cas said, obviously losing interest in the conversation. ¡°I think this is a matter for after I grow the Oasis.¡± Tami obliged her. "Very well,¡± she said, smoothing her shawl as she stood. ¡°I think it''d be wise if we started a more thorough investigation sometime, though. The person who''s starting these rumors could be anyone in the five villages, not just people who''s names we have on hand." Cas gave a token response. In truth, the rusted tracks of her mind were once again being quickly abandoned because, though she wouldn¡¯t admit it to herself, Cas was in a state of shock regarding the ¡®disaster¡¯ That was what she¡¯d termed what that had happened with the tents. "Disaster". The steadily decreasing water level and the associated blame had been a humiliating venture with high stakes. Now that she had Kari and Nadia depending on her; and ever since that ¡®disaster¡¯, it felt as if she¡¯d been disemboweled and was limping through life trying to keep her guts inside with a hand. She just couldn¡¯t muster the energy to think about anything or anyone other than that Oasis. She should have been running after Kari and consoling the girl, but her body was stiff, trapped by strings that wouldn¡¯t let her move until the weight of failure untangled its paralyzing tendrils from her mind. Still, though the jumbled mess of thoughts, prompted by Tami¡¯s conversation, circumstance did bring something once distant to the forefront of her mind. "Korivenna," Cas came upon it suddenly. "Have you heard anything about her recently?" Tami had just been getting ready to leave. "No... why?" "It''s just, you know Yessina? Kari''s sister?" "That Unari? All I know is that she''s been Korina''s assistant ever since her ceremony." "Yes, well," Kari spoke in a low whisper. "We caught her stealing food," she spoke over Tami¡¯s frightened gasp, hurrying to paste over any misunderstandings. "We didn''t turn her in, it''s just... the girl doesn''t seem the rebellious type. Has anyone been able to keep an eye on her?" Tami thought it over. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t think so. She¡¯s always by Korivenna¡¯s side and, honestly, I haven¡¯t gone to see the apothecary since the Oasis was fixed, not that I visited her much before that ¨C I only ever went to her for medicines." That set of facts bothered Cas for some reason, though her mind was too full of consideration for the Oasis to pay the subject any more attention. Although, despite this obvious disinterest, Tami still ventured to request something. ¡°By the way,¡± she said simply, stopping at the door. ¡°Yes?¡± Cas said. ¡°After the meeting with the elders. I expect the villagers will be going out to their fields for the harvest. I¡¯d be greatly appreciative it if Nadia would be able to spend the night with me. Spending so long away from her¡­ well, It¡¯s harder than I ever imagined,¡± she said, with that characteristic smile. Cas sobered up suddenly, remembering just how much Tami had done to be able to help her, and just how well she¡¯d pretended to disown her own daughter for the sake of currying favor with the village¡­ favor which she only ever used to help her. This lack of consideration bothered Cas. ¡°Of course,¡± Cas said, for once putting her whole heart into the agreement, and feeling a little ashamed at having to be asked in the first place.
Korivenna was In a surprisingly accommodating mood when Kari and Tami finally arrived at her hut. It was unlike her to be so kind, and it was exceedingly rare that she ever invited anyone to her abode, much less to prepare them tea. It was another strange show of politeness when Korivenna sat the girls down and handed them their cups, remaining silent in order to give Kari the first word. Kari kept silent, and so Korivenna was forced to give the shocking news without preamble. ... ¡°What do you mean someone¡¯s trying to kill Cas!?¡± The clatter of cups and the mess of brown tea-stains went ignored by all present, and Kari stood with a harried look and clenched fists, unable to believe the ever-calm face Korivenna went on with as she took a sip from her cup. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. ¡°I mean exactly what I say.¡± Korivenna regained her usual annoyance with people as she answered. As if in demonstration, she reached out a hand and stroked the bulbous top of her pet slime: a small, green blob of gelatin with a sparkling, star-like interior. Unlike Cas, it had no single eye, and it seemed to react simply to the touch, stars bursting brightly within it. ¡°There are many ways to kill a Sakkari,¡± she continued, reaching out for another stroke of her pet, ¡°a few simple poisons known to us apothecaries. They can be applied with a blade. The Sage even asked me about them during their last visit. Well, no matter that, I happen to know that one of the apothecaries from another village is planning to kill her. I believed you would be someone to tell.¡± Kari ¨C briefly shocked from her recent depression ¨C defaulted to her usual attitude of suspicion whenever anyone claimed to be helping her. ¡°Why warn me, though? You¡¯ve never liked Cas.¡± Korivenna answered shortly, seeming annoyed at having to explain herself. ¡°I¡¯m telling you precisely so that you can help her live. It would be¡­ difficult for me if the sage was to be killed in a way that only an apothecary could manage. Despite everything, Cas is the town hero¡­ one who¡¯s abilities have become quite indispensable, if I understand,¡± she gestured to the green ration blocks bulging out Kari¡¯s waist bag. Kari was a hardened girl however, and not one to trust easily. ¡°Cas isn¡¯t a hero right now,¡± she retorted. ¡°Everyone hates her.¡± ¡°For the moment,¡± Korivenna aquiesced. ¡°But, like her or not, she makes food. Anyone who kills her is unlikely to find friends no matter the current opinion of the public.¡± Kari squinted her eyes. ¡°Why do you want to save her, then? You can just turn in the person who actually did it.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know the exact person, just that another apothecary is involved. I doubt the apothecary in question would admit to the crime, and ¨C considering my well known opinions of that monster ¨C I would be the only suspect. Everyone knows I haven''t gotten along with that Sakkari.¡± Kari looked suspicious. ¡°See?¡± Korivenna pointed to the suspicion as a point of evidence. ¡°Even you suspect me as I help you. Whoever wants to kill her is planning to use this fact against me. She gets to kill the Sakkari, and I''ll be there to take the blame. I''d like to prevent that if possible... or at least to have a witness that can speak on my behalf.¡± Kari squinted her eyes yet further. Korivenna sounded annoyed, now. "Oh, pfooey. Come now. If I was planning to kill the Sakkari, do you honestly believe I''d want to warn you about it beforehand? How could that in any way help me? I''m simply an old woman looking for a peaceful life. I don''t like that Sakkari precisely because of the excitement she brings, and I''m far from eager to get myself involved with this mess.¡± "How do you know about this?" Kari asked. "They made the mistake of discussing it with Nemaris. I''m always going to his place to complain about his lousy leadership, and I happened to eavesdrop." Kari, despite being on flat ground, had the face of a tightrope walker precariously balancing on the edge of belief. She stared at the ground as if to steady herself, opinion wavering both ways when a familiar voice chimed in. ¡°I heard it, too,¡± Yessina said. ¡°They said that they were planning to kill her tonight, and they were going to kill Nadia, too!¡± The girl spoke nervously, as if clinging to the extra details for support. ¡°Why not me?¡± Kari asked. Yessina looked confused for a moment, nervous. Korivenna interrupted the girl sternly. "Well... in any case, I''ve said my piece. If what I¡¯m saying is true, whoever is planning to kill your Seer is probably departing as we speak.¡± As she spoke, she gestured outside, and Kari realized with a horror how quickly dusk had fallen. ¡°It might even be too late right now," the woman said with a jesting nature, ¡°at least I¡¯ll have you as an alibi.¡± The words barely registered when Kari realized she was already sprinting past the tent flaps onto the shifting dirt outside, the words ¡®too late¡¯ ringing through her head as she ventured into the night.
Moving outside of your own body was a strange feeling. Cas felt like a banana with a hundred pound peel. As she exited herself, she could feel her body changing. The small figure emerging from the gelatinous mass became a furnace of alchemical reactions, vulture bones scaffolding long wings and stabilizers and rudders until the figure of a living glider gently peeled away from the surface of the now spherical mass. Her power of flight was due more to clever shape design and a little knowledge of physics than it was magic. This also meant her flight was bound by more physical limitations. For instance, the weight limit of ten pounds she had to comply with if she ever wanted to get off the ground. This meant leaving behind one hundred and fifty pounds of herself whenever she wanted to take to the air. That store of material (she looked back at it from habit) sat as an insensate blob of material, kept from a perfectly spherical shape by the subtle influence of gravity. Otherwise, however, it was almost platonic in form, perfectly translucent and inert except for the star-expanse of glitter that filled its insides. Cas left it in such a state every night and it had never been disturbed. Should it ever have been discovered, Kari and Nadia were under instructions to say that the great Sage was simply sleeping. Who would know enough to say otherwise, after all? It was a perfectly routine thing, however... she couldn''t help feeling a bit ominous this night, as she abandoned most of her body and took to the air. That ominous feeling was quickly forgotten. The magic of flight had a way of taking your attention. The world looked quite different from the sky, and her imagination transformed it all the more. Stiff, semi-fluid wings cut through the cold night air at pace. Without a need for sleep, and lacking any distractions in a quiet village, Cas had made it a nightly habit to fly to the cavern and continue her studies. Lately, she¡¯d failed to maintain that habit. The Oasis¡¯ recent failure had wounded her and she doubted she could have focused on her cavern studies. An unexpected night gust pressed against her underbelly, and the ground grew a little bit more distant as gravity lost even more meaning. The full moon lit up the world like it was a silvery mid-day for her, stark shadows revealing all the night creatures as they sifted through the sands below. The recent ambassadorial successes with the elders had buoyed her spirits enough to pick up her old hobbies. In a way, the hardships had helped her. They had forced her to think, and that had been what allowed her to discover the tents as an idea. That would be enough to lift this village out of survival mode, and that would afford her enough time to enact her grander plans. She banked a little in the air, turning the world like it was a record disk until the village came into view. A birds¡¯ eye view was a wonderful thing. From here she could see Oasis, yes, but the altitude also allowed her to notice the features of the land invisible to all those land-dwelling creatures below. She could see the stony plain that supported the villages like a great table-top. She could see it¡¯s rifts and curves and dips and rises. She could see the contours of the great lake they¡¯d be able to create, spreading for miles out to the north where it would split off like a horseshoe as it dipped around the subtle ridge that cut through the Nemorian fields. She saw the great city that grew around it like a hive of buildings, the harbors that would be necessary to get from one end of the civilization to the other¡­It was in the future, but that future was just as real! She knew it was possible. She just needed a little bit more time! Kari especially liked night time flights for this reason. Being a Sakkari, she was colorblind with excellent night vision, and flying at night was amazing for one who¡¯s biology was suited to it. The lack of color was hardly missed, and the incredible tones of contrast as the silver moon struck across the barren landscape was unlike anything she could have ever imagined. Color? Who needs it! Her senses allowed her to see all things great and terrible, including the ominous glint of light which was rushing towards her hut. The light was a steady, static thing that Cas recognized as an object of her own creations and as an omen of bad things.
Kari felt her ragged breaths trembling her hands. She held the gelatinous sphere in hand. A firm squeeze was all it took before the miniature slime swirled in upon itself and lit up with a soft, purple light, it¡¯s glittering, star-like interior sparkling mysteriously. The bulb had been given to her to light in emergencies. Cas had assured her she would be able to see it, but holding the dimly glowing bulb in hand as she was now, Kari couldn¡¯t help feeling doubt creeping into her. She pressed the bulb to the lip of her hood, where another two squeezes caused it to stick. The border of Cas¡¯s domain was ringed by an imposing series of tents. From the distance, they looked like massive, hooded figures that quickly fell upon her as her run took her to the base of the first tent, stumbling her way forward as dirt transitioned to sand and the maze of tent walls and darkness led her on a murky path towards Cas''s hut. It was empty. The mass of her discarded body sat like a still globe of slowly swirling stars. Everything was still. Cas probably just went flying. Kari tried assuring herself, looking dangerously over at the mass of Slime that sat stupidly there felt like an ill omen. Time passed too quickly. For the third time Kari found herself meticulously combing over every instrument and specimen displayed on the various desks, tracking every item for any hint of disturbance or struggle. Nothing. This was perhaps worse than her worse fears. If she¡¯d come in the midst of an attack, if she¡¯d found the murderer with knife raised in hand, Kari would have been scared, but there would have been a certain surety in that fear. What she wallowed in now was uncertainty. that was a far less escapable terror. Still, Kari tried to escape it with a fourth overview of the room, looking through the dirt floor for tracks, checking the hanging rugs for hints of something, but there was only so much distraction one could derive from a one-room hut before disturbing thoughts returned themselves. ¡®Nadia¡¯ the name suddenly appeared in her mind. They were going to kill her, too! Kari didn¡¯t know why, but she felt suddenly more desperate and scared than ever as she sprinted out of the hut to her and Nadia¡¯s room.
PFRRRRRRRRRR! Cas¡¯s wings were stiff gelatin, a mockery of actual, solid form, and the sham revealed itself in a dive as the earth rushed up and pushed a torrent of air against her shaking and wavering wings. Cas hit the breaks just when she thought her wings could explode, banking up into a straight-line soar that ate up the miles and reeled her city of tents closer and closer. All the while she could see the dim light in the window of her hut, wavering there for a long time before suddenly sprinting out and making way towards Nadia¡¯s hut. Cas performed a slight twist of her wings, changing destinations and crashing to a halt. Ballooning her wings out like air-breaks at the last moment, she gently soared down, alighting on the windowsill just in time. The light provided by the bulb was dim, not too different from the glow-bug she¡¯d synthesized it from. To her eyes, however, the world was awash with detail, as if a spotlight illuminated every stray insect and mark in the dust. Long skid marks ran through the dirt up to Kari¡¯s sandals. Stray whisps of dust in the air revealed the simultaneous entrance. Kari had a hand on the shoulder of the sleeping figure, waddled in blankets. Her face, soaked with sweat, suddenly lit up with joy as she turned her eyes to the windowsill. ¡°Cas!¡± The girl beamed, enthusiasm tempered by a polite need to whisper. ¡°You¡¯re alive!¡± ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± Cas spoke shortly. Kari blubbered, the sudden weight of the night¡¯s anxiety shattering her thoughts into independent fragments. ¡°I¡­ I¡­ they said they had a poison, and that it was tonight. I thought you¡¯d died. They said they were going to kill Nadia, too, but not me, and they didn¡¯t know why. I spent too long at your place and I came here to make sure Nadia was safe!¡± Kari seemed to say this in a series of huffing breaths, gesturing to the still sleeping figure she knelt over, waddled in it¡¯s blanket on the floor, and Cas took this all in with a stern silence that didn¡¯t allow her to interrupt. Her body froze while her mind, with the energy of panic, picked through the torrent of information that ¨C despite Kari¡¯s frenzy ¨C seemed to be coming too slowly. Still, despite the frenzy of the moment, all the details were immaculately clear to Cas, so that it became immediately obvious which fact didn¡¯t fit in with the others. ¡°Kari,¡± Cas said, rooting herself to the sill. She dissolved her wings to make a set of vocal chords to speak through, her sleek body ballooning out to make space for the lungs, ¡°It doesn¡¯t make sense.¡± Kari lost some of her mirth. ¡°What?¡± Cas spoke quickly, a state of shock urging her, though the words seemed slow to form to her frenetic mind. ¡°Nadia went to spend the night with her mother. I saw her leave. She shouldn¡¯t be here in the first place.¡± The figure swaddled in the blankets shifted at this, moving like a bandit who¡¯s sure motions were hindered only by the gleaming dagger in their left hand. Chapter 31: How to tell Everything happened all at once, but panic spurred Cas¡¯s mind to multitask. The result of these two competing forces was a reality that seemed to stutter forward with flashing detail. Already the figure had floated up into a crouch, sandaled foot slipping into place beside a planted hand. Kari was pushed aside by the rising motion, as well as a prelude of panic that was beginning to play out across her face. The rising figure was a mystery, dressed in an undecorated shawl, with a hood wrapped tightly so that only glaring eyes were evident. What caught her attention most, however, was the knife, a glossy, ceramic blade, polished smooth that it glinted in the moonlight. It was obviously not a specialty weapon. It was a thickly bolstered, utilitarian thing Cas had seen in every kitchen and dinner mat since she¡¯d arrived in the village. Running in parallel lines across its flat were the characteristic red bands that marked all the pottery produced in the villager. Though, this consumer grade hardly encumbered the figure, as they pointed the blade forward like it was a rapier, rear foot braced against the back wall in preparation for a lunge. Cas was the obvious target of this attack. She understood, of course, that she had nothing to fear from any blade, but instincts of self preservation ran through her like hives. Trained reactions took over, and she called upon her aura. The first three steps were completed in record time, and as she came to the final preparations to mold her aura a sudden, steely resolve overcame her as she centered herself and realized ¨C with certainty ¨C that she was too late. She might have considered screaming, but the attacker was too quick for her merely human reactions, and seemed ¨C after a subtle tensing of their back foot ¨C to blur through the intervening space as they fell upon her. Cas had dissolved her wings to make space for vocal chords, dodging was hardly a viable option against the super-human, even if she weren¡¯t rooted to the windowsill. Funny, in the end her speech didn¡¯t even end up mattering, the hunter had moved before she could get a word out. Kari, however, had preempted the attacker. Cas only registered this fortunate fact after the blade had been knocked aside, a painful image of the attacker¡¯s outstretched arm over-flexing was burned into her memory after the fact. Kari¡­ yes, it had been Kari that rammed herself into the elbow. A scuffle ensued on the dirt as the surprisingly strong girl wrestled with the hooded figure. Cas¡¯s crystal flicked up to follow the arcing path of the blade which was currently flipping through the air. Kari had the upper hand for only a second, but was quickly over matched. A strong shove pushed the earth out from underneath her, and the girl barely managed to convert the energy of that fall into a teetering stand, uncoordinated hands windmilling outwards. The blade began to fall as the attacker leapt up into a rise. ¡°Behind you!¡± Cas could hear herself yelling, though she hardly remembered trying to speak. Kari, still falling into her stand, arms outstretched, bounced her hand against the handle of the blade, catching it on the second glance. The attacker¡¯s eyes were more visible now through their mussed showl. Fear was in those eyes. They struck their hand out to bite Kari¡¯s wrist, the blade nearly falling from Kari¡¯s twisted hand, pointing dangerously back at Kari¡¯s throat. Kari screamed. ¡°Stop!¡± Cas felt that person less voice speak from her mouth again. And then, the strangest thing. The hang grasping Kari¡¯s wrist let go. It reached for the blade, grasping a bleeding palm onto the edge, trying to pull it away with some desperate frenzy. Her other hand took it¡¯s place on Kari¡¯s chest, an attack riddled with unusual hesitancy. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. Kari saw the blood on the blade, and panic burst out from the girl. Kari¡¯s body moved in uncoordinated instinct. Fear filled her eyes and turned her limbs to jello, and every instinct conspired to simply move the knife in one direction: away. Her legs planted, and her arms pushed forward, doing anything possible to drive the blade away from her frozen body. The knife slid easily past the attacker¡¯s fingers and into the base of their throat. ¡­ The sound of was something deflationary and gurgling, like the noise of someone drowning in their own blood. Cas, still rooted to her place on the windowsill, forced herself to look down. A sudden rawness fell over her whole being, like every nerve had become suddenly exposed to the open air. The world felt suddenly too quiet, the desert winds not loud enough to cover over the intensity of the feeling that Cas just couldn¡¯t describe. Why? It was bad enough to kill, but why did it have to be her? Why did it have to be- ¡°Yessina?¡± Kari¡¯s voice was soft and disbelieving. A soft thud as the knife slipped from her fingers. ¡°Yessina!¡± A fearful, screeching voice tore itself from the girl¡¯s throat as she collapsed beside the fallen figure, scrunching bloodstained fabric between her fingers and looking down at the blank, wide-eyed expression of her sister. Yessina¡¯s white face was ringed by red fabric, a slowly expanding, red stain pouring out from beneath her chin. Cas quickly dissolved her vocal chords, spreading herself out into a creature with multiple limbs before climbing down the wall towards the fallen sister. Once there, she reached out four stalks, running them onto the girls face, and under the girl¡¯s clothes and plastering over her wound and pressing against the artery that ran up the side of her neck. Once there, she sat and observed. The stalk probing her wound quickly turned transparent, quickly clearing itself of all blood and non-sterile materials before detaching its tip, plastering a sticky piece of itself over the wound like a pressure bandage. The others limbs simply waited in silent tension, waiting and watching as Kari let out a sudden and wordless scream, pressing her face into the bloodied bust and hugging her arms softly around the torso that was no longer breathing as heavily. Cas had to sacrifice her vocal chords to grow the extra limbs. Turning mute seemed a worthwhile trade for the extra ability. However, the truth of the matter was that Cas was glad for the inability because she didn¡¯t know what to say. She didn¡¯t know how she could tell Kari that her sister had died.
The glow-light attached to Kari¡¯s hood mixed ominously with the moonlight, and it reflected hazily off the stiffening pools of blood that had yet to soak into cloth or dirt. It cast sharp, upward bound shadows off hersister¡¯sfrozen face. It was never how she remembered it. She buried her face in the bloodstained clothes, trying to get close to the warmth of her body, almost losing herself when a sudden noise drew her attention away. Korivenna was the culprit, and she stood at the door way, looking at the sight with a shock that was only surpassed by the fearful expression of the woman standing next to her. Both of their faces were strange somehow¡­ No, the expressions were natural, but their point of their attention was wrong. Her sister was down here, why were they looking up¡­ Kari followed their gaze. Cas¡¯s strange blood red, gangly form towered still over the scene below her, a bloody one with a dead girl and the other crying. At first, Kari was glad for the intruders. She was glad for anyone who she could ask to explain all of this, she was glad for only a second, as a gleaming smirk ran itself across Korivenna¡¯s features and a horrified one on her companion¡¯s face. The woman screamed, and Korivenna turned back, yelling: ¡°Here! I¡¯ve found the monster! Hurry, please!¡± ¡°It¡¯s killed her! Goddess it¡¯s killed her!¡± The woman fell almost to her knees, body shaking in place as her instincts to run warred with her duty to stay. Kari didn¡¯t hear the rest. She¡¯d already run out into the maze of tents, breath heavy as she dodged the sounds of the crowd that had gathered, turning right whenever she heard a group of searching villagers to the left, and soon finding herself at the edge of the compound. Here, Kari stood with a confused expression, hot breaths mixing with the cold winds that felt frozen against the patch of blood staining the front of her shawl. She looked around her. Behind was a mass of villagers¡­ she could hear their outraged cries already, the left the village of buildings where she¡¯d never been welcome stood uninviting, and all around her was an endless expanse of empty desert. Chapter 32: Find Korivenna was of the opinion: that to be born was the unluckiest fate any creature could suffer. She drew this conclusion from personal experience, for hers had been a bad life. Perhaps the next worst thing, however, was to come back to life. Yessina was a static picture of beauty, face frozen in a stiff rendition of shock, skin cold as the night air and a heart that seemed to beat with all the stealth and careful timidity of a hatching spider. A dead body was the thing sprawled out on the rug before Korivenna, or at least a perfect imitation of one. Haggard fingers sprinkled the antidote onto the girl¡¯s tongue. Korivenna¡¯s hands lit up with heat, and she hovered the appendage over the paralyzed girl¡¯s stiff body, plucking at the chords of life which lay dormant, suppressed within the girl as one drug counteracted another. ¡°Huhhhhh!¡± Yessina¡¯s chest heaved and ¨C like a dead puppet with a taught string in her chest ¨C the girl arched her back, eyes coming to life at the apex of her rise before everything went slack again and she fell back onto the mat. ¡°Ugugh! Guh!¡± Sputter coughs ran hoarse through the dried blood coating the girl¡¯s throat. Stiff muscles and cold limbs prevented her from doing much more. Korivenna continued her work, flying warm hands over the girl and prodding her body to come alive. The process undoubtedly took a toll, and to tell by the hastily patched hole in her throat, as well as the tears welling in her silent eyes, the girl had come uncomfortably close to dying in truth. Korivenna had never seen the girl cry before; the sight made the silence unbearable to the woman; she decided to disperse it with a story. Korivenna was out of practice with speaking, and entertainement was something she¡¯d always despised, so she decided that a true story would have to do. She lowered her hand over the girl¡¯s thighs now, stoking the muscles back to life as she spoke. ¡°You know, I was nearly twice your age when I found out I was an Unari. Infertility is the kind of defect it takes time to discover.¡± Yessina¡¯s eyes widned, and the new information seemed to distract the girl from her tears as she slowly turned her head to face towards the source of the new information. Korivenna continued, ¡°Oh, I was too old to garner any sympathy at that age. It wasn¡¯t like it is with you younger sprouts. Hardly anyone showed up to my going away ceremony. My parents were too ashamed and my betrothed had all but disowned me at that point. So, it was just the elder ¨C Potamin, he was called -- that watched as I walked off into the desert.¡± Yessina was trying to say something. Undoubtedly it was something painfully treacly to tell by the word ¡®sorry¡¯ forming on her lips. Korivenna interrupted her before she got the chance. ¡°I was scared, you know. Most Unari know what they are before it happens, but, for me, it was just the most horrible of surprises. I¡¯d already made so many commitments. I¡¯d already fallen in love. Honestly, it¡¯s funny to say now, but I didn¡¯t even know how to die. The only reason I kept walking into the desert was because the sand was too hot to stand still in¡­ I suppose that¡¯s the reason they hold the ceremony at mid-day,¡± Korivenna observed absentmindedly. She was rambling, now, she realized, and her hands were trailing over the same places. ¡°Well¡­ anyway, the goddess must have heard my prayers, because I discovered my affinity for fire that day; it was a powerful affinity, too,¡± she punctuated the point with a new burst of heat from her hands. ¡°The apothecary at the time was getting old, and no useful prospects were forthcoming. Naturally, this afforded me a pardon to train under that old bag, and¡­ I got to live.¡± Yessina was able to sit up now, though she remained silent and Korivenna obliged the silent request for her to go on. ¡°Well¡­ it hasn¡¯t been a good life. I live like a jackal out here, starving on minimal rations unless the villlagers need a medicine. Oh, yes, then they get generous with the offerings.¡± The words held a bitter flavor on her tongue as she spat them. ¡°But¡­ it¡¯s been a life.¡± Yessina, fully mobile at this point, had scooted over to the opposite side of the rug, sitting cross legged and looking intently over at the apothecary. ¡°Oh, I suppose you¡¯re curious now about that plan I concocted?¡± Yessina¡¯s face was plain, but her eager nods got the message across. Korivenna was in a good enough mood to tell it. The first thing she did, however, was to stand up, leave the tent, and to walk the full perimiter of her tent. It was an extreme measure to protect against potential listeners in, but a warranted one. Korivenna wasn¡¯t eager to have her plans ruined by something so juvenile as eavesdropping. ¡°Well, tell me, have you heard the story of Gingernal? I suppose you probably have. Goodness knows that vagabond Sin trumpets it to any child that will listen every chance he gets.¡± Yessina, hesitantly, nodded in the affirmative, as if knowing that ¨C by that admission ¨C she¡¯d be admitting to sitting in on those stories when she should have been at work. Korivenna, however, was in a good mood, and declined to scold the girl. ¡°Well¡­ then, go on. Tell me, do you remember how gingernal defeated the monster in the end?¡± ¡°Uhm¡­ he tricked it?¡± Yessina said. Koriveena shot a dissapointed look. ¡°More specifically, he killed the monster by feigning sleep.¡± ¡°Feigning?¡± the girl cocked her head, not understanding the word. ¡°Idiot,¡± the woman mocked, quickly losing her good humor, "It means pretending. And that¡¯s what you did just did for me.¡± Quickly shedding her bad humor, Korivenna went onto business. ¡°You know what to say if anyone ever asks you what happened, don¡¯t you?¡± Yessina nodded. ¡°Uhm¡­ I¡¯m going to say that the Sage attacked me.¡± ¡°Yes, wonderful!¡± Korivenna chirped. ¡°To be honest, I didn¡¯t expect things to go as well as they had. Feel free to include the little detail about how she stabbed you in the throat.¡± Yessina barely registered the new information, however, folded leg shaking in a familiar tell of anticipation. Korivenna was, by now, familiar enough with all the girl¡¯s cues to know this was her way of keeping herself from speaking out of turn. ¡°What is it?¡± Korivena sighed. ¡°Uhm¡­ It¡¯s just. Is my sister going to be ok? You promised that she wouldn¡¯t be hurt even if Nadia and the Sage were!¡± The girl looked meek The perpetual scowl Korivenna¡¯s face took grew more heated at this. ¡°Is all you can do demand more of me?¡± Yessina looked away, at this, abashed. ¡°Your sister was going to go along with that sage to turn you in for stealing that food. I save your miserable life and you still think to take more?¡± This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Korivenna had a peculiarly calm way of chastising. It was hard to tell when she had dropped a point unless one paid attention to the way her voice pitched lower into dissapointment. ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter,¡± she sighed. ¡°Your sister is alive. Nothing will happen to her unless she proceeds to do something unthinkably stupid.¡±
The wonderful thing about an Aura: it multiplied the capabilities of the body immensely. If one was adept at twisting their aura into useful shapes, they could go beyond the body entirely, and develop capabilities that their body alone couldn¡¯t have justified. One manifestation of this ¡®aura shaping¡¯ was magic, that required an affinity and training to develop. Very few had the good luck to have an affinity strong enough to be worth training. However, it is a lucky coincidence that every human soul had ¨C inherent to it ¨C a shape more complicated and much more refined than even the greatest magicians could muster to create. This ¡®shape of the soul¡¯ was ¨C quite disappointingly ¨C given the pedestrian name of ¡®skill¡¯. Everyone who lived long enough discovered theirs eventually. Most skills were the common sort: extra sensory perception, enhanced strength, iron body¡­ the things you might see ten times in every village. However, sometimes a person was born with a rare and unique skill. Whenever such a novel talent was discovered, it was usually a moment of celebration. Familiarity bred contempt, after all, and novelty was wont to draw unwarranted praise. Kari, when she discovered her skill, had been an Unari. Naturally, she didn¡¯t bother to announce her skill. Who could have possibly cared, after all? That was fine, though. Her skill was something best kept secret anyway. [Skill : Shroud of spirits.] [Attention will slip away from the user when this skill is activated. The shroud also counteracts sensory abilities.] Kari couldn¡¯t read, and so her stat sheet was something a bit more literal. She could always feel it there, hanging like a shroud which she could pull over herself, and whenever she did so it ran over her like a cold sheet, shivers running up her back as the earth fell silent and the winds started howling like spirits. She was used to such shocks. Perhaps that was what allowed her to keep her calm as she peeked through a slit in the tent flaps, hearing with baited breath everything Korivenna had just revealed and struggling to process it all. In fact, she was still struggling to understand even as she sprinted over the dark sands, running on instinct until she suddenly found herself in the village square, rounding the corner onto the mob. Kari skidded to a halt, calling the sheet of spirits over herself and just barely managing to hide in the firelight. The village square had been fractured into fronts. One one side, what seemed to be the entirety of the village had formed a battle line behind their representative. Cas could feel the heat of so many bodies packed together. She could see their hatred. Nemaris alone consisted the opposite front, staring down the entire mass. The representative spoke, a terse impatience in his voice. ¡°We¡¯ve surrounded the compound, and the Sage is nowhere to be seen. We suggest looking for the Unari.¡± ¡°Why?¡± Nemaris asked. The plainness of the question seemed to cow the temper of the audience somewhat. Stuttering, the representative answered. ¡°Because they will be easier to find. The sage is gone! Who knows where she¡¯s escaped to!¡± Nemaris scowled a bit, speaking louder, now not losing an inch of control in his stony voice. ¡°Why should we care to find them?¡± ¡°Because they associated themselves with that demon! That murderer!¡± The man¡¯s words carried on a shower of spittle, pulling his body into a forward lean that stopped with surprise at Nemaris'' answer. ¡°So?¡± ¡°So!?¡± The representative asked, incredulous. ¡°So we have to do something about this?¡± ¡°And what are we going to do, exactly?¡± The representative grew truly stumped at this, his anger the only thing finding expression in words as he spoke: ¡°We¡­ we¡­¡± ¡°You¡¯re planning to kill them, and you¡¯re trying to pass off this wanton murder as justice,¡± Nemaris finished for him. ¡°You¡¯ve always been the stupid sort, Leto, but I never thought you¡¯d forget such a basic law.¡± ¡°What law!?¡± The representative spat. ¡°Those Unari should have been sent out to the desert, yet they stay and associated with a murderer; they must have helped her escape, too. I don¡¯t see what¡¯s wrong with giving them what they deserve.¡± Nemaris maintained himself, breaking his composure to emphasize one word. ¡°The law states that Unari are not to be touched or interacted with. That, in fact, is the reason they are driven out into the desert. As regards their crime of associating with that monster, I only have one thing to say¡­ where did you get that food?¡± Nemaris pointed at a random man in the crowd, his bag bulging with the characteristically odd angles that Cas¡¯s food blocks produced. The man looked away, ashamed. ¡°And you, where did you get such fine cloth for your dress?¡± He pointed again at the leader, and the almost bleached purity of his over-shawl. The representative looked down at himself, eye twitching into silence. ¡°I think my point stands. We were all of us fooled into engaging with that monster.¡± The representative, twitching in place, couldn¡¯t help himself. ¡°They¡¯re just Unari,¡± he muttered. Nemaris latched onto that. Normally, he would have been kind enough to let a defeated opponent get their last word in, but this lunacy was something he had to stamp out. ¡°Excuse me?¡± He stopped his own speech, lazing dismissive eyes over at the representative. ¡°¡¯They¡¯re just Unari,¡¯ you say? If that¡¯s the case, then you should remember that poor Yessina was also just an Unari. I suppose that means the Sage isn¡¯t guilty of anything too terrible? Perhaps we ought to welcome them back after such a forgivable mistake?¡± Nemaris stepped forward and continued, increasing his volume until he was outright yelling in a berating tone. ¡°So, let me be clear. Those Unari are not the perpetrators, anymore than you or I were! Anyone who dares to touch them, I will charge with murder and I will personally execute anyone so charged!¡± He said this with a particular intensity, almost barking the words. The crowd fell silent, voices dying like crackling embers. ¡°Is that all?¡± he yelled, looking about for any one else who might challenge him. No one stepped forward. ¡°Good! Now we can stop wasting time with this. Spread out and find that monster!¡± The crowd, whether out of genuine excitement or perhaps relief at his waning anger, let out a united cheer and spread out, spreading out like a meticulous wave to search throughout the village and the surrounding desert. Only Kari knew where to find her. Chapter 33: Running Away Thin shadows crawled like vines across the Oasis grounds, camouflaging the roots that textured the dirt like spider-webs.. Kari trekked softly over this weave, occasionally mistaking a root for a shadow; and it was just as she was stumbling over a particularly sudden tangle of roots that she spotted Cas. Cas was perched atop a particularly delicate lower branch which bent painfully under the force of her weight. She sat directly in the moonlight, her crystal eye flashing like a silver star whenever it moved. Presently, it wasn¡¯t flashing, however. A constant glow declared its attention as she stared down at Kari. ¡°Cas!¡± Kari whispered up at the bird, taking several more steps before stumbling again, just barely missing the line of glowing bodies that had been circled around the base of the tree. Looking closer, Kari could make out five sakkari clones placed there. Underneath the tangle of shadows, it was hard to make out any details, but Kari could tell that each clone was small, barely reaching up to her knees, and all of them were had the tell-tale constellation of stars that shone patchily with reflected moonlight. Kari had no time for them. She looked up to the bending branch. She spoke familiar words with a breathless, almost comedic tone. ¡°Cas! I¡¯ve been eavesdropping again. Yessina''s still alive! Korivenna was just using her death to cause panic. If we could just prove they planned it, we can clear our names and...¡± ¡°And then what?¡± Cas had dissolved her wings. By now she looked more like a ball of moving organs sticking onto the branch with makeshift legs. Despite such investments, she spoke with a quiet, mousey voice, one that strained to be heard. Inside her body, makeshift vocal chords and bellowing air-sacks inside moved in time with her every proclamation. ¡°We can all tell the truth,¡± Kari almost bounced as she answered. ¡°Between you, me, and my sister, we¡¯ll all be able to speak out against her. No one likes that bat, anyway! Everyone¡¯s always suspicious of her, and everyone knows she hates you. She even told me that!¡± Cas answered with a dejected note. ¡°And who¡¯s to say your sister would help us?¡± ¡°What are you saying!?¡± Kari, at this point, was growing increasingly frustrated by Cas¡¯s refusal to accept hope. ¡°I¡¯m saying I know all about Korivenna¡¯s plan, Kari,¡± Cas answered. ¡°I had the same idea as you. I flew over to her hut after I hid the rest of my body here.¡± ¡°So you know everything, then!¡± ¡°I know your sister will do whatever Korivenna tells her to,¡± Cas replied sadly. ¡°She¡¯s willing to steal food for her, she¡¯s willing to kill for her, and she¡¯s willing to die for that woman¡­ I know you care for her, but... Korivenna¡¯s done something. I don¡¯t think she¡¯d hesitate to take the blame for all this. ¡°She wouldn¡¯t!¡± Kari fired back. ¡°She was living with that woman alone for years. I¡­ It¡¯s my fault. I left her alone because I didn¡¯t think she¡¯d need me. But I know now! I just have to tell her I forgive her, and that we weren¡¯t ever going to turn her in, and I know she¡¯ll work with us, Cas. I just know!¡± Cas moved her eye to look back down at Kari. ¡°You care a lot about your sister, don¡¯t you?¡± ¡°I love her,¡± Kari answered, looking surprised at the words she¡¯d chosen. ¡°I¡­¡± Cas paused for another long moment, as if struggling to put her ideas to words. ¡°I think, that¡¯s exactly what Korivenna was counting on.¡± ¡°So?¡± Kari was kept from stamping her feet only by the unfavorable terrain; her scrunched brows and teary eyes expressed all the hopeless frustration of a girl trying to convince someone of the obvious, of a girl trying to convince someone to just fix everything already. Cas felt like Kari looked. Though her current form wouldn¡¯t allow her to show it, her voice shook in unexpected ways as she explained her reasoning. ¡°I mean,¡° Korivenna¡¯s using your sister as a shield. She...¡± Cas tried to put it delicately. ¡°We have no way of revealing Korivenna¡¯s plans without your sister getting into bigger trouble.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not Yessina¡¯s fault!¡± ¡°I know,¡± Cas appeased. ¡°Even so. Yessina was the one who came into Nadia¡¯s hut with a dagger. Nemaris was clear about the laws for murder, wasn¡¯t he? Are the laws for attempted murder any lighter?¡± Kari looked down. ¡°What are you going to do then?¡± she asked, a hopeless note in her voice. It was funny. Cas had learned this language, for the most part, by speaking with Kari. In fact, Kari had taught her most of the words she was using; so, it was just funny that their final conversation would end with words that Cas had introduced to the girl. ¡°I¡¯m going to run away, Kari.¡± Kari¡¯s face turned up, a look of disbelief around it. Cas didn¡¯t bother to explain herself further. Wrapping two vine-like legs around her branch, rappelled down on rubber-band limbs. Letting go once she was close enough, the branch sprung up with a bushy sound. She landed, perching atop the largest of the slimes. ¡°I made these clones to do everything I can,¡± she explained. ¡°This one can make food from Korren stalks and Nakari Roots.¡± She stretched a stalk to her left, touching the clone there. ¡°This one can purify water from human waste and makes the rest into fertilizer. The one in the middle makes medicinal herbs. That one makes fire powder. And this one,¡± Cas was on the ground now, pointing to the smallest of five clones, ¡°that one¡¯s for makeup.¡± She let out a hollow chuckle at this. ¡°Let Tami know that she¡¯s welcome.¡± Kari, still in disbelief, wasn¡¯t in a mood to partake. ¡°Where will you go?¡± Cas, finding herself unable to answer, stuck to the script. ¡°I¡¯ve split up my body to make these clones,¡± she said. ¡°They should grow by themselves as long as you feed them.¡± Cas let out a sad chortle. ¡°I don¡¯t really need them. They¡¯d only weigh me down, anyway. I¡¯ve got a weight limit when I need to fly, and¡­ with this body,¡± she gestured to her diminutive form, ¡°I can fly anywhere I need to.¡± ¡°Where will you fly to?¡± Kari asked again. An awkward moment of consideration passed before Cas answered. ¡°Kari¡­ I heard what Nemaris was saying when I flew over here. You and all the other Unari aren¡¯t going to be blamed for this. It¡¯s just me that¡¯s in trouble.¡± Cas tried, like every adult, to make the situation sound better than it was. Kari, like every child, was quick to address the heart of the matter. Still in disbelief, she asked. ¡°Where will you go?¡± Cas, no longer able to avoid answering, admitted. ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± She dragged her gaze through the dirt, trying to find courage in it. ¡°I¡¯m going to look for other people. I¡¯m going to get stronger.¡± Kari with a shivering voice, ¡°and you¡¯re not going to take me with you?¡± ¡°I can¡¯t Kari.¡± Cas flapped her diminutive stalks into a hopeless shrug. ¡®Why are you doing this?¡¯ ¡®Why can¡¯t you take me?¡¯ ¡®What does that have to do with this?¡¯ Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! ¡®Didn¡¯t you want to save the Oasis?¡¯ ¡®Do you love your sister?¡¯ Those were all the difficult questions Kari could have asked. Those were the questions Cas wished Kari would ask. She had logical answers for all of them, and she was desperate to explain herself in a way that was immune to criticism. Kari, despite the pressure that had hardened her, was still a child however. The shiver in her voice collapsed into sobs, and she took a deep, desperate breath like a drowning person, trying to steady herself as she hid her face behind her hands. Cas formed her stalks back into wings, gliding back up to her branch. From up here, she could see the burning pyres that had been made out of her tents and dreams. She could see the people dancing around the flames. Kari, by now, was able to hide her sobs more convincingly, though she still hid her face behind open hands. Cas in her flight form, now, was mostly wing, her torso a sleek tear-drop shape with not much space in it. By neccesity, her bellows and vocal chords had shrunk until they were barely capable of speaking in whispers. Cas was thankful for that. She didn¡¯t have the confidence to put any more volume to her words. ¡°It¡¯s not going to be too bad,¡± she assured Kari. ¡°The clones are still able to make food, and that should hold the village over enough for a couple of years. I should have a better solution for the Oasis by then.¡± Kari simply turned away from her voice, shoulders shuddering. ¡°Kari¡­ I just don¡¯t think I¡¯m good for this place.¡± Another burst of flame and heat as the final tents were thrown onto the pyre, ash and flaming cloth flying up like golden birds. ¡°I¡­ think I should have gone a long time ago.¡± A sudden rush of jubilant noise suddenly broke over the midnight silence; a flare of orange light burst into life, scattering chaotic shadows through the trees. The last of her tents were burning, now. Most of the people stayed, though some were quickly approaching the Oasis with searching eyes. She would have to leave soon. Cas could feel justifications clawing at her throat to escape. She wanted so badly to tell the girl that her presence wasn¡¯t really needed here, that the tents were something the villagers themselves could set up, and that her other research wasn¡¯t going to bear fruit for several years anyway. But, none of that seemed important to say. It wasn¡¯t important to say. Kari was being left alone by her only friend, and tents and water were secondary to that bare fact. So, Cas saved the diplomatic words and kept things to the only relevancy. ¡°I¡¯m going to come back,¡± she said. Kari looked up a little hopefully at that, but obviously not hopeful enough to start speaking again. ¡°I promise to come back,¡± Cas reiterated, feeling the words bolster her a bit. ¡°I can fly, remember? I can¡¯t go anywhere I couldn¡¯t return from, and I promise to have a way to fix the Oasis when I do, and I promise we¡¯ll be together afterwards.¡± Kari almost dared to look happy again¡­ almost. But then her expression collapsed before it could fully rise, as if unable to bear the memories of a dozen other broken promises. A rustling disturbed the nearby bushes. ¡°I think I see something,¡± a strange voice said. Cas left on silent wings. And the Oasis shrunk into the distance, and she hovered just long enough to make sure Kari would be safe. As soon as Kari¡¯s safety was ascertained, however, Cas left on quick wingbeats, dissolving her vocal chords with a violent expression. She didn¡¯t want any human body parts for the moment, they allowed her to feel her emotions too strongly.
Korivenna was the hero of the hour. She had been proven right about that monster, she had saved the girl everyone thought dead, and, to top it all off, she was suddenly very necessary again ¨C now that that monster wasn¡¯t here to make everyone¡¯s medicine on a whim. Granted, that last reason may have been the greater cause of her recent happiness, and Nemaris, the crafty fool, was quicker to notice than she¡¯d suspected him capable. In fact, he was quite open with his accusation. ¡°So¡­ now that the sage is gone, I take it you won¡¯t be needing Yessina to steal food for you anymore?¡± Korivenna froze. ¡°I-¡± Nemaris was the only other person in the hut. Korivenna looked in any direction except his. ¡°No need to deny it,¡± he said simply. ¡°You know my skill lets me know these things. What it doesn¡¯t tell me is why you¡¯ve been so happy ever since Yessina almost died. I would¡¯ve expected you to be more worried.¡± Korivenna almost laughed. ¡°Caring for her hasn¡¯t been a strong suit of mine. Besides¡­ her injury, while serious, was something I was confident I could handle.¡± ¡°Hmm¡­¡± Nemaris took a sip of his tea. ¡°I take it you¡¯re happier that Cas is gone, now, though.¡± Korivenna twitched an eye. The crafty fool was less foolish than she thought. Of course, his skill was worth more for its reputation than its ability, and Korivenna knew how to get past it well enough. It would just require telling the truth, is all. ¡°Are you saying I should be sad that monster is getting what it deserves?¡± she said, masking her natural defensiveness with an innocuous reason. ¡°I¡¯m saying a normal person shouldn¡¯t be happy about the situation. It was a terrible event, and it was a great loss for the village otherwise. That sakkari was creating medicines in days that would take you weeks to make. More importantly, she was able to make us food!¡± Despite his intensity, Nemaris had a way of making accusations subtly. That, along with his skill was enough to break most people into telling the whole truth. Korivenna, however, was no such fool. She knew the difference between vital secrets and relevant ones, and right now she chose to tell the vital. The truth was, Korivenna didn¡¯t hate the Sakkari. At least, she didn¡¯t hate the sakkari enough to frame her. No, the reason for her actions was almost too simple. That reason was food. Korivenna had lived a bad life, yes, but even the worst lives required sustenance. She was an outcast by profession, and an unari on top of that. It had been decided, early on in her career, that she would have to subsist on half rations. Anything more would have been an ¡®insult to the community¡¯. Pah! Still, an apothecary had enough power to bargain for more. People in need of medicine were happy to accommodate her when she needed extra rations. At least, they had been until that monster showed up. Of course, Korivenna recognized the wrong in her actions. She had framed someone. She had lied. She had lost the village a source of food and hope. But, all of that was unimportant in the face of the realization that, in all honestly¡­ she didn¡¯t care about the village, not one bit. That had been a surprising revelation even to her. All her life she¡¯d lived without thinking much about the matter. However, when the first hungry night had set in, as well as the paranoid fears when Yessina had been caught stealing, Korivenna realized just how little she cared about the torments which bound her to this village. That was the whole truth of the matter, and Korivenna saw a thousand ways to tell that story which would satisfy Nemaris¡¯ skill while still keeping her innocent in his eyes. The voice in the rafters, however, had a different plan. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t think Korivenna would be too dissapointed,¡± the voice said. ¡°She was the one that framed me, after all.¡± Nemaris shifted his eyes up, though Cas¡¯s voice seemed to come from everywhere. ¡°Lies-¡± Korivenna began, but a surprisingly powerful rendition of the Sage¡¯s voice blotted her out. ¡°I¡¯m not here to argue. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve realized by now that you¡¯ve failed to catch me, and I¡¯ll be getting out of your hair soon, if that makes you happy.¡± Nemaris, hopped up into a stand, now, was looking about suspiciously, and sparing only a quick angry glance over at Korivenna. ¡°You!?¡± ¡°It lies!¡± Korivenna repeated. ¡°You¡¯ve seen what state she left Yessina in.¡± Cas voice was cool, however. ¡°As I said, I¡¯m not here to argue. I¡¯ve simply come to tell you that I¡¯m leaving several clones behind. They¡¯ll be able to make food and medicine in my stead. Feel free to come up with whatever story will satisfy the villagers if you want to keep them, Nemaris.¡± Nemaris still stalked around the edges of the hut, looking about with alert eyes. ¡°I suppose I should thank you for this?¡± he asked. ¡°No need,¡± Cas replied, speaking with an inhumanly emotionless tone, one which sounded more like an echo of a voice than the real thing. ¡°I¡¯ve simply come to warn you that I made the clones so that they see Kari as their master. They will be useless unless Kari administers instructions to them. I suggest you keep her happy if you want anything out of them. Good bye.¡± Cas¡¯s voice extinguished itself, and the hut was left in a sudden burst of searching motion. Cas was glad to be leaving. Still, she couldn¡¯t help turning her eye back. Nemaris and Korivenna had scattered out of the hut with astounded looks, searching every stray rock and loose piece of thatch. They looked everywhere except up. Several powerful wingbeats took Cas past the borders of the village, past the Oasis, and soaring high above the desert sands which waved like a frozen ocean beneath her. She was stuck in an intensity of strange emotion that made time seem meaningless. She honestly couldn¡¯t have said how long it took until the spire suddenly towered over her, forcing a quick change in trajectory before she splattered into it. Still, she did arrive at that spire, however, and spiraling down it like a screw, she quickly dove into that cove where everything had started for her. And, strangely enough, it felt a bit like home. Book 2: Chapter 34: Going home. Book 2: Ember Regalia You can never go home again. That was the adage, wasn¡¯t it? Cas had never put it to the test. In her previous life, she left for college at an early age and never looked back. Independence had been intoxicating, and, life had been too demanding for her to schedule homecomings. Mom had called that an excuse, and maybe that was true, but still: Cas never went back. As a result, she¡¯d never had to face the fact that things could change so much. She¡¯d taken it for granted that, even if you did go back to your previous home, nothing remained of the memories that made it so. Consequently, the changes to the cavern were quite harrowing for the young slime. It had been the tail end of winter when Cas left the village. Spring was coming into full force, now. And, as the sun rolled over the horizon, Cas had to option but to accept that the cave was dead, and she¡¯d killed it. The slimes that were blocked from going into the Oasis had been leaking out into the cave. So, once Cas fixed the block and allowed the slimes to go back to the Oasis, they naturally stopped coming to the cave. Slimes were a source of water in this desert, transporting it from underground caverns to the surface. Without them, the Cave no longer had a source of that life giving substance¡­ and it showed. It was hard to get used to. Every time she left the cave for any reason, Cas remembered it as being so ¡®alive¡¯, painted with slimy algae and verdant grasses. And only barren rock or mats of dried plant matter greeted her when she returned. There wasn¡¯t even enough moisture to create dew anymore, a fact that Cas processed with a reproving posture. It was strange, the things one missed. The ant empire, her old enemy, was a shadow of its former self. Occasionally, roving bands of six or eight ants scavenged the surface for dried seeds, but otherwise the colony was a dormant hill of silence. With the plants gone, the tapestry of insects that buzzed into the air come spring were missing, too. Cas, therefore, was afforded little in the way of distraction. And with boredom setting in, she was soon forced into action. The cave was quickly turned into a home-gym, otherwise known as a ¡®cave¡¯ by Cas¡¯s more athletically inclined friends back on Earth, and Cas worked on her stats. Shape change had plateaued at level 14 months ago, and Alchemy wasn¡¯t far behind. So, seeing no easy way to improve that trend, Cas focused on the lower leveled and also far cooler ¡®Aura¡¯ skill. The training was fairly simplee. It consisted of going through the three steps: focusing herself, finding her center, holding her aura, and then trying to do something with it afterwards. Of course, ¡®doing¡¯ something with aura was itself a five step program, and it was often the case that her efforts spluttered away before she could complete a simple motion. Still, she practiced and practiced and, as Sin had put it, kept ¡®honing the blade¡¯. Eventually she got used to the process, and was left able to pay more attention to the subtler aspects of the art. It turned out that shaping Aura was a surprisingly peaceful process. It required a level of tizzy introspection Cas had never found reason to develop during her human life. It was exciting and calming all at once, and it left her feeling a warm, giddy feeling. But it was more than that, too. If she had to put words to it, Cas would say: the feeling reminded her of Christmas eve ¨C you know, that feeling when you¡¯d drunk too much hot-chocolate and were waddled up in blankets, watching snowflakes drift outside and feeling absolutely certain that you could never fall asleep with so much sugar and caffeine in your system. Feeling like you could stay awake forever before happily passing out anyways. Cas had never considered it when playing Siablo, but that key press to load your aura meter was something profound when done in reality. It was like a feeling beyond memories. Still, even profundity could get boring after ten thousand tries, and Cas ¨C lacking even the need for sleep as an excuse to pause in her practice ¨C felt herself staining under the weight of endless repetitions. She felt herself cultivating hubris and an inflated sense of self importance, too. For, one could imagine Sisyphus happy or sad, but even Sisyphus would ¨C when thinking of Cas ¨C picture her as bat-shit insane. Well, whatever Sisyphus thought, Cas didn¡¯t consider herself crazy. Sure, she talked to herself constantly, and sure she occasionally created false vocal chords for the sake of yelling at herself when she felt like she was ignoring herself, but¡­ well¡­ ¡°Have you ever done something for fourteen days straight?¡± Cas spoke to herself like she was correcting an annoying friend. ¡°No, no, no,¡± Cas admonished, not happy with the imaginary answer. ¡°I don¡¯t mean fourteen days in a row. I mean fourteen days straight. Three hundred and thirty six hours without pause. Twenty thousand, one hundred, and sixty minutes of constant effort!¡± Cas paused to take a deep breath into her air bellows, focusing her aura, leveling it ¨C feeling just enough christmas cheer before striking it out to cover her tendril. Just another repetition of the same eight steps, of the exact same ineffable emotion whenever she touched her aura just right. ¡°So!¡± she yelled, moving her tendril back, ¡°if we spent that much time doing the same thing over and over again. Why aren¡¯t we getting it right!¡± she spoke her rage and focused on her holiday spirit as she swung the whip-like tendril forward. This time, however, when she attempted to move her tendrill¡­ it didn¡¯t move. Rather, it twitched through space, moving out of her sight for a moment before stopping suddenly where it had struck the stone floor. Cas moved her eye to watch her tendril. It felt¡­ warm from the impact. That had been surprising. In her slime form, as she was now, it was a struggle to move in any way other than sluggishly. Whip like movements like that were¡­ new. Another new thing was the announcement that popped up on her status sheet. [Aura Mastery Unlocked: Level 1] Progress went a lot quicker after that. It turned out Cas could learn a lot quicker if she paid attention to her successes. Cas had done that, and she was making amazing progress. Turns out yelling at yourself when you make the same mistake twice helps a lot. Well, Cas thought it helped, anyway. Still, the efficacy of schizophrenic pedagogical methods aside, Cas was almost too eager to set aside her training when her old friend Fox arrived. Of course, Fox wasn¡¯t a fox. Just like the eight legged ¡®ants¡¯ in the cave weren¡¯t actually ants. The creatures of this world were only vaguely similar to those of earth, though they were similar enough to warrant borrowed names, for the sake of mental categorization. No, Fox was, in reality ¨C a zanzibat: a low level mob enemy from Siablo III, as well as Cas¡¯s first hint that she¡¯d been transported to the world which ¨C through inter universal psychic disturbances ¨C inspired the game back on earth. Still, as Cas looked into the distance and heard the wingbeats and saw the creature taking flight, she thought it was an apt enough name. The frame of the creature was almost fox like. Oversized shoulders seemed to float around an undersized, earless head. It had large, bright eyes that darted back and forth, traversing the darkness with ease. A sudden, deft twist of its bat wings changed its trajectory; flapping with a leathery sound, it careened down through the air. It landed like a passenger jet, hind legs first. And, as soon as those rear paws landed, the bat-wings folded up like umbrellas against its forelegs, transitioning it to a running gait which ¨C from a distance ¨C left it looking exactly like some sort of fox. Well¡­ it looked like a fox if you ignored the missing tail, and the lack of ears, and the snake-like neck. Ok, there was a chance that Fox looked nothing like a fox, but Cas ¨C like all biologists ¨C was happy to name it whatever she felt like. ¡°Fox!¡± she yelled out, creating makeshift vocal chords and air-bellows inside herself to facilitate the greeting. Shape changing into a four legged form, Cas jogged out of the cave running over to the landing site. Fox was happy enough to greet her, apparently not forgetting her ability to make food, though ¨C in its excitable dances around her was a smart hesitation to come into contact with her acidic skin. ¡°Oh, come on boy!¡± Cas let out a disappointed sound. ¡°I promise I didn¡¯t make any acid inside of me this time.¡± The Fox only whimpered with a hurt and suspicious expression, turning its nose up and trotting past her into the cave. ¡°Humph!¡± Cas turned her eye to follow it. ¡°Well, who needs you! Besides, you deserved those burns for trying to eat me!¡±
Despite Fox¡¯s apparent lack of interest in their storied friendship. Cas was eager to celebrate its arrival. She was happy for many reasons, but most of all she was feeling relieved. She hadn¡¯t been certain the fox would return to the cave this year, considering everything inside it was dead. Apparently, the fox valued the space more for the shelter than anything else the life inside might have provided. As to the matter of food, the fox procured most of it on the outside, for the fox-bat was a carnivore, and it ate with a hunger more voracious than all the insects in the cave could have provided. In the morning time and during dusk, when some signal invisible to Cas seemed right, the fox would twitch its nostrils, sticking its tongue out to taste the air and flutter thickly lashed eyes open. Then it would get up, conduct an unceremonious downward dog-stretch, then run out into the desert and take to wing. Cas followed it on her own wings. She surprised herself with how quickly she¡¯d been able to change into her flight figure. Almost unconsciously, the exertion of change prompted her to call upon her aura, and the normally slow and gradual changes exploded into being. Her body smashed down as if struck by a great hammer. Aerodynamic curves and the rounded edges molded themselves as if stamped onto her figure by some industrial press. The inside of her body crisscrossed with vulture bone, the supporting scaffolding appearing suddenly like breaking glass. All of this happened in the space of a second, and in the space of one stride of her ¡®lizard¡¯ form, she had transitioned into the flapping glide of ¡®Killer of Omens¡¯. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. The status sheet was different than usual, however. Movement should have been 65, not 68. Not to mention, Charisma was two points higher than usual¡­ In fact, paying closer attention, Cas realized that all of her stats had gone up just a little bit. A cursory glance at the glowing, blue, ¡®Aura¡¯ cell told her enough to deduce the culprit. The realization was quickly accompanied by a change in her character sheet. And even the radar graph changed, neon colors surprising her with a dark-mode. Turns out aura really did make everything better. The new coloring was nice. Apparently Aura was a hell of a performance enhancing drug, and it seemed to multiply her powers to tell by how the chart was branching out at the edges. Her status sheet was strange like that. It never told her anything she didn¡¯t already know, but it was a master of organizing everything she did, down to the precise numbers. Still, those stat increases went unused. Her flight was more of a documentary glide. A stark contrast to the sharp turns and sudden dives that characterized the fox¡¯s hunting pattern. For three months, Cas followed behind the fox every time it flew. It was a welcome break from aura practice, and it gave her useful information otherwise. Besides, Cas had always been a fan of nature documentaries. Her free-floating crystal rotated in her body to track the creature like a dolly cam, giving her a precise view of every kill and bloodied mouse that it swallowed whole. And, much as Cas detested Moneyball and the analytizisation of sport, she couldn¡¯t help but be seduced by the arithmetic functions that had awakened in her character sheet. [New Feature Unlocked: Charts and figures] Oddly enough, this ability appeared just after her ¡®aura¡¯ skill had reached level one. No, unfortunately, she couldn¡¯t use it to multiply her stats by a thousand, but it did help her conduct mental arithmetic in the notes section. Testing it out had revealed all the usual functions you might expect from any excel sheet. The basic ones, anyway. And Cas, according to her resume anyway, was extremely proficient in excel. That came in handy when tracking the fox¡¯s weight. This naturally drew the question: how did Cas manage to weigh a fox? Well, it was simple. You see, her character sheet wasn¡¯t extremely useful. It did, however, give her information about herself. Namely, it gave her exact figures for her weight. And how did this translate into getting the fox¡¯s weight? Well, Cas was ashamed to admit she had to use physics to get that answer. Ughhh! You see, it was a simple matter of hydraulics. It was a rule that in any closed system of fluid, if you had two regions of different areas, then a pressure at the smaller area was multiplied when transferred to the larger system. And, Cas, being a slime, was the essence of a hydraulic system. More importantly ¨C with shape change at level 15 ¨C she could modify her shape and surface area on the fly. So, splitting off a part of herself, Cas created a slime cushion and hid it underneath the Fox¡¯s nest. The final result -- when fully expanded into working condition -- looked more like two jankey waterbeds than anything professional, but they worked to measure relative pressure nonetheless. The fox sat on one side, and Cas placed herself on the smaller bed, adjusting the areas until the pressure felt roughly equivalent. Comparing the final sizes of the water beds allowed her to estimate that the fox was roughly four times heavier than her. The final calculation was subject to her ability to measure areas, but that wasn¡¯t the important part, either. The important part was that Cas had made a working hydraulic scale, in a cave, with a- ¡°Fox of graphs!¡± Cas chanted quite unnecessarily, pulling up the final result of her calculations on her status sheet. And there it was! Mathematical proof that the fox was getting fat! That was the second time Cas had found cause to utter such a sentence. The first time was shortly before a fight broke out at a sorority house, but that wasn¡¯t important right now. That last graph wasn¡¯t the most quantitative, but it told Cas enough to confirm what she¡¯d long suspected. The fox was engaging in hyperphagia. Technical term: that meant it was eating a lot. Creatures on earth did that to gain weight, either before hibernation or as a prelude to a very long migration. Cas, looking at the fox and its wings, and noticing a distinct lack of any potential mates in the surrounding area, suspected the fox was preparing for the latter. Most likely, it came to this place to fatten up, and it was on track gain ten pounds in preparation for the journey. That was an interesting enough biology fact, but to Cas it meant everything. Because, you see, Cas was a biologist. She was the kind of person who read long winded papers with titles like: Fat Deposition and Length of Stopover of Migrant White-Crowned Sparrows. She was also the kind of person who could do some quick math and realize that this fox ¨C given its weight gain ¨C was planning on a journey of at least five hundred miles. That was important. Because Cas was planning to escape this desert on wings, but the desert could be harsh to even flying creatures. Recalling her hazy memories of the Siablo III map, Cas knew this desert was the size of a continent, at least. If she flew for too long without finding water, she was in real danger of drying up before she made it out, and that was assuming she even went in the right direction! Heading towards the interior of the desert was a bad idea, for multiple reasons. The fox, however, had proven twice that it knew how to get around here. It probably knew a quick way out of this desert, and Cas was hoping to use it as a pathfinder. Five hundred miles. At least five hundred miles. It seemed short compared to a year.
Time was a strange mistress. One swish of her dress, and months could pass by in a blur, leaving you so bewildered by their departure that you found yourself surprised by the fact that the time had come. Spring had passed and the fox had neglected to hunt for the past two days, rather spending its days stretching its wings and flying higher than it ever had before. Each time, in a panic, Cas dashed up to follow, but apparently those had been test flights, and the fox was safely sleeping now, snoozing away in the corner of the cave as Cas made her hasty preparations. Living in the desert, It was difficult to gather enough biological material to grow. Drinking up some slimes from the cavern below was enough to keep her water mass constant, but gathering useful resources like bone, meat, salt, blood, minerals¡­ that was a slog. She could gather most materials from desert shrubs and succulents as she found them, but even those were few and far between, hiding underground wherever they were to be found. And she was lacking in things she most needed for flight, namely bone and muscle. Her alchemy was fine enough to turn one type of bone into another, such as mouse bone into lighter vulture bone. It was even enough to transform one kind of muscle to another, but using plants to make meat was beyond her. TRUFTSSSTS Cas thudded into the sand, scraping along the harsh surface. Apparently, hunting was beyond her as well. Cas shook her head, springing to a four-legged stance, eye flickering about, searching through the dust cloud- there! Watching the fox had taught her two things about the hunt: never give up, never hesitate. And she didn¡¯t. It was a strange thing, to have your eye be separate from your head. Her figure was a mockery of the fox-bats. A four legged thing on spindly legs with a long, snake-like head that stretched out from the center, tipped at the end by a bodkin-point spear of hardened cow-bone. As it was, that ¡®head¡¯ was a distant limb, controlled and aimed by the crystal eye that floated inside her and composed the center-point of her attention. The head reared back like a fishing lure, and, calling upon her aura, Cas sprung it forward with a flicking motion that shot the head forward and caught the mouse mid-leap, piercing it fully through in a burst of blood. She felt the mouse die inside her; the piranha solution that was her body greedily dissolved the creature into an opaque cloud of animal matter. Cas hardly paid the process any attention, already running back and leaping up into a gliding flight. The sun was low in the sky, and she was always hesitant to be away from the cave during such a time. The fox often woke up at dusk, and it could leave any day now. Leaving the cave in such a condition was a painful exercise. It left Cas feeling constantly as if she were walking away from an airport terminal that was always just about to board. Thankfully, the fox was still there when she arrived, and Cas was left feeling a bit silly about her panic. Though, she still resolved never to leave the cave until the Fox was about to migrate. So, with so much free time and no intention of Leaving, Cas degenerated to that universal hobby of every prospective traveler and started double-checking her packing list. It was a stupid habit, considering she only had two things on her. She checked anyway. A rusty, iron spearhead: one she¡¯d found next to an ancient skeleton and had claimed by the rule of finder¡¯s keepers. The second item in her inventory was a tuft of cotton hiding a gram of something very valuable, and which was the key bit of paranoia that kept making her check her inventory to make sure it was still there. It was pointless! She knew it was still there, and no one could have stolen it. Still, a second after checking her inventory, she checked it again, looking to make sure the cotton ball was still in its place, that it hadn''t been ruptured. Huh¡­ she wondered if this was what it felt like to try and sneak drugs through airport security. That musing went unanswered, as the Fox stretched out a long tongue and licked at the air. Cas had created a second crystal to constantly monitor the fox while her main crystal studied her character sheet. The second sight felt something like a human¡¯s peripheral vision. It was clearer than that, though, and it pushed all her attention to this secondary crystal, where the fox bat was fluttering its eyes open and stretching for a particularly long interval. And then, as unceremonious as any runway takeoff, the fox jogged through the cave and flapped once, twice, thrice before taking to the air. Cas ran through her status screen, the illusion dissipating as she brushed past on four legs and, in a quick leap, soared into the air, supporting herself on doublet wings as she flew after the fox. It was a familiar feeling. The earth fell away and the sky wrapped around her until she was surrounded by the new, more heavenly world of the sky. She¡¯d done it hundreds of times before, enough times to no longer be enchanted by it, at least. Despite this, she couldn''t help her surprise when she saw that the fox was leaving this place with such an unceremonious stance, without even a glance back, as if leaving the cave, leaving home were an evening trip. Then again, maybe this cave wasn¡¯t home for the fox. Maybe it was something like an extended vacation spot. Or, maybe, Cas didn¡¯t know why this thought occurred to her, but it came unprompted nonetheless. Maybe it was just the case that the Fox didn¡¯t look back because it was more mature than her. Despite being an animal, it had traveled the world every year of its life, and maybe that worldliness had been enough for it to realize that looking back wouldn¡¯t accomplish anything. Maybe it had realized, after so many departures and returns, that you could never truly come home again. Cas turned her eye inside herself and looked back at the cave nevertheless. At this height, she could even peek over the thousand foot tall rock spire. Behind it, she spotted the small, grassy dot in the distance where the Oasis sat entrenched against the wasteland, against the village she¡¯d spent a lifetime failing to fix. She would return to this place, one day. No, that wasn¡¯t it. She would return to Kari, her friend, one day. It was just that she feared: if even places could change so drastically over the space of a little time, were people any different? Would Kari even be recognizable when Cas came back. Would Cas be recognizable to Kari? Cas banished the thought, and turned her eye away from the southern horizon. Perhaps the Fox was right, she decided. There really was no point in looking back. Chapter 35: Ridiculous Sentimentality Cas¡¯s flight was a precarious thing. It wasn¡¯t ¡®flight¡¯ really. At least, there was nothing in her character sheet with the name. She had no ¡®flight¡¯ skill. This was only right, slimes weren¡¯t meant to fly, after all. However, it also meant she was left lacking the usual accommodations a flight skill would entail. For example, she had no ability to float, or any crash protection, or really anything else that might say that the universe had ordained her to be able to fly. Rather, her flight was more a consequence. Slimes couldn¡¯t fly, but they could change shape. They could also harden parts of themselves, and create substances that they had eaten before. All of these skills, along with a bit of clever shape design, some knowledge of airfoils, and lots of trial and error had ¨C once cobbled through her mind ¨C been enough to get her into the air. So, no, her ¡®flight¡¯ wasn¡¯t really ¡®flight¡¯. It was simply a consequence of moving a particular shape through the air. The thing was, however, consequences oftentimes carried their own consequences. And the consequence of flying by using the laws of physics was that you had to¡­ obey the laws of physics. Consequently, her flight form came packaged with a weight limit. Her recent mastery of aura, along with the results of her earlier strength training had, of course, massively increased that weight limit to an astounding¡­ fifteen pounds. Shaving off one pound to account for her inventory, Cas was sitting pretty with a total weight limit of fourteen pounds for her body proper. At least, that was the limit if she wanted to fly with anything resembling agility. It was a frustrating handicap, but that hardly mattered once she was in the air. In the air, weight was a meaningless factor in feeling, if not reality. And Cas, hugging great gasps of air underneath a six-foot wingspan, endeavored to make it a little less meaningful as she drifted through the air, breaking her altitude record by a mile as she followed the fox-bat in its climb. The fox arced its wings outward, spreading each finger of the wing to cup the rising thermals. Cas tailed it beat for beat, circling behind it as it traced the edges of a hot spot in the cooling desert, curving up in lazy spirals that made all the details of the ground blur together. Above two thousand feet, the rock spire which stood so imposingly over the desert looked like a sundial made of toothpicks. Another thousand feet, and even the spire became hardly discernible against the night-blue sands. Cas had never flown this high before. Strangely enough, some part of her was almost scared to go higher. Distances meaningless to a human eye were somehow calculated intuitively by her crystal, and the knowledge disturbed her as the fox spread its wings out wider and ¨C with a rising crescendo stretched out over minutes ¨C caught the center of the thermal. The desert heat threw them into the air. Masses of air the size of mountains were their elevator. They were invisible, but Cas could feel the heated air rising all around her like a hot-air balloon. That comparison might draw a peaceful image to mind, but it¡¯s often forgotten that the interior of a hot air balloon is filled with a roaring furnace and chaotic air. And the desert thermals were a whole ecosystem of chaos. As the rising bubble of heat rose, it spread out into the greater sky, as if popping the balloon. The turbulence and wind-roars left Cas feeling like a stray piece of confetti in a roaring cannon-mouth. Still, she held steady, and the confidence of the rising fox bolstered her to follow. Another thousand feet; the imposing thermals petered out, and Cas barely had the time to feel relief before the Fox ¨C feeling the joyride petering out, started aggressively flapping, gaining altitude. Cas, amazed at this show of effort, looked curiously down at the seven-thousand feet of drop space which seperated her from the earth. ¡®What the hell are you flying higher for?¡¯ she wanted to yell at the fox, but creating the bellows for her vocal cords would have ruined her aerodynamics. She doubted the fox would have heard her anyways. The fox ignored her silent questions, and simply continued flapping, almost diving at the sky. Seeing this, Cas mentally shrugged. Monkey see, monkey do, she decided, and scooping piles of air underneath her wings, she shot up through the air. ¡­ Cas was a better flier than the fox. In fact, with minor exceptions, she was certain that [Killer of Omens] ¨C the name she¡¯d given her flight figure ¨C was a more masterful flier than any creature earth had ever seen. This wasn¡¯t a brag. In fact, it was a natural consequence of the fact that Cas simply couldn¡¯t transform her body into that of a bird. Birds were too complicated. Rather, [Killer of Omens] was more artificial in design, modeled more after a glider than anything living. This was an advantage to Cas. After all, she could shape change, and that meant [Killer of Omens] could, too. Once it took into the air, all of those unnecessary things that birds lugged around: heads, legs, intestines, vocal chords. Why, they simply melted away into its body, cannibalized to create larger wings and more optimal flight geometries. Another feeling of Christmas night, and a powerful flap carried her thirty feet higher, overshooting the fox by a good margin. Aura also helped. The result of this was that Cas looked quite strange up close, when [Killer of Omens] was in good flight form. Her entire body was a wing, one that trailed almost artificially into a plane-like teardrop at her rear. If you took a picture, she wouldn¡¯t have looked out of place in a CAD model. Her entire body was a single, smoothed aerofoil, the graceful line from front to back broken up only by the sharp rudder that rose out of her back. Another break in the design flow was her forward ballase. For, while Cas didn¡¯t need a head, she did need a counterbalance at her front. This was made up by a dense, spherical shape which stuck out of the nose of ¡°Killer of Omens¡±, looking almost funnily like a hazard light if her red coloration was to be believed. Of course, this also had its consequences. Namely, her shape. Cas, normally a spherical blob, was free to look all about her with that central crystal that floated about her insides and acted as her eye. Now, however, her formerly spherical, transparent form was transformed into a sculpture of intricate refraction¡­ one which left her feeling like she was spotting the world through drunk goggles. Both of her sides were flattened out into point-like wings that distorted the world. Her roof had a rudder which made the sky look squiggly. Her front was a spherical weight that left her feeling like she was trying to use a lollipop stick as a telescope. Her tail was a cone¡­ one which gave her triple vision whenever she tried to look at anything through it. This left her underbelly as the only, relatively clean, viewing window; fortunate when Cas wanted to watch the ground ¨C unfortunately, right now, she was trying to keep track of a fox flying in front of her, so¡­ some compromises had to be made. Now that the thermals weren¡¯t threatening to flip her over, Cas felt a lot more comfortable retracting her dorsal rudder. The stars quickly focused into clear points. Turning her crystal up, Cas watched the fox through her new moon-roof, feeling a lot of her height anxiety leaving her as infinite space replaced distant ground. She wasn¡¯t here to star-gaze, however, and quickly returned her attention to Fox, who¡­ Cas paused with a moment of disbelief. That the damn fox was still flapping! As a slime, Cas didn¡¯t really feel the weight of physical exertion, but the rate of her wing flaps, as well as the constant draw on her aura¡­ what kind of migration was this fox planning? Hadn¡¯t it ever heard the phrase ¡®marathon, not sprint?¡¯ Another thousand feet, and the fox continued tirelessly. A second thousand. They were at nine thousand feet, now ¨C an accomplishment the fox seemed to have no respect for, as it continued its rush towards the sky. It was after the third thousand, when they hit the magic number ten-thousand, that the fox stopped rising and Cas, once she¡¯d caught up with his altitude, suddenly flipped in mid-air. FWHOOOOOOSH! A suicide rush of air hit her from the back. Have you ever stood too close to moving train? Not at a terminal, but in the middle of a track, when a thousand tons of steel suddenly raced by at highway speeds. You know that rush of vacuum as if all the world¡¯s air had conspired to push you onto the track, and it was all you could do not to give way to it? Well¡­ despite all she could do. Cas did give way. Her lack of a rudder left her feeling particularly unbalanced, as if she¡¯d been flying on a soapy floor and stepped on a banana peel. It was all she could do to squeak when the world suddenly flipped like a coin. Sky, dirt, sky, dirt circling around her as she crashed towards the earth. Flattening her wings out like pancakes, Cas quickly crashed against the air, arresting her tumble. Nosing down, Cas fell into a controlled dive, falling several hundred feet, before flaring out her wings and turning into an upswing. The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Rightling herself, Cas flickered her eye about, looking round until the fox came into view, surprised to discover it had gained quite a lead on her. How long had she been falling for? Regaining her sleeker wings, and regrowing her rudder, Cas raced back to intercept the fox, this time growing her rudder an extra few inches as she tentatively soared up into heaven and¡­ FWHOOOOOOSH! Again, that river of air. Cas warbled a bit, but her rudder worked overtime and her wings flattened out into a more stable configuration as the air unbalanced her. Wait, no¡­ it didn¡¯t unbalance her¡­ it was speeding her up! Of course! She almost cursed at herself. Prevailing winds! Birds used them as highways back on earth; why wouldn¡¯t Fox do the same when they could? The air lapped at her wings and pressed her forward into an effortless drag-race. It was so strange to be going so fast yet to feel no wind on your face. It seemed no matter how fast she went the wind flew faster still against her back! Faster, faster, faster, all without a single wingbeat! This sudden acceleration continued on for some minutes, propelling her until she matched the pace of the wind. And then the world quieted down. Now that she nearly matched the pace of the wind, it like a gentle breeze against her back, only encouraging her forward whenever she slowed down or made a turn. There was no headwind, either. It felt almost like she was sitting in still air. It was a strange experience. There were no points of reference to gauge your speed, and the ground crawled slowly no matter your hurry. It was an eerie feeling, floating on nothing and traveling at blinding speeds. However, what bothered Cas more was the obvious fact that, despite this, she seemed to know her speed. She knew that she was traveling at fifty-five miles per hour.. How did she know that? Pointing her crystal down, she tried to find some hint as to where she could have gotten that information,, but she was again struck by the fact that the altitude seemed obvious to her when she looked down at the earth. She wasn¡¯t certain as to the exact distance. It looked to be somewhere between ten and eleven thousand feet. But, that was still a far cry from her experience as a human, where she might look out the cabin window of a jet and think: ¡®looks pretty high¡¯. This ability of hers had always been in the periphery of her knowledge. Occasionally, on previous flights, Cas had made a mental note when she reached a thousand feet. It was done so effortlessly that she never bothered to notice it. Now that she was of a mind to pay attention to it, however, it was strange that she seemed to have such a natural sense for distance. Cas almost expected her status screen this time. After all, it wouldn¡¯t just! [Yes I Would!] The notification came with a new sheet on her status page. Of course it would.
Cas followed the fox through the night, eventually growing comfortable enough with the wind to lengthen her wings a bit. That had given a bit of kick to the turbo, and that had been enough to stop the fox pulling away as it had been for the past few hours of their flight. Other than that minor issue, Cas found that there was nothing to do. Being a terrestrial creature by birth, moving without effort was a new sensation for Cas. It wasn¡¯t like riding a car or a boat. It felt more personal than that. Cas could feel the river of wind spanning miles to either side. It felt like a part of her, like some giant limb that could carry her in lieu of her own. It felt like she was surrounded by pure energy, which she could turn into motion with a mere thought. It felt like magic. It was just so effortless, so calming, so¡­ boring. Well, it had been exhilarating for the first thirty minutes, but they¡¯d been at this for ten hours already! Ten hours, and not so much as twitch from the fox. It was just floating there like a statue! And, Cas, already resolved to follow its every move, had been forced to stuff her restless soul into a body deprived of motion, getting the opportunity to move only when the need to make minor adjustments presented itself, an opportunity which ¨C at this altitude and with such a sure tailwind ¨C it rarely ever did. Cas once again flattened the front part of herself into a square box. She felt a tumble of shaky turbulence run through her ¨C she could hear the air protesting at the sharp corners of her new face. In flight, such small changes in shape could run havoc on your aerodynamics, and a flat face pointing into the wind was an unpopular shape to change into. However, the flat face had its advantages. The change gave her a clear, forward window to look through. Ignoring the shaking, she could see the fox ahead of her in immaculate clarity, where she found it was¡­ doing absolutely nothing, still. She would have admired its commitment to inaction, but they¡¯d been at this for ten hours already, and Cas had run out of patience four hours in. Well¡­ she corrected herself, they¡¯d been at this for ten hours and thirty minutes. As it turned out, she had a natural sense for distance and time. Running those measures through her sheet allowed her to calculate all sorts of useful things, like miles per hour or complaints per mile. Goodness knows, that made more sense than her being able to measure ''speed'' as if it were some real factor. And, seeing the clock strike six, Cas turned her eye to the eastern horizon, where ¨C at this altitude ¨C the leading edge of the sun had already burst blatantly into view. Cas felt an instinctive urge to harden her skin. That was the general rule for slime in the desert. A stiffening of her flight wings warned her against that idea, however. And so she reluctantly let the morning light shine through her transparent figure. The sun¡¯s rays were very gentle in the morning. Actually, they were a pleasant reprieve from the chill of the night, but Cas couldn¡¯t help noting that that wouldn¡¯t last for long. The fox seemed to share her paranoid thoughts, and was already exiting the wind stream, banking subtly into a wide arc, heading for she knew not where.
Cas had lost surprisingly little water over the course of their night flight, so she was happy to let the fox have first dibs on the dripping stalactite, which it lapped at greedily while Cas sat in a corner of the cave, perusing through the Notes section of her status sheet. The notes section was perhaps the most haggard of all sections in her status sheet. There, Cas stored information on a thousand haphazard subjects, all immaculately organized. And, right now, Cas was perusing through the ¡®plants?¡¯ section of her notes, trying to find something that looked similar to the pungent moss that covered the cave the fox had set them in Really, the word ¡®Cave¡¯ was a generous label for the hidey hole the Fox had guided them to. It was, in reality, a shallow groove carved into the side of a massive, stone cliff. In all, it was four feet deep with a sheer opening that faced directly out to the five hundred foot fall which served as their natural welcome mat. The floor was angled lightly towards the precipice, worn smooth by the constant drip of water that had formed it and turned slippery by a carpet of slick moss that ringed the edges of the maw. Hgrrrrrr! Rarh! The fox-bat didn¡¯t growl like earth mammals. It rather let out something more like a hiss combined with the hum of a refrigerator. Still, the message was the same. Cas looked up from her notes, surprised to find angry eyes and gnashing teeth hurling hate in her direction. Raised hackles and and a flashing, bright tongue giving her the guard dog treatment. The message was alien but very clear. And Cas, making a quick decision, moved slightly to the side. At this, the fox-bat calmed a little, though still it glared at Cas with angry, barely restrained eyes as it crawled into her corner and patted its feet there before lying asleep. Cas looked around and kicked herself. The fox had been flying for hours and ¨C unlike her it needed sleep. Also unlike her, it couldn¡¯t simply stick to the floor in order to keep from sliding out of this cave. That, and there was the fact that this was quite an enclosed space. Even having moved aside, Cas felt as if she were in a phone booth, still only inches away from the fox¡¯s lightly breathing face. Animals were wont to get territorial when stressed and in enclosed spaces¡­ it was only natural. In fact, it was only logical that it would start getting testy with her. No, Cas wasn¡¯t bothered by that. What bothered Cas was the fact that she felt hurt by the interaction. It was a wild animal for goodness¡¯s sake! What else had she been expecting? An apology? Was she expecting it to be grateful and patient because she fed it one time? Was she losing her mind? The thought gave Cas pause. She recalled suddenly that she¡¯d spent the last four months in complete isolation. In fact, she had gone the last four months without speaking to a single other person. She hadn¡¯t thought much of the isolation. In fact, she¡¯d spent over a year alone when she first arrived here. Four months couldn¡¯t have been that bad, could it? Had she¡­ just gotten used to being alone? Well, obviously not, if she was trying to make friends with foxes, Cas decided. Anthropomorphisation was an ingrained habit among humans. It was the sort of thing that made people think their pets loved them, or that trees could talk. Cas, working as a biologist ¨C often in labs that dissected animals by the thousands ¨C had trained that particular habit out of herself quite thoroughly. In the lab, she never thought of any creature as anything other than a ¡®specimen¡¯. Her outlook on the outside world was hardly different. She¡¯d long overcome seeing animals as people. At least, Cas thought she¡¯d overcome that piece of ridiculous sentimentality. It wounded her professional pride to realize that she¡¯d slipped when it came to Fox¡­ no, not Fox: the Zanzibat. That was the proper term for it. Maybe she¡¯d make up a latin name later down the line. The Zanzibat was already sleeping, and Cas spent the rest of the time occupying herself with updating her notes.
[ -Description Warm blooded creature, distinctive stripe along back. Color of stripe uncertain, but I suspect it would match the red coloration seen in its Siablo III rendition. Belongs to a clade I¡¯ve decided to name ¡®mammaloid¡¯. Non-standard integumentation around neck and head area confirms it¡¯s not identical to true mammals. Most likely in different clade from the ¡®vultures¡¯ in note three despite superficial similarities. -Activity Crepuscular hunter. Only observed eating meat. However, this may be due to lack of appropriate vegetation in desert region, or perhaps a consequence of hyperphagic period prior to migration. *New Note* Very excitable when not threatened, appears to adopt similar mannerisms to domestic dog when greeting friends. Although, perhaps this may just be an individual quirk of Fox¡¯s. *New Note* Kind of cute, actually! If you ignore the teeth. *New Note* Zanzibat subject appears to transition to nocturnal habits during migration period. Perhaps a universal characteristic, but can¡¯t rule out behavioral modification due to desert landscape. Aggression levels appear to increase during migration, perhaps hormonal changes in preparation for summer? Also¡­ it was very rude to me today. ] Chapter 36: Nectar As always, they set off just before sunset. The waning thermals of the evening desert carried them up, and they entered the easterly winds. Cas had been expecting boredom again, but the young night quickly proved her wrong. Halfway through the flight, the prevailing winds curved away to the north and the zanzibat abandoned them. Tilting its nose to the ground, it dropped a thousand feet into the lower atmosphere, trading height for speed. Eventually, their altitude was used up, and their velocity waned, and they found themselves stranded in the dead night-air of the lower atmosphere. The air was less kind at this altitude. The restless, denser air seemed eager to sucker punch them with random dead-zones and sputtering winds. During this, Cas remembered her earlier boasting: about being a better flyer than the zanzibat and she cursed herself for ever daring. Thinking that she was a better flier after a couple months of practice had been hubris, she was now discovering, and reality was paying back her hubris ten-fold. A sudden cannon-blast of air ¨C shot from the mouth of an open valley that had been hidden behind a mountain ¨C spluttered against her like a fragmentation grenade. She¡¯d never seen the valley, and it wouldn¡¯t have mattered if she had because Cas didn¡¯t even know valleys could direct winds like that! She had to learn quickly that, when hit from the side, you were to over-correct in the forward direction. She cursed herself for making the wrong move yet again when an invisible gust reached out from the darkness, forcing Cas to dive just to avoid a humiliating tumble. The sakkari had logged dozens of flight hours over the course of the past year, but those had been taxi trips between the village and the cavern. All of them over smooth terrain with familiar, easy wind patterns. Out here in the wilderness, it was a different story. Every gorge and bed of rocks were minefields of sudden thermals and reflected winds. They weren¡¯t very strong winds, granted; in fact it only took the slightest adjustments to correct for them, but Cas seemed always to be making the wrong adjustments, and those to the wrong degree. On top of this, she was constantly ruining her aerodynamics in order to create a forward window to observe the zanzibat by. Watching its wings and cheating off its answers had been the key to her survival thus far. Another, slight wind tickled at her and her flight curved like a laugh, flipping her like a surf-board and forcing her into a surprise aileron roll that turned the world into a washing machine. Being hit with turbulence wasn¡¯t physically painful, but it was very mentally taxing. It was like trying to sit perfectly still while a thousand, invisible forces pressed their fingers just inches away from your face while yelling: ¡°I¡¯m not touching you, I¡¯m not touching youuu!¡± and occasionally slapping you upside the head. Well, be that what it may, the mental pain was something Cas was willing to work through. After all, pain was the best teacher, and Pain (with a capital P) had decided to take the next few days off to give Cas a crash-course in flight dynamics. Pain, of course, provided no guide book. ¡­ ¡®Fridging, fudging, fudge!¡¯ Cas cursed; her wings cut badly into the headwind, forcing her into a breaking dive that nearly shot her eye out of her body. ¡­ Pain, also, never gave a passing mark.. ¡­ Cas¡¯s body groaned under the strain, fighting against a vortex of cycling air that twisted at her body, trying to force her into a roll¡­ shortly before changing direction and catching Cas off guard. ¡®Wahhh!¡¯ Cas screamed in a counterclockwise manner. ¡­ Pain, also, liked to give a test on the first day of class while demanding that you roller skate, and Cas had never liked disco enough to learn that skill. Cas was gliding smoothly for a brief period of respite when the air suddenly separated from her body, and she experienced her first unplanned stall. ¡®WHAAA!¡¯ dropping like a stone until she caught the wind and rose back up¡­ shortly before falling again. She rollercoastered her way for a mile before finally adjusting her shape enough to fix the issue. By the end of six hours, Cas was cursing her lack of disco skills and expressing her general disdain for ¡®eighties babies¡¯ as they liked to call themselves. And, much like the eighties, the lessons never seemed to end! Immediately after barely getting the hang of one lesson, another came to take its place. Currently, Cas was failing to learn how to tack against a crosswind. And, unhappily, this lesson had been dragging on for the better part of an hour! A black silhouette of a mountain range towered in the distance and her guide ¨C rather than simply flying over it ¨C decided to abandon a perfectly good tail-wind and go sideways to the current. Cas flapped hard against the cross face, trying to keep straight against the side-blast. She felt odd and uncomfortable, as if flying with uneven weights, unable to deliver her full power to her wings. The zanzibat, meanwhile, was crucified in mid-air, wings stretched out into a precarious, side-angled glide that somehow never required it to flap even once. It flew at odd angles into the wind, at times heading one way before, like an adjusting tight-rope walker, it suddenly tilted the opposite way. The change of tilt resulted in a change of direction for the zanzibat. In this way, it effortlessly slithered its way forward, drawing s curves through the air and gliding, somehow, against the wind. By this way it gained more and more distance on Cas until ¨C by the end of the hour ¨C it was already five miles distant.. Despite the lack of physical exhaustion, Cas was in a bad way. It was cold, uncomfortably so at times as the unceasing wind stripped the warmth from her body and turned her wings stiff. For over ten hours, Cas had been stuck flying through absolutely nothing, assaulted by cold and invisible forces that pulled the air out from under her and took every opportunity to turn her flight into a slippery, unsatisfying disgrace. And now the zanzibat, her only guide, was about to disappear from sight and abandon her in the middle of the desert. Cas felt scared to think of the possibilities. She didn¡¯t want to start planning ways to find water before she dried up. It was uncomfortable to take responsibility for everything out here! Then, just as the panic reached the darkest pits of Cas¡¯s soul, a light appeared over the horizon. The warm, yellow glow of the sun peeked through the twilight, even as the ground remained shrouded in dark. And the Zanzibat, dropping out of its impossible glide, started descending¡­ falling towards a range of tall rocks in the distance.
This next outpost was even dingier than their last. It was a small crack-maw on the top of a plateau. Crawling through the opening revealed a slightly more spacious cavern. This one, too, was damp and lined with moss-grass. Were Cas still a human, she guessed she would have found the place disgusting. The foxbat certainly seemed displeased to touch any of the material. Still, it seemed too tired to make more of a fuss, and ¨C after licking the dew from every corner of the place, lay down and quickly fell asleep. Cas meanwhile, unable to sleep to pass the time, and unwilling to go outside, reconciled herself to expanding her notes. And, there were many notes for her to take, even when the only thing of interest in the cave was moss-grass. A day full of notes passed, and again the fox bat took them up. Another harrowing journey followed, thankfully with no cross winds this time, and the outpost after that, too, had moss-grass.. In fact, moss grass seemed to be a commonality on all their outposts as, after a third leg of the journey filled with cursing and despair, Cas stopped at a third outpost, where she ¨C with nothing else engaging her mind ¨C sat staring at her notes full of observations on the species of moss that she passed by. Her notes were abundant and technical, but Cas did leave room in the margins for her personal thoughts about the matter. ¡ª----------------------------------------- [ If there¡¯s one saving grace to studying the creatures of this world, it¡¯s that their strangeness is at least recognizable. The grass, for example. The majority species in this cave appears to be a ground cover plant with leaves that resemble terrestrial grasses. Not much more to say on the subject currently. I¡¯m a microbiologist, for goodness¡¯ sake. I have better things to do than study grass. *New Note* I have started studying the grass. It¡¯s been three months since I started talking to myself, and the fox-bat thing has been gone for two weeks now. I don¡¯t know if it will ever return. Despite the name, outside of the leaves, the species appear not to be plants at all. Pulling on the stem reveals no evidence of tap-roots. Hair-like fibers anchor it to the floor. I would call it a moss if it weren¡¯t for the complex leaves. Life on this planet truly is strange. *NN* Flowers! It appears to be the local spring. New growths are now visible in the base of the plant. Their shape is cup-like, and are filled with what I can only assume is nectar or some other insect attractant. *NN* Moss-grasses are a highly specious clade. They¡¯re abundant in every rest stop the fox takes us too. New specimens appear very different from earlier examples, lacking complex leaves. However, closer observation of their pendicules suggests marked similarity with the more complex moss species. *NN* New Moss grasses found. At this altitude they seem to have a retarded growth cycle, and are still sporting buds late in the season. Appearance is a hybrid between the last two discovered species, sporting more complex leaves but even more diminished anchor filaments. Strange enough, they seem to sport cups that are identical to those found in the cave. This goes against basic herbology. Flowering structures should be different even for related species¡­ perhaps that¡¯s just a quirk of Earth, however. *NN* New cave is sporting multiple different species, and each has distinct bulb structures. Although, one species has bulbs that are identical to those in previously described species. The plant body itself is incredibly different in physical structure, however. Roots are even more diminished, and leaves nonexistent except for a flat carpeting. Strange¡­ ]
This last day was passed in a mania of note-taking and sample analysis. The curiosity of the question burned in her mind¡­ how could so many different species of moss-grass sport identical flowering buds? Why was that particular bud shape so common when they obviously were capable of forming different bud-types? Some sort of mimickry perhaps? Animals on earth were known to camouflage themselves as other creatures. That never happened with flowers, however. Cas sat giggling to herself as she looked over her notes and diagrams. The anxiety of a potentially new discovery, a potentially new paradigm shift in plant biology was enough to make the rest of the world disappear. Cas blinked awake from her studious stupor as the fox shifted¡­ It was evening already? The fox seemed to care not for her surprise, and took flight without fanfare. Cas dropped her notes and sighed. She¡­ really didn¡¯t want to go flying again. It wasn¡¯t fear¡­ rather it was a sort of intense revulsion. The kind inspired by painful and difficult tasks, the sort of thing that made people hit the snooze button on a work day or dally at the squat rack. Because Cas had gone through the ringer for the past three days of flying. Flying wasn¡¯t fun anymore and it hadn¡¯t been for the past thirty six hours! Every day it was like walking into a boxing class and getting paid to work as a body-bag, except Cas wasn¡¯t even being paid. Cas had developed a sudden meditation habit for the past two days, but, distracted as she¡¯d been by her notes, Cas had no opportunity to wait. The fox was gone like a bus, and she was forced to catch up without the sufficient minutes of mental preparation that normally carried her through such tasks. Cas warbled tentatively into the air, a dread posture taking her as she braced for yet another night of pain. However, this time, the pain never came. At first, this only inspired further anxiety. The moments ticked by ominously, and Cas waited with intense anticipation, always expecting some stray wind or eddy to come out of the darkness and upend her entire existence. It was only when a tide of hot air welled up underneath her and Cas caught onto it with only the barest shake, that she realized the winds had already come, and that they¡¯d been coming the entire time. Cas couldn¡¯t really ¡®sleep on it¡¯, considering she never slept, but ¨C after so many nights of suffering ¨C she was surprised to realize that, this night, for some unknown reason, everything just seemed to ¡®click¡¯. Another wind, and Cas adjusted beautifully, meeting it with the tip of her wing and stealing a bit of lift from it as it passed over her. She was reacting to winds as soon as she met them, stringing together micro adjustments with practiced ease. A soft wind blew from her side, and she remembered to tilt forward, not right; she could even cut an angle! Cas warbled like an unbalanced foal as she attempted to follow the bat into an upwind. Well¡­ she could kind of cut an angle. Still, while it was a wobbly flight, it was at least consistent! Cas felt a great deal of pride at this. It vindicated her earlier sufferings, now that she¡¯d made it through the crucible and achieved Supreme Mastery of The Skies! Cas created a box window in her front again, ignoring the shaking it caused and chancing a glance at the zanzibat. The bat was sleeping through its maneuvers, seeming to expect winds before they arrived as it cut straight through seven different eddies that had Cas shaking like an old lady. Then again, she thought, looking at things from a more objective lens. All she¡¯d really learned was¡­ how to fly through fairly calm winds. Fixing her front window, Cas withdrew her crystal eye further into herself. Comparison was the thief of joy, after all; it would be better to enjoy the small victories.
Now that she was more comfortable with the winds, Cas was once again flying on autopilot. And with so much mental capacity freed up, she could now spare the mental energy to start thinking about things again. With some exertion of the imagination, Cas could even appreciate things on a deep level. Like the fact that, when she thought about it, flying was broken! She hadn¡¯t been of the mind to notice it before, but ¨C now that she had the time to look at her dashboard again ¨C she was frankly gobsmacked to see the odometer still ticking. [Dashboard: 1123 miles] One thousand one hundred miles traveled. Over one thousand miles in four days! You know that moment when you suddenly wake up in the middle of the high-way and realize you''ve been driving on autopilot for the past sixty miles? Well, flying was like that, except Cas had to pay even less attention, and she could travel a thousand miles without realizing it. After all, once you got used to the winds, there weren¡¯t exactly any pot holes to swerve around, nothing close enough to cut you off, and the ground was something Cas paid attention to only occasionally. And then Cas cringed a bit as she realized: She hadn¡¯t even been paying attention to the terrain! Hastily, she tried to scrounge up memories of everything she¡¯d flown over these past four days. She¡¯d passed over a large, cliffy area. It was a flat region of bare rock, bowled in on all sides by a ring of high cliffs. That had been memorable for its uniqueness. The cliffs completely cut off the environment from the surrounding world¡­ probably had a lot of unique species considering the boundary effect. On foot, such a place could have taken her a year to explore, and a lifetime to study. That region alone probably had a thousand different species living in it! And Cas had flown it by in a day. She¡¯d barely stopped long enough to note a new moss species. It might have even had people living there if there was enough water. The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. With a bit more urgency, Cas logged through a rolodex of memorable terrain spinning in her mind. At one point two days ago, the desert had turned into black stone before returning to sand again. And after that were the cliffs, or was it before? Aghhh! So many details forgotten or just ignored. In fact, Cas had ignored the ground entirely except to note particularly tall mountains that might blow ground winds up at her. Strange as it was to say, Cas felt disappointed at that. She hated that she¡¯d neglected so much when it was there to be seen. Cas was a hoarder of knowledge in that respect. It was something like the fear of missing out. Still, practical matters reigned and she dropped the feeling. Looking at her dashboard, their flight speed had slowed dramatically since they abandoned the prevailing winds. Judging by the pace of the ground below, they were flying at jogging speed ¨C ten, fifteen miles per hour max. But, that didn¡¯t really concern her. They could have flown at walking pace for all it mattered; they¡¯d get where they were going either way, because the real advantage of flight wasn¡¯t speed, It was the fact that, as Cas had, you could ignore the earth. ¡°As the crow flies.¡± Ever heard of that phrase? It means a straight line drawn across a map, without regard for anything that might be on that map. No following roads, no rounding around mountains or breaking ankles over craggy terrain. If a crow traveled ten miles, it meant she got ten miles closer to her destination. No ifs ands or buts about it. Cas recalled to her memory her time playing Siablo III on Earth. The half remembered world map she¡¯d seen in some cutscene or other. It was a hazy recollection. Cas never paid much attention to cut scenes; her eyes were ¨C at such moments ¨C divested with the far more important task of guiding her fingers to her snack bowl, or to the can of sparkling water which sat precariously close to her keyboard. Still, she managed to remember the scene where The Great Desert expanded to cover half the continent. Assuming that this world was the same size as Earth, and considering the fact that the continent ate up a quarter of the world''s surface¡­ Cas ran the math through her excel sheet. The desert was five thousand miles at its widest point, give or take. That¡­ was twenty-five times bigger than the Sahara, Cas realized with some amazement. However, she was overstocked on amazing realizations tonight, and quickly moved on. There definitely weren¡¯t any living creatures in the center of the desert, considering what had happened to create it. So, most probably, the Nemorian village was within two thousand miles of the border. Given an average flight speed of thirty miles per hour, flying ten hours per day, Cas figured she could travel two thousand miles in¡­ eight days. Cas reiterated: flight was broken. And she hated to say it, considering the recent headaches she¡¯d suffered, but it was still hard to believe that learning to fly had been this¡­ well, easy.. Flight seemed like the kind of ability reserved for Level-Sixty Epic Steeds. You know, the ones you had to pay real-world money for! Then Cas remembered that, unlike the game, this was the real world. And this real world, much like her last, didn¡¯t seem to have any consideration for game balance. The next few days were spent hopping between various waterholes and sheltered craigs. Strangely enough, the water sources seemed to get more janky, even as the general environment turned more hospitable. Their trip was slowed somewhat by the fox-bat¡¯s desire to recuperate for longer and longer at each stop, whereas Cas, after topping up on some water, was ready to go and often harried the zanzibat with her impatience whenever she felt the zanzibat was dallying too long. In such moments, Cas tried to help it by catching prey or ¨C in rare cases ¨C sacrificing a few grams of biomass to make him some food, but the zanzibat ate lightly and seemed preoccupied with rest. Cas took the hint and left him alone. It was strange, though. It didn¡¯t seem that tired. However, she noted, it had been a long time since she¡¯d felt exhaustion or strain, perhaps she¡¯d just lost the ability to empathize. Despite the slower pace, their monotonous station hopping continued unabated, and the days and miles passed by like postcards until, on the twelfth day, Cas was interrupted by a sudden notice. [Two thousand miles traveled!] Cas glanced over the message on her status page. She vaguely remembered setting a reminder for that milestone. The mental marker was accompanied by a physical one as ¨C through the false opacity of her status sheet ¨C Cas was surprised to see, clinging stubbornly to a black stone outcropping¡­ a tree! It was an old, craggy, bent grandfather-tree, with more cracks than wood in its trunk¡­but, looking closer, Cas saw a handful of living leaves waving wispily at the tips of its curling branches. That caused her more happiness than she¡¯d known for a long time. Cas¡¯s friends in college ¨C the ones that liked drugs ¨C sometimes regaled her with stories of talking trees. They told her about the fact that trees had feelings, and that they sent psychic messages about peace, and love, and harmony all the time. Being a biologist, Cas knew this to be bullshit. She¡¯d studied plants, and she knew trees. Trees were entitled land-lords that tried to choke every other plant in their vicinity to death! Those trunks were made to cast shade, people! They could communicate using underground root networks, and colluded with each other to steal resources from low lying plants and other species of tree! Insider trading, murder, racism. There was nothing under the sun trees weren¡¯t capable of, as far as Cas was concerned.. Oh, and she wasn¡¯t sure about them being psychic, either. Seeing this tree, however. Cas overlooked her preconceptions and sent a mental note of thanks to the plant, for the sign of hope it delivered. Because Cas knew trees to be water hungry plants. And they never grew too deeply into a desert.
For the first time, they breaked in the open, resting in the shade of a boulder next to a muddy puddle stamped into the baked dirt. Somehow the sun was less intense here, and Cas could see in the distance, the barest wisp of a cloud smeared through the sky. That was the first cloud she¡¯d seen in almost three years. She felt the world slow down as she looked up at it. She longed desperately to see it up close. Flying through a cloud had always been a dream of hers, and the knowledge that she could go up and touch it on a whim troubled her with anticipation, but she stayed herself. The zanzibat was still her only guide, and she wasn¡¯t willing to risk it leaving or getting eaten by something while she was off sightseeing. So Cas stayed and watched vigil over the Zanzibat, creating two extra sets of eyes to scan all around and above their position. Her main eye, meanwhile, lavished the vast majority of her attention on the local flora, which were comparatively abundant in this region of the desert.
To the untrained eye, the low lying bushes and short weeds were all fairly random. However, one plant caught her eye. It wasn¡¯t too spectacular, really, just two, bright leaves growing out of the ground and waving with the wind. But, it also had bulbs, you see. On Earth, flowers were a unique thing, often used to distinguish even quite similar species. Bulbs, she gathered, worked the same way here. And these bulbs, in their shape, and the depth of their cups and even in the degree of darkenning at their lips, were exactly the same as all the moss grasses she¡¯d seen so far. Even the leaves seemed identical. In almost every way, it was a perfect representation of what she had been looking for. Well¡­ every way except one. It was about ten times larger than the moss grasses she¡¯d seen growing in the caves. It had thick leaves growing two feet out of the ground, and bands of prickles growing out from the edges like serrated knife teeth. It had been Cas¡¯s running hypothesis that all the ¡®moss-grasses¡¯ as she¡¯d called them, had been different stages in the life cycle of a single creature. It was also her wild conjecture that the end stage of this life cycle was a true plant, one with true roots and a vascular system. On earth, that would have been a hypothesis that would have gotten her laughed out of the qualification room. A plant metamorphosing. On top of that, changing basal forms until it grew newly evolved structures? Saying that might have sunk her reputation. But, this wasn¡¯t Earth, and Cas¡¯s death had long sunk her prospects for tenure, so she was feeling free about making wild claims. And¡­ here it was, her chance to prove herself right. There, about three hundred meters ahead, was what looked to be a fully grown moss-grass specimen. It was in full bloom, too! Carrying more cups than she¡¯d ever seen on a single plant, all of them drooping heavily with nectar. She¡¯d been living in the cave for years and none of the moss-grasses there had grown to even a third of this one¡¯s height. If she could just dig it up and confirm it had true roots, that would prove everything right. The first plant to transition from moss to vascular flowering plant! And Cas would be the first person from Earth to know. Cas wanted to go over there and look. But the zanzibat¡­ The zanzibat lay in the shade next to her, snorting dust with its light snores, occasionally blinking awake to take a look around before resting its head again. ¡­It was only three hundred meters away. Cas could stay within sight of it, she would be back in a flash if anything went wrong. The wind blew a bit harshly, and Cas could see the grass stems waving wildly in reaction, the two leaves dancing together like an inflatable tube man advertising historically low APRs. Such cheap tactics had never convinced Cas to buy a used car, but then again she¡¯d never actually needed a used car. Confirmation on her plant theory however¡­ She looked back at the zanzibat again; it had blinked awake, though it still lay reclined. Besides, the zanzibat had made this journey many times without her. It¡¯s not like it couldn¡¯t take care of itself. Cas leapt into the air, not so much flying as extending the jump into a low glide, one that arced her on a trajectory to land just on top of- Kree! Kree! Kree! A familiar, whistling call came from behind her. The last time she¡¯d heard that had been when the zanzibat got a mouth full of acid. That was its panic cry. So quickly! She¡¯d taken her eyes off it for one second! Panic inspired her to yank her trajectory upward, retracting her landing legs and circling about to look at the source of the noise. The fox was already in the air, but its flight was steady. It didn¡¯t appear to be in any physical pain. Instead, it flew tightly over her, making distressed noises whenever her circling brought her closer to the plant leaves. That was strange. The zanzibat had barely acknowledged her presence all this time except to growl at her. Why take so much care about what she was doing now? As if to test it, Cas abandoned her circling and made directly for the plant. Kree! Kree! Cas wobbled in the wake of the Fox¡¯s dive as it swooped past her. Curling back up in between as if to guard the plant against further encroachment. Maybe the plant was poisonous and it thought that Cas was trying to eat it? Though, for the life of her, Cas couldn¡¯t see a reason as to why it would care. She¡¯d only fed it once on this trip, and even then it barely ate what she gave it. Maybe Zanzibat naturally flew in flocks and it had an instinct to warn flock members? Thinking on it, the Zanzibat did appear to have a surprising variety of vocalizations. That did imply sociality. Still¡­ Cas was immune to poison outright, and she wasn¡¯t planning to eat the plant in any case. She went on. KREE! GRRRRH! This time, Cas was shaken by the wake of the Zanzibat¡¯s impact. It¡­ it had actually hit her. Not enough to ground her, but Cas felt herself seesawing through the and having to change trajectory just to avoid a crash. The zanzibat was circling above her now. By now an experienced flyer herself and familiar with the creature¡¯s flight habits, Cas could tell by the pitch of its wings that it was ready to dive on her again, at a moment''s notice. Cas was ready to call this a flocking instinct. She remembered a study showing that birds made vocalizations when a hawk was spotted, and notably they often did this instinctively when they heard another bird make the same calls. Maybe something about her approaching the plant mimicked a danger signal that was causing it to act out? Cas was ready to blast past the fox and dig up the plant. It would only take a second to check the roots. She was already planning the flight trajectory. She could feint right then curve left¡­ Still¡­. She didn¡¯t know why, but something locked her muscles up when the time actually came. Call it a gut feeling, or maybe the look in the foxes eyes seemed to hold more human concern than she knew an animal was capable of, but Cas decided to trust the fox¡­ at least enough to investigate its claims. Diving down, she pulled up just inches over the dirt, picking up a tall rock into her body. Flying high up, she flew towards the plant and lobbed the stone on a ballistic trajectory. The stone clattered into the dirt right next to the plant, just barely whiffling past the tips of the grass stems. Nothing happened. The fox looked at her with curious concern, and Cas felt stupider than this looked. This was stupid, she decided, about to take her chances with the plant when ¨C again, for some unknown reason ¨C something called on her to try again. Venturing closer, Cas felt a bit of heat in her chest. There, inches away from her crystal eye, Cas could see material coalescing, solidifying into a spherical paste of ground flesh. Cas didn¡¯t know why she chose such an expensive material, rather than something like hardened jello, but it was too late to lament when she dropped that ball of flesh down through her underside, watching it fall stolidly through the air and landing just inches to the right of the plant¡¯s stems. WHAM! A puff of dirt rose from the plant. A mouth the size of a soccer ball sprang shut around the grass stems, shaking the earth and whirling the sand as it sank down into the depths of the desert. Cas almost laughed when she realized what it had been. Well, she would have laughed if she had the vocal cords to do so. She would¡¯ve also kicked herself if she had the extra legs, as ¨C now cured from the greedy tunnel vision that had attracted her to the plant ¨C Cas was, with a bit of attention, able to make out a sign over where the creature had been laying. It was the same sort of sign she saw over Sin and the other villagers when she paid attention. Now that she was of the mind to, she could even see one hovering near the fox when she turned her crystal to it and focused her attention just right. Cas¡¯s hadn¡¯t felt danger like this for a long time. It was a queasy feeling that seemed to have no physical correlate. No heart to beat, no adrenaline to make her hands shake. In fact, the only real sign was the speed at which her thoughts raced, and the insessancy with which they repeated: You just almost died. You almost died trying to dig up grass. You¡¯re supposed to be better than this. ... You¡¯re a microbiologist! And it really did bother her. There had been no reason for her hurry. If the fox hadn¡¯t stopped her, she¡¯d be inside that thing right now, and her story could ended here as a cautionary tale. Curiosity killed the Cas, and all that. She looked back again at the signboard of danger that hung over the beast. This entire time the pop up had been floating there, ignored in the adrenaline fueled of new discovery. Or¡­ maybe not, Cas realized, watching even more closely as the sands started shifting again. Very neatly, two grass stems laden with nectar poked out of the sand. As this occurred, the status Sheet, too began fading away, until it was almost impossible to discern. A new status sheet rose, one that was so dim that it took all of Cas¡¯s concentration to even notice it was there. Hmm¡­ it appeared plants had subtler, and different aura signatures than animals. But¡­ this wasn¡¯t a plant. Mimicry, she decided. And it was mimicry, rather than a genuine transformation. Now that Cas knew its true nature, with enough discernment, she could see hints where the false status sheet appeared to fall apart under scrutiny. Looking back at the fox, it¡¯s status sheet was the same, though Cas could have sworn it wore a smug look on its face.
[ Small creature with a lightly colored head. It has the strange ability to modify its aura signature to a greater degree than I thought possible. Appears something called a ¡®Skill¡¯ is responsible for this, and it would follow that humans aren¡¯t capable of doing the same feat¡­ at least, not to the same extent. Hiding one¡¯s stats, however, appears common to all creatures. Looking at the fox reveals no information as to the state of its health or other stats. Sun Tsu said that, in war, one should appear strong where one is weak, and weak where one is strong. Perhaps the same applies in nature. Although, I feel now as if I¡¯ve stepped truly into a warzone. The desert becoming more hospitable, it appears, has only made it so that ever more dangerous creatures thrive here. ] [ Zanzibat shows signs consistent with being a social creature. It displays distinct warning calls, which it expects other creatures to understand. It saved my life, perhaps indicative of a flock protection instinct. ]
It made enough sense, Cas decided. The creatures of this world evolved with aura, after all. Of course they¡¯d be able to camouflage the information their aura constantly leaked into the world. Even people could hide their stats with a little training, as Sin had demonstrated. Cas also noticed that the plants seemed to be getting a lot larger the further they flew on. In the desert, the plant bulbs and flowers only opened up during the night, and they reflected the moonlight quite intensely. Cas, being colorblind, was helpless to distinguish any colors among the bouquet. To her, they all looked like bright points of white light and, as they traveled further, and night grew darker, and the density of plants grew thicker, she felt at times like she was flying over a field of stars. When they landed again, this time, it was amidst a sparse gathering of desert trees. Each tree had an obvious mound of dirt packed around its roots. That was strange. How did they maintain a pocket of soil around themselves when it was desert all around? Where would they get the water to maintain the soil moisture? Cas felt the instinct to go discover the answer, but ¨C remembering the sand-angler ¨C and remembering just how comparatively dinky it had been, she decided to make her observations from a distance. Cas was surprised, the next morning, when the fox elected not to take to the air. Instead it slept in, snoring in its den for the whole of the next day, waking at odd intervals to lap up some water found in another mud-puddle. The next day, the fox rested again, going out hunting. A full week passed like this. Cas thought this strange, at first. After all, was this the fox¡¯s final destination? It didn¡¯t seem all that impressive. Eventually, though, her curiosity turned to worry, as the facts slowly unraveled themselves and Cas realized that, no, this wasn¡¯t where the fox planned on staying the spring. It hunted, it ate, and it drank water. And it did nothing other than that except sleep and recuperate. It wasn¡¯t living¡­ it was preparing. This brought to mind only one question. For a creature that traveled two thousand miles, what could possibly be so daunting as to require a week of preparation. And the question, naturally, only brought one answer to mind. The final leg of their journey was ahead of them. And, though it wasn¡¯t very scientifically minded of her, Cas could feel in her gut that the next time she took off, she would be landing in a world far different from the one she once knew. Chapter 37: Lights On the eighth day, the fox took off with a fresh posture, looking almost better than it had at the beginning of the migration. Setting off early ¨C just hours after mid day ¨C it rode the thermals high up to eight thousand feet, and afterwards kept climbing. Cas was surprised when they passed ten thousand feet, and astounded at fifteen, and, by the time they¡¯d climbed up to twenty thousand feet, Cas had abandoned all expectations and simply looked forward at the fox, who ¨C despite its monstrous exertion ¨C continued flapping. They¡¯d flown ten miles by the time they¡¯d reached this altitude. Their flight path up to this point had been convoluted and meandering. The fox would often change direction suddenly, chasing scant thermals and advantageous headwinds that might aid its record breaking climb. Cas was too far behind the fox to take the same advantage. Whatever spurious aid the wind had granted usually petered out by the time she arrived in its place, but she had the good fortune of not getting exhausted, and simply rose by brute effort. Doing this, she followed the fox up a final three thousand feet, where, for the moment, it seemed to be content with the results of its efforts. At this height, things on the ground were very difficult to make out. The sea of glowing flowers turned into a field of congealed blobs, and she could see greater patterns in the whole, like the borders of a large, dark spot in the land, about the shape of a jagged scythe, where no flowers bloomed. Even the sky was of a different character. The winds were faster up here, much faster. And, unlike lower winds, which were marked for their whimsy, the winds up here were straight shots. cutting through the air like it was a straw, and the fox had been smart about choosing the right one to enter into. The air was intensely chilly. It bit and stabbed at her with icicles as it swooned over her form, tearing away at whatever warmth lay in her body and forcing Cas to call upon her aura to warm herself. She worried for the fox. Cas didn¡¯t need oxygen, and cold was only an issue as far as it stiffened her wings. Bats, however, were notoriously vulnerable to cold, she knew. Unlike birds, their thin skin-flaps lost heat like radiators, and she doubted the physics were any different here. With growing anxiety, she flattened a window and looked out for the fox. She was surprised to discover that the Foxbat''s character sheet was suddenly brighter. Despite the distance between them, the contents of the sheet were somehow clearly visible to her mind¡¯s eye. And new details were forthcoming in that apparation. More than that¡­ the fox¡¯s aura felt just so much more salient. Ignoring the sheet for the moment and focusing on the fox itself. Cas saw that a slight, indescribable color shrouded its figure, looking almost like a jacket and perhaps acting like one, too. Using aura like a jacket. Cas picked up on the idea and extended he aura past her body, feeling the winds chill touch grow blunted as the aura enveloped her. It seemed animals could control their auras, too. And exerting one''s auras created a stronger signal. That was probably what allowed Cas to read the fox''s stats. It looked like hiding information became harder whenever you exerted yourself. Cas could feel a pit of worry stake itself in her at this. She was bound to run into people at some point, would every use of her aura reveal too much? This point of consideration, thankfully, didn¡¯t bother Cas for too much longer, as something looming over the horizon overshadowed it. It was a small thing, really. It was the bladed tip of a mountain, peeking over the curvature of the earth. Barely perceptible, it looked like the size of a quarter from this distance. That mountain top was over 360 miles away. It was a strange feature of Cas''s eye that it could tell distance so accurately. It gave her an instinctual perspective that was hard to get used to. As a human on Earth, distant mountains had looked small, even if Cas knew them to be large. Here, however, with every foot of distance accounted for and instinctually known, that diminutive mountain top in the distance felt immense, almost crushing Cas with the weight of its presence as she looked worriedly over at her guide. Would it even be able to muster the energy to climb over that thing? The winds carried them on a straight shot to the mountain range. The mountain top swung up into view as the earth turned beneath them, standing high like a lifted barn-wall until it towered up into the heavens, its top rising above their altitude, obscured by four-thousand feet of distance. And it was only just the centerpiece. A massive line of snow-peaks stretched out like frosted wings to either side, disappearing behind both horizons. The fox, with the unimpressed ease of a veteran, ignored the flashy peak, and detoured to the left, running them on an angle that just barely allowed them to crest over a particularly low saddle between the summits. Drifting left and right, they dodged past a rocky alcove, passed by two hundred feet of descending rock and, in the space of three wingbeats, found themselves transported to the other side. Over the past week, Cas had been excited about what she might find. She hadn¡¯t put much more thought into it than that. What she couldn¡¯t have expected, however, was for the floor to be only three hundred feet below them. A floor of white clouds that stretched to every horizon and blanketed the world. Losing focus for the first time in two weeks, Cas forgot the fox as she took in the sight, having to quickly regain her wits as her guide descended, dipping into the clouds and disappearing from sight. Cas dove after it, finding herself suddenly enveloped in a white haze. At first worried she might lose it in the cloud, she was surprised to find tracking it was an easy task. With its aura still flaring, it felt like she knew where it was, more than she saw it. Paying enough attention, she could even see an outline of its flapping figure in the haze. The fox shot a straight line through the cloud layer, diving quickly. Cas, seeing the inevitable, just decided to enjoy living out her dream of flying through a cloud and dove into the white fog below. It was different than she''d expected. Unlike their appearance, clouds weren''t soft in the slightest. Rather it felt like she''d dived into a pool of Sprite, stinging nettles prickling at her skin as if hit by a pressure mister. With all her surroundings obscured by cloud cover, Cas''s natural speedometer had ceased to function. But, the stinging shower of water dropllets was enough to let her guess thirty miles per hour. Cas pierced through the cloud celling in ten secondss, soaked in a layer of condensation and fond memories.
Cas followed the fox for the next week, going at a more relaxed pace. The environment here were grasslands, quite calm and unassuming from this altitude. Occasionally, she could spot large creatures lumbering through the endless fields. Their pit-stop accommodations were accordingly more hospitable. Treetops and burrows ¨C often stolen from a suddenly dead mole-rat like creature ¨C replaced caves and dirt boxes. To Cas, who hadn¡¯t cared about comfort in a long time, it felt good to rest in a treetop. Killer of omens had an easy time perching, and the views could be quite magnificent. The water sources were fresher as well, though, again, Cas had trouble finding any preference in her actual taste whenever she drank. Mud water, to her, merely had a different taste and more minerals than the pristine lakes they frequented now. This went on for some time, and Cas¡­ still freshly sensitive to everything meteorological, found a sudden shift in the atmosphere telling. There was this constant, cool wind that seemed to be coming from the east, and it seemed to be coming from everywhere in the morning. The culprit was soon made apparent. In the distance, a spot of blue appeared; it grew as they approached, and never stopped growing. Soon, the fox had alighted on a weathered, stone cave, watching Cas splash through the tide-pools, looking back with some disappointment in the prudish fox who didn¡¯t seem to want to touch the water. The Ocean! Cas turned on four legs, facing soft sounds of crashing waves. Waves! The thoughts were simple, but quite powerful. Cas had forgotten so much water could exist in one place. She forgot that it somehow never stopped moving! It was like some massive, living creature! Another crash of waves sounded, a white carpet of foam reaching across the sands, just barely missing the stony edge of the muddy tide-pools Cas was busy splashing about in. Cas danced a bit, but then she stopped. Her curiosity got the better of her. After all¡­ Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. Cas dipped a forefoot into one of the brine pools, sucking up the water. +100 Sea Creatures Defeated! XP Gained: +0.019 +100 Sea Creatures Defeated! XP Gained: +0.009 +13 Sea Creatures Defeated! XP Gained: +0.0015 Cas leapt back from the pool like it was a hot stove, jogging back onto land as she tried to process the burst of information. ¡°Sea creatures?¡± With an investgative posture, Her eye swam through her interior, focusing on the cloudy section in her foot where salt water had mixed with her gelatin. There, with some clever manipulation of her interior, she focused an image just enough to discern¡­ Plankton! At least, they kind of looked like the shrimpy things. Probably tasted like them, too, Cas thought with a happy much, swirling up the salt water into herself and dissolving them. The water tasted¡­ salty. That was expected, but it wasn¡¯t unpleasant. Although, it might be dangerous for her to drink too much. Was it possible for her to overload on minerals. Even if it was, couldn''t she just... With a thought, she hardened a section of herself, but doing so unevenly, calling only the salt minerals and coalescing a mass of brine that, with a hiccup, she spat onto the floor like a brown loogie. Huh, so she could filter salt water. That was useful. The happy thought was clouded over by another premonition, however. She looked at the fox, sitting obliviously in its cave and realized something. She¡­ didn¡¯t need to follow the fox anymore. In fact, she hadn¡¯t needed to follow the fox for a while, now. Water was plentiful on this side of the mountains. She¡¯d just stayed with the fox because¡­ well, she stayed out of habit, she supposed. The fox knew where it was going, but Cas didn''t really have any destinations or even plans. She hadn''t planned for the fact that they had to separate eventually. The fact that she could drink saltwater only made this fact more salient. Water was essentially an infinite resource for her, now. She could follow the coasts and circle the continent without stopping for a single second if she wanted to. In fact, following the coast was probably be a better bet for finding a city, considering how port-heavy the eastern side of the continent was. The fox licked at itself, sitting couchant on a dry stone. It noticed her staring and gave her a flat expression. Cas guessed it would be goodbye, soon, though she wasn¡¯t sure how to say it to an animal.
Despite herself, Cas dallied a day, making an excuse out of studying the tidal habitats and waiting until the fox took flight to take off herself. Cas followed it as long as she could, but a hundred miles passed by in a flash and, eventually the coast began to curve right. At the same time, Fox turned banked left, heading inland. Cas followed the coast. For the first time in three weeks, the sky was empty. The fox had disappeared from it. Of course she wanted to look back at it, see how it was doing. She ignored the instinct. It was just an animal. What? Was five minutes without its constant presence enough to make her look for it again like a lost child? She was an adult for goodness''s sake, and she had everything she could possibly need. Still, the sky did feel lonelier, somehow. More than that, much as Cas hated to acknowledge it, the bigger reason for wanting to look back was that is felt rude to leave without saying good-bye. A painful memory of Kari snapped in her mind. She¡¯d¡­ apparently made a habit of leaving without proper goodbyes. Of course it was stupid, saying goodbye to an animal, but¡­ Cas looked back anyway. She was surprised to find the fox circling in the distance, looking back at her.. It seemed to hold there, circling for an expectant moment, dipping its wings in a way that seemed impatient. It seemed to be waiting for something, waiting for her. Cas dipped her wings in a mirror motion, and, purposefully turned her body further away, following the coast. The fox waited for several more minutes, receding from her as she continued her retreat. And then it turned and went its own way. As with all things regarding the fox, it was unceremonious. Still, that had felt like a proper goodbye. And, who knows, maybe she¡¯d see each other again. It wasn¡¯t so bad. They could explore more of the world apart than together. Maybe they could trade stories. Cas immediately shut off that monologue, feeling embarrassed for putting so much meaning into an interaction with a ¡®zanzibat¡¯ of all things. She¡¯d killed those things by the thousands in Siablo! Why was she reminiscing about one now? It was just an animal, and she was above thinking animals could be her friends. It was pathetic. She¡¯d be better off talking to a volleyball with a face painted onto it! At least then, she could plead insanity or something. She looked back again, at where the fox had last been, but it was already gone.
The coast soon turned northward. Outside of the desert, the climate was far more temperate, and any water loss she suffered could be immediately fixed by a quick glide across the ocean, she wouldn¡¯t even have to stop to take the drink. On top of this, the coastal were beautifully consistent. Flying without rest and finding generally favorable, north-ward winds at her altitude, Cas was making breakneck pace across the continent. She¡¯d crossed eight hundred miles before the first day was up, and over the course of the sun¡¯s set and rise, the land below her shifted towards darker hues, as grasslands gave way to Mediterranean vines, which themselves were soon replaced by forests. The forests at, first, were sparse collections of trees that dotted the inland, growing denser and denser the further north she travelled until, the ground disappeared beneath an endless sea of canopy. Cas again, didn¡¯t make much notice of this until two hundred miles later, when she noticed that the previously unbroken forest showed some slight signs of scarring. It wasn¡¯t everywhere, and it wasn¡¯t obvious, but whenever Cas flew low enough, she noticed occasional clear spots breaking up the dense pack of forest. This was strange enough. Stranger still was that, on closer inspection, these scars generally appeared in straight, unbroken lines, seeming to run for miles without pause. Someone¡¯s been building a road network. Cas dove, falling through ten thousand feet of rushing air, curving up to follow one of these scars in the forest, excitement building as she fell lower, until she was just a hundred feet over the rustling tips of the trees, able from her vantage point to get a clear view of the path. Bare dirt greeted her. Cas was a bit disappointed. She hadn¡¯t been asking for highway 66, but she¡¯d expected to see something a bit more obviously engineered. Some stone tiling or even packed gravel would have been enough to satisfy her excitement. She wanted something that would promise her civilization on the other end. As it was, this was just a dirt line worn out of the forest from overuse; it could have been a game trail for all she knew. And then a great roar sounded, and interrupted her musings. The right side of the world suddenly turned to day-light. Black shadows stabbed, stretching horrendously away from the trees, and stamping a silhouette of her flying figure onto the canopy below her. Off to her right, a thousand feet in the distance, a ball of white flame ballooned into the air. It roared like a tiger and clouds lighted up with its reflected light. Then the bubble popped, and the clouds flickered like broken electrical signs as the balloon warped and bubbled before popping into a conflagration of thunder and static that, after a moment of pause, exploded.
Cas dove under before the blast hit, hugging the ground and turtling up into a hardened sphere. The shockwave was powerful, but vanishingly brief, washing over her like a shout that shook the earth rocked the trees. Every loose leaf and branch seemed to fall all at once around her, burying her in the clutter of wood. Crying out with electric shrieks, a thousand flocks of birds darkened the sky. Cas was one among them. Hurrying back into the air, she looked at where the flame ball had been. A column of dust and wood-chips hung in its place. Turning right, Cas performed a steep, climbing turn, racing towards the landmark. A painfully long minute passed before Cas reached the site. By now she was a thousand feet high, scanning sporadically to see that she was too late. The clearing was littered with bodies, all of them spilling like tic-tacs from the exploded guts of a covered wagon. Cas hesitated. She could fly lower to search the area. But that exploded clearing, quite small and sterile from this height ¨C warned against further encroachment. And then she heard a screaming. More than a scream, a human scream, distorted by the distance and wind, coming from the forest not too far away. Chapter 38: Darkness
The scream touched Cas like static. The treetops speared up to brush her nose by the time Cas realized she¡¯d started diving. It was all she could do to pull up into a glide. At this height, she could see the clearing was littered with bodies, all of them spilling like tic-tacs from the exploded guts of a covered wagon. Down here, so close to the canopy, the winds deflected against the tree-tops, creating an up draft that allowed her to skate over the forest like an air-hockey table. A twitch of her wings against the constant updraft pulled a dexterously fast turn to the right, towards the source of the noise. The screaming had fallen silent, but Cas could hear something else.. The noises were¡­ almost human, except made with such energy and unrestrained frothing, that Cas knew that no sane human could have been responsible for their utterance. She knew from experience that human vocal chords wouldn¡¯t make those noises unless pushed well past their painful limits. Eerily, however, in a single second ¨C as if orchestrated in advance ¨C the bleating and howling suddenly fell silent, all at once. Only a quiet rustling through the underbrush remained. Cas could hear all of this with perfect clarity. The sounds were so close, just dozens of feet below her in the forest. However, frustratingly, she couldn¡¯t see anything. The darkness was clear to her, but treetops whirred by her vision, obscuring everything. Having spent so long at upper altitudes, Cas was unused to obscurity, the only time she¡¯d ever had her vision blocked had been with clouds, and even then she¡¯d been able to track the fox using its aura¡­ An idea rang in her head. This was combat, after all. Likely, everyone involved was flaring their auras. And if that was the case¡­ Cas focused, and the trees faded from her attention. Her status sheet, as a small kindness, did her the favor of auto labeling their descriptors. Like with the fox -- at first, she only felt the monsters, their distances and relative positions. Eventually, however, she returned her attention to her sight, and her knowledge was dragged over into her visual field. She could see the cool-blue outlines of their auras. It was as if she were seeing straight through the canopy. In fact, she could even see the fainter, green outlines that enveloped the trees and other plant life. She could see the rustling underbrush and the web of roots that spread into the underground like lightning bolts. The plants lit up like fireflies whenever a monster brushed past them. The creatures weren¡¯t attempting to be discreet, to tell by the fact their auras were flaring so conspicuously. Their prey, however, was quite a different story. The monsters were intensely still, standing on all fours and staying shock-still as they scanned the environment. Each faced in a different direction, baited breath and queasy anticipation casting a maniac shadow on the tenor of their auras. To tell by the searching stance the monsters had taken, there was at least one survivor in the forest somewhere to the north, and they were hiding. Invisibility, as it turned out, could be more conspicuous than sight and Cas, watching the aura of the underbrush, saw ¨C far in the distance¨C a series of low bushes parting for some invisible figure. It was intensely visible, the unnatural motion of the plants, even before their aura¡¯s lit up in response to the motion. The monsters, attention honed to the slightest discrepancy, took off as if the flashing branches had been a starting gun. Cas, being on wings, made for a very unfair race, and she beat them by a mile. Now closer, Cas was able to focus on the space in the rustling bushes where the figure should have been. There! Despite her best efforts, Cas could only guess that a vaguely bipedal form was running through the forest floor. They, whoever they were, were suppressing their aura¡¯s quite intensely, and looking at the fog of aura that shone through the canopy, Cas couldn¡¯t even be sure that this thing was human. Racing ahead of the figure, she dove down into the forest proper, and got a good look. A shock of blonde hair surprised her. Tabula Rasa. It meant clean slate¡­ or rather, it meant you approached every new subject without preconceived notions. Cas was a strict adherent . However, that didn¡¯t protect from being surprised every so often, and Cas, as she swooped down into the understory, was assaulted by shock as she lay eyes on the mystery figure. Cas hadn¡¯t been expecting anything in particular, but still, a woman wearing a full face of makeup and a jeweled gown was a bit much. More surprising was the pace she was keeping. Her skirt had been deliberately torn up to her knees, and bare feet strode powerfully over the forest floor. She was dead-sprinting fast enough to win a drag race, chunks of dirt tearing themselves from the dirt at the violence of her efforts. In her right hand, a pair of glimmering heels were held out to the side, and her back was up straight in a corset posture; her entire demeanor seemed to treat her earth breaking sprint like it was light exercise. Still, the monsters were faster, their encroaching howls growing closer and rising to feverish, excited pitches with every passing second. It was louder than Cas had ever imagined it would be. It was almost painfully loud and sudden, the growling and gnashing of teeth. It was like something out of a horror movie. And, much like a horror movie, right on cue, the woman stumbled and crashed against the dirt floor. She slid for several dozen feet, heels skittering off into the underbrush as her hands scrambled for purchase, scrambling back to her feet, moving barely twenty paces before ¨C seemingly for no reason ¨C tripping again. It was almost comical, watching such an intensely competent figure just trip over an obvious root, not even catching herself properly against the tree that was right there. However, the second fall called for an explanation. Cas looked closer at the woman¡¯s face. A mask of fear distorted the bold lines of her eyeliner, and her eyes bounced against the dark borders, looking everywhere and seeing nothing. Darkness. Cas looked around, noticing how thin the shadows looked underneath such a thick canopy, appreciating now just how little a human must have been able to see in the conditions. Again, the woman¡¯s feet skipped a beat as an intense chorus of howls reached her, just a hundred paces back where they were loudly tearing their way through a thicket of bushes, leaping easily over every obstacle and treating the darkness like Cas had been. Cas took off, shuddering the branch she¡¯d been sitting on just as the woman passed under it. Now more familiar with the woman, Cas grabbed hold of her aura signature like it was a fishing line, letting it slide between her sensory fingers as she flew up to two hundred feet, stopping just before the distance broke her line of sight. The monsters, bright as they were, were clearly seen even from this distance. With all the major players in sight, Cas took an overview of the situation. Again, a horrifying shriek as the woman stumbled, her bare toes just slipping past the claws of a creature, her dress tearing in its stead. That, Cas realized, hadn¡¯t been a lucky escape. From her vantage point, she could see the hesitant motions of the monsters. They weren¡¯t really attempting to go for the kill, rather harrying the woman as they spread around her. They were going to encircle her, Cas realized, seeing the flanks of their formation spread out like giant wings. The monsters were at a disadvantage, having to run a larger distance in order to apply their tactic, but the woman ¨C despite her speed ¨C seemed to stumble to a halt with every step, and her avenues for escape were rapidly closing. Cas, despite herself, was only human, and the human reaction here was to do something. Cas wanted to dive again without thinking, to insert herself into the situation and help somehow. But, Cas squashed that part of herself. A long life had trained her doubt emotions when they promised impossible results, and the woman¡¯s situation was looking beyond impossible. Taking stock of the situation, Cas was fifteen pounds heavy. Her only advantage in this situation was flight, something that couldn¡¯t be used effectively in the middle of a forest. This was even before you considered the monsters had a combined 26 levels over her at the very least. Fighting was no good in the circumstances. And¡­ that seemed to be it. It hurt to put it to herself like that. What was she supposed to do now? The woman screamed again. Cas didn¡¯t know why, she¡¯d been looking up at the stars as the facts assembled themselves into terrible shapes in her mind. The woman¡­ the woman with a diamond dress and well done makeup, and enough care about her heels to carry them along while running for her life. The woman that could carry along with perfect posture while running times that would¡¯ve broken her state¡¯s track record back on earth. The woman, despite her otherworldly origin, was just like so many girl¡¯s Cas had made friends with back on earth. She was fashion conscious. That was obvious. In fact, she was perhaps a bit too concerned with her looks if she was holding onto her heels, but Cas had learned from college not to judge a woman by her makeup. Often the fashionistas could be the kindest and bravest and smartest girls you ever met. At least, they¡¯d developed one skill and hobby¡­ that was one more than most people. A flush of shame came to Cas, the sharp memory of the embarrassing and terrible assumptions she¡¯d made about her first real friend Jen stabbing into her mind. Maybe the woman was just like Jen. Maybe she, too, used makeup and nice clothes as an outlet. Maybe she hoarded clothes and over-valued money for the same reason, had she grown up poor, too? The assumptions came naturally to Cas. They moved on their own and populated her mind from the moment she first laid eyes on the woman. They crafted a familiar, freidnly personality that endeared the woman to Cas. Maybe it was the fact that she hadn¡¯t seen a person for so long, or maybe it was just that the woman truly did remind Cas of Jen, but¡­ she felt like¡­ not a friend¡­ not an ally either¡­ but, like someone Cas just knew. She felt human. Maybe that was why Cas was looking up at the stars, because she couldn¡¯t bear to watch as the woman screamed again. Cas felt ashamed for refusing to look, but what was she supposed to do? Just watch her die? That wouldn¡¯t help her. She forced herself to look down at the scene. She at least owed her that much. The forest was growing thinner as the chase continued. Obviously, the woman was heading for wherever enough moon-light poked through the canopy to let her see and run properly. As a result, Cas was occasionally able to see flashes of the chase whenever they passed through an opening, the near misses and dangerous scrapes. It was much more visceral than the map of glowing dots which had so far abstracted everything away. The woman was brave, Cas could tell. She was purposefully holding back her screaming, only crying out when surprised by a flank, and even managing to keep silent whenever she tumbled. Of course, it didn¡¯t matter. The monsters had already locked onto her location, and they were just tiring her out at this point, waiting until she was too exhausted to cause them any trouble before they ¡ª Again, that useless emotion bared its face. That want to help. Cas had felt it a million times before whenever someone dropped a wallet, or she saw a sad child in a charity advertisement. It felt bad. It moved you to action like a cattle prod. And, Cas had thought herself hardened to such feelings but here it was again, a thousand times more intense than she¡¯d ever felt it before and telling her, begging her to do something before she saw this woman turn into a corpse. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. But, what! What could she do. Cas, with some self loathing, looked away from the scene as the woman tripped again, seeing an open clearing just a mile ahead that the woman would never get to. It was so frustrating. The monsters had giant holes in their formation, and the woman was fast enough when she wasn¡¯t stumbling. She had everything she needed to escape but just couldn¡¯t use it! It tasted like bile, watching something so preventable has such terrible- Wait a minute¡­. An idea flicked on the lightbulb over Cas¡¯ head. Appropriately enough, the idea involved using light. The glow worm solution she¡¯d ingested all those months sprang to mind, like a word on the tip of her tongue, which she just had to speak to create. The ¡®glow worm solution¡¯, was a complex of four different chemicals that ¨C when mixed ¨C reacted to produce a faint light. Three of those ingredients were a simple matter. Cas could make them using simple sugars. The fourth ingredient was a bit more metabolically expensive, however, requiring her to break down some of the ¡®meat¡¯ as her status sheet called it, and which Cas suspected to be its term for amino acids. Cas couldn¡¯t recreate this ¡®meat¡¯ once she¡¯d broken it down for the sake of making glow juice, and, depending on the intensity of the light she went for, she would only be able to keep her light on for fifteen minutes until all her current stock was used up in the reaction. This was usually a small sacrifice, considering she could always hunt for more, but right now Cas was on a limited weight budget of 15 pounds, and, looking down as the woman scrambled ¨C she doubted she¡¯d have the time to hunt any time soon. Time was of the essence, and Cas was reluctant to break down too much muscle in the face of these creatures. Taking a quick glance at the distance, Cas¡¯s eye saw the minute it would take for the woman to arrive at where Cas wanted her. She shouldn¡¯t need more than a minute of light, then, Cas decided, and dove into the canopy. It felt like butterflies in her belly, as she synthesized the materials inside of herself, mashing them together with a blending motion of her interior jelly. Alongside the butterflies, a serene Christmas-night sensation splurged hot aura through the chemical reactions and ¨C with a flash ¨C lit up her entire body. Cas had landed on a branch as soon as she entered below the canopy, but she spread her wings wide to their full, six foot wingspan. Cas wasn¡¯t sure if it was just her night vision, but a whole fifty meters of forest seemed to light up underneath where she flew. The girl¡¯s eyes immediately flashed up, looking at the winged figure with a dreadful joy of which only the condemned were capable. The monsters reeled back with pained snarls, straying to the edges of where the light was strongest, eyes glowing intensely. Cas. shortening her wings, dropped down from the branch, circling in midair and gesturing to the north. With growls coming from the darkness, the woman hardly needed any convincing, and took off in the specified direction. The monsters receded from the woman, and ¨C noticing the change of heading ¨C relocated themselves as they prepared to charge her again, though with a different aim this time. They were obviously familiar with the terrain. Cas had a better view, however, and she could see the openings in their formation. Sharply dimming her light, Cas dove below the treeline, shifting to shorter, more maneuverable wings as she weaved between the trunks.. Now moving in a walkway of moving light, the woman picked up her pace, striding confidently over the roots and brambles, flaring her aura unabashedly as she put new power into her legs. Cas, for her part, merely focused on the flying. The trees were surprisingly far apart once you got below the canopy. Even so, Cas found her flight to be more of a quick hop between branches, taking straight lines in open air and stopping very occasionally. With such hindrances, Cas found herself having to sprint just to keep ahead of the woman, who¡¯s pace had redoubled, casting a strobe of shadows whenever she weaved past too many clustered branches. Occasionally, Cas would dip above the canopy to spot their destination. Whenever she did, she noticed that the woman¡¯s breathing would grow much more ragged and pained, as if calling her back down. Soon, they were nearing the end of the forest. Even from a distance, the border visible for the brilliant glare of moon-light which flooded in, and the woman¡¯s breathing grew almost ecstatic as she ¨C with a final exercise of effort ¨C released a sprint into the clearing Cas had led her to. The smile immediately faded from the woman¡¯s countenance. The moonlight painted the full horror of it in immaculate detail, freezing the woman in place. She skidded to a halt, shooting fearful looks all about her. A stolid bluff stood in front of her, blocking her way with its hundred foot height, cutting through the forest like a natural fence-line. The base of the rough cliff was painted with dried blood and littered with a gleaming debris field of broken bones and scattered corpses. The woman turned around just to freeze again. Gleaming eyes revealed themselves in the forest clearing. Her nose scrunched. The smell of them was rotten. She stepped back away from it, retreating slowly as the monsters came into the light. The monsters were wrinkles and leather, with wide eyes and large ears the shape of martini glasses that danced independently atop their heads. They were hyena-like in figure, with sloping backs that led up to large, ape-like arms and massive jaws filled with black teeth. The woman didn¡¯t utter a sound as they closed in from all angles. Rather, she just held a betrayed and resolved expression as she continually stepped back, retreating until her back touched the face of the bluff. It was like watching a scared mouse, one whose instincts told it to stay quiet in the face of hopeless danger. It was a terrible sight. More than violence or screaming, watching the sheer mortality play itself out on the woman¡¯s face was horrifying. Cas, as dark as the sky, now, hovered over the scene with a silent mind. The creatures split up, three of them fanned out to press her against the rock wall, one staying in the rear to cover any escapes. It was¡­ disconcerting how little Cas was reacting to the sight. Have you ever heard a baby crying? It¡¯s a painful sound, more than it has any right to be. It induced anxiety. It was the sort of noise which made it impossible for you sit in peace as long as it carried on. That was one of the costs of being human, however. Evolution designed humans to stress at crying babies¡­ probably helped the babies survive, even if it made adults want to kill themselves as they woke up at three-am to wipe another persons¡¯ ass. And, Cas mused, perhaps that wasn¡¯t the only trigger that had been designed into humans. Maybe, there was a special emotion humans were supposed to feel when they saw another person dying. Maybe, there was a new kind of horror, at the sight of death. Executions used to be public events, after all, and quite popular ones at that. Maybe there was something in the death of a human being that couldn¡¯t be replicated anywhere else. Cas didn¡¯t know, and if there was, she wasn¡¯t feeling it. In fact, Cas didn¡¯t feel anything in particular at the moment. Not a single thing at all except the racing considerations as she picked her angle. Cas drifted to the southern edge of the clearing, floating behind the monsters, making sure her shadow fell outside the borders of the clearing. The air whistled softly past as she turned her wings down and fell into a descending turn. The wind was the only thing in her mind apart from flight paths and light considerations. That was¡­ disconcerting. Cas should have been feeling something right now, right? She should have been feeling something special. After all, she had led the woman into the trap on purpose. Granted, she¡¯d done that to get her out of an even worse trap, but¡­ hadn¡¯t the decision been too easy? Shouldn¡¯t she be shaking and shivering and throwing up or something? Why was she only feeling scared and ashamed? ¡°Grahhh!¡± The woman screamed suddenly. The hyena on her left had lunged; she swung a branch she¡¯d picked up at it, the make-shift bat whiffing past its head as it drew back. Just then, however, the one behind her leaped, grabbing a bloody chunk of her rib cage and snapping jaws shut with a squelching sound. This time, the scream was loud¡­ so loud. Cas hadn¡¯t even known humans could scream so intensely. She hadn¡¯t known screams could express so much pain. The woman hit true with her stick, this time, and the branch exploded against the head of the hyena, leaving a jagged stake in her hands as the dizzied hyena staggered back from her scrambling figure. She held the pointed stake one handed now, pointing it assertively at every hyena that drew too close for comfort. The blood that leaked out of her side was almost black in color. There was so much of it, it soaked out like molasses into her glimmering dress. Was human blood that dark? Cas turned her eye away. Looking on wouldn¡¯t do the woman any good. Cas focused her sight on the rear-most monster. Her wings adjusted by themselves until she was just on the right trajectory. Half-way through the journey, Cas started dressing for her destination. The transformation was subtle, but occurred all over, in a thousand different places on her body. Her wings extended outward, losing their previously sleek shape and expanding out into bat-like parachute surfaces. The rudder in her back flexed, molding itself into a cylindrical shape that arced up over her head like a rainbow. In tandem with the change, her interior shifted, jetting the rusty-spearhead up through the rainbow arc, pushing it tip-first out the end of the tail, giving the character of a scorpion¡¯s stinger. In truth, she was no longer a competent flier like this. Flight was a delicate balance of forces, and that balance was destroyed by the sudden change to her silhouette and off-kilter weight distribution. That was fine, she¡¯d practiced for this. Cas was barely gliding now, drawing her wings in for a quicker descent. Just as she came within ten feet, she flared her aura, running it over her form and coating it over the body of the spear-head. [Item Equipped: Rusty Spearhead.] [Attack: 23] [Piercing: 30] Have you ever seen two lions fighting? You¡¯ll notice that one of them ¨C usually the losing one ¨C always gets on the ground, lying on its back and twisting its body up to attack its opponent from below. One of Cas¡¯s acquaintances ¨C a guy who went everywhere in a rash guard and had an annoying penchant for inserting himself into other people¡¯s business ¨C once intruded on her animal planet binge to say about just such a lion fight: ¡°oh¡­ he¡¯s taking bottom position¡±. Cas had ignored the comment at the time, dismissing it as yet another example of his usual inanity. She realized later that he¡¯d actually said something insightful. Cas had always thought that the grounded lion had just fallen or been pushed into a losing position. After all, why else you get on the ground? But, on thinking of how her friend had spoken of it, she realized it was an intentional tactic. After all, the one thing lions fear is an opponent taking the back of their neck. Usually, such an event was followed by a crunch sound and a fulfillment of the circle of life. So, if the back of your neck was so vital, and you were losing, why not use the Earth to protect it? In fact, after internalizing that fact, Cas started watching lion fights with a new level of insight. The previously random wrestling, she could see now, had always been a fight for position, a fight for who could position themselves over the other one¡¯s neck vertebrae! Cas, being an airborne creature, didn¡¯t need to fight for that position. The monster¡¯s neck was completely exposed to the sky, and that was exactly the direction she happened to be coming from. Cas fell like a kite, floating down on ghostly wings and swooping her scorpion tail underneath her with deadly aim. The blade, charged with aura, slid between its neck vertebrae like a knife through a dead man. It fell in a second, like a puppet with strings unhooked. Cas simply continued her fall and covered the creature immediately, her form losing all structure as she smothered the body, muffling the death cries as the creature convulsed underneath her, struggling for breath as it¡¯s aura dimmed, then flickered, then died. Cas had already been drinking the blood that poured like a geyser from the creature¡¯s artery, but, as soon as the aura flickered away, that protective energy which soaked the creature¡¯s body disappeared, and the formerly hard body turned into melting sugar, completely exposed to Cas¡¯s digestion. Cas immediately started eating it. PFRTPFRTPFRTPFRTTTTFRRTRTRTRTRTKHRRRRHRRHR The body frothed and bubbled like baking soda in a volcano, setting her liquid body spluttering as noxious gasses and bone and blood and flesh were all dissolved by the piranha solution which was Cas¡¯s body. That was all background music, however, to the rolling reel of updates that ran across Cas¡¯s status sheet like a motion picture. [4894 XP Gained]! [Level Up: 6 ¡ú 7]! ¡ª---------------------------------------------------------- Skill Level Increases [Shape Change: 14 ¡ú 15] [Shape Change: 15 ¡ú 16] [Shape Change: 16 ¡ú 17] [Absorption: 15 ¡ú 16] [Absorption: 16 ¡ú 17] [Alchemy: 14 ¡ú 15] [Partial Hardening: 13 ¡ú 14] [Partial Hardening: 14 ¡ú 15] ¡ª---------------------------------------------------------- New Milestone Achievements! Shape Change Level 15! Partial Hardening Level 15! New Combined Ability: Create Structure ¡ª---------------------------------------------------------- New Milestone Achievements! Alchemy Level 15! Absorption Level 15! New Combined Ability: Rapid Processing Maximum Weight Increased: 250 lbs It was a loud and messy process, and it drew eyes from all corners of the clearing. For one moment, both monsters and woman were united in their staring, as Cas¡¯s bubbling, frothing form sputtered blood and chunks and meat in every direction, ruthlessly liquefying their compatriot. And that¡¯s when the screaming started, from human and monsters alike. Chapter 39: Massacre All the world was a stage, and Cas¡¯s eye was a crystal spot-light which illuminated all the fine details. Cas still had senses without her eye. Whenever she¡¯d found cause to dissolve her eye, Cas remained able to distinguish light from darkness. She could hear muffled rumblings whenever something particularly loud disturbed the silence. Whenever her eye crystalized and regained its complex structure, however, sight and sound focused themselves into a picture of the whole world. The crystal eye of a humble slime was an ingenious thing. By flexing the transparent jelly which was all around it, a focused image could be created on the front surface of the eye, and subtle sounds discerned on the coin-like edge. It was rare that nature provided such a singularly useful tool. Of course, the image provided was monochrome, lacking in any color, and the image was blurry past a certain distance. The sounds, heard through a muffling cushion of slime material, were distant at best. In truth, sight and sound were quite incidental in the lives of most slimes. More important were the senses of taste, touch, and smell. These sensations were spread throughout the entire body of a slime, and they could be called upon with immense accuracy. Having lived for decades as a human, Cas had overlooked this as a matter of fact. For her, sight and sound had been most of the world. It was only natural that she mistook those to be her primary senses. But,it is a matter of fact that mistakes only hold up until reality intervenes, and Cas was a slime now, and this latest meal was quick to make her acknowledge that fact. The first thing that went was her sense of sight; the world turning dark as the dissolving body clouding her interior with biological material. Rapid fire updates still shone through that darkness as her stats presented themselves to her. Contrasted against the general darkness, the colors of her status sheet were especially vibrant. This body of hers was oddity upon oddity. Cas had hardly even questioned the fact that her status sheet remained colorful. It was the only hint of color she''d seen since waking up in this color-blind body. Perhaps her mind had retained the ability to distinguish hues even if her eye couldn¡¯t differentiate the physical colors. That curiosity, as well as the deluge of information her sheet presented her with, was quickly washed away by the swelling tide of sensation which her blindness forced her to stop ignoring. It was dark, but Cas could see the creature as she ate it. No, that was impossible. It was dark, so how was she able to see it. Paying more attention, Cas realized that what she''d confused for sight had been her sense of touch. Her entire body was like water, contacting the corpse at every point, and sensitive to every rise and bump of its general shape. Cas had confused it for sight because of just how incredibly detailed it was. It was an easy enough mistake. Touch wasn''t supposed to give this much information, after all. This was just like seeing. No... it was different from seeing. Now that Cas was paying attention, she was quick to notice that things like brightness were missing from the new repertoire of sensations. Everything was immediately seen to the same extent. Occlusion was missing as well. Now that she had fully engulfed the rapidly dwindling body, it was like she could ''see'' every side of it at the same time. More than that, she could feel every minute difference in texture. In fact, things like texture didn¡¯t even exist for her anymore, they were all just different shapes patterned on the surface. Different ''shades'' of feeling casting shadows upon themselves as she felt the small veins and subsurface structures. She saw new ''colors'', too. Well, no, they weren¡¯t colors, exactly. She didn''t know how to describe them. But she knew she could feel and sense the minutest details of the creature, as skin and fat and flesh were stripped away, revealing fresh layers of it to her sensitive palate. The fur was the first to go, cleaning the body and revealing the skin. And¡­ the skin wasn¡¯t smooth. As a human, Cas might have thought so. But her slime material seemed to go everywhere, and she felt the skin as it truly was, as a pockmarked battlefield of pores and bumps and caverns where hair-follicles used to be seated. And even between these larger structures, she saw the layered pattern of bumps and ridges which the mites used to scale before their world ended and they were dissolved. And then the skin was stripped away, and she felt the dense pack of bubbly structures which made up the fat. After that dissolved into an oily mess, the muscles were revealed. They felt like vibrating strings made up of individual chains, with a hard color that blinked electrically as the monster¡¯s dying convulsions caused it to twitch. It was like unraveling an artwork, with a million different points of interest that were cataloging themselves to her mind''s eye. New Reagents Catalogued! [Monster 3 Bone] [Monster 3 Blood] [Monster 3 Flesh] She was now digesting her way to the center of this tootsie pop, and here, as the organs were stripped naked, that intense sensation once again intruded upon her. Again, that terrible analogy to color came to mind. It was something immediately distinguishable but so different. It was something that she could recognize even if she''d never seen it before. It was... Cas paid closer attention. She focused on a major artery next to the creature''s freshly exposed heart, which was gushing warm blood, now. The blood tasted like water, for the most part, lacking the intense tang she might have expected with a human tongue. In it were a hundred different subtle flavors, however. Feeling, tasting and drawing in, Cas dissolved the blood and realized that there were just too many colors packed together in such a small space. Cas couldn''t even count them, but it was like she could taste every grain of salt on a french fry. It was impossible for there to be this many different tastes in blood unless she was tasting the individual cells. No way¡­ Amazement aside, Cas was still stopped from thought by the onslaught of sheet taste. The whole creature had the taste of something half-bodied. The bones added a sharp, aromatic insertion but, overall, eating the monster reminded Cas of her experience drinking a bottle of vitamin water. It was almost sedating with its flavorlessness, and it left Cas feeling like a wine-taster as she managed to assign a thousand unique characteristics to such a bland meal. It felt like reading through a book in two seconds, for that had been about how long such an intricate process of digestion took. Cas was almost surprised by the speed of her digestion. [Rapid Processing] was more than living up to its name, as it flashed repeatedly across her status screen and the creature just¡­ turned into a swirling dust devil inside of her, carrying small bones in the tornado that were themselves dissolved before the two seconds were up. It was an explosion of digestion that Cas could see every detail of, and the shrapnel was rapidly dissipating. With her body rapidly processing the muddy oils that smoke-screened through her insides, Cas was able to catch fleeting glimpses of the outside world whenever a clear spot through the crud made itself apparent. The woman had collapsed onto hands and knees, retching, and the monster¡¯s hadn¡¯t fared much better. Their cries sounded like a medley of cries and howls and deranged laughter as they overlapped with one another. ¡°OoohOoohOoohAkkkgh! Aghh!¡± ¡°OoohOoohAghh!OoohAkkkgh! ¡± ¡°Ooohoooh!hOoohOooh!Akkkgh! Aghh! Akkgh!¡± A cacophony of scared noises and threatening growls orbited around her as the creatures abandoned their prey to circle around her, hopping back and forth over that invisible line they¡¯d all decided was, quote on quote, ¡®close enough¡¯. Cas had made her eating process messier than strictly necessary, and she kept up the lightshow of frothing blood and exploding guts long after she¡¯d finished digesting. It seemed to distract the monsters. More importantly, it bought her time. Her new stats flashed like a banner parade across her eyes. The creatures had grown a bit bolder since last she saw them. They were circling closer now, barking and yipping at her with threatening postures. Three left. Cas would have to be smart about this. She was eighty pounds heavy, now. Far too weighty to fly unless she wanted to abandon most of her newly acquired body mass. Flying had worked once as a killing tactic, but that had been with the element of surprise. Looking now at the ever paranoid and howling creatures, Cas doubted that trick would work twice. It was quite a risky maneuver, in any case,, putting yourself so close to an enemy that outweighed you four times over. [Human Figure] sat temptingly high up her character sheet as the answer to all her problems. Her human form had the best overall stats, particularly strength. Not to mention how easily she would be able to wield the dagger in hand. However¡­ at the end of the day, eighty pounds of material would only get her a twelve year old body, and ¨C as the creatures had proven ¨C they were more than a match for an adult. Dagger or no. Still, as she saw them cowering away with terrified noises, afraid to approach her closer as they reached the limits of her caustic splattering, Cas felt an undue confidence. Human figure was her strongest form, yes, but it was almost funny how terrified they were of her basic slime form. Who¡¯s to say she couldn¡¯t twist thing in her favor? Cas suddenly leapt up in dramatic fashion. She rose high like an erected wall, a carpet of slime that sent the hyenas scurrying for ten feet before rounding back, growling and hissing. Cas quickly transformed. And, unlike her usual transformations, her body leapt to fill the commanding mold with agility. [Create Structure] flashed intensely with a steady beat. First, her base widened out, creating a stout, four-legged pedestal upon which she planned to sculpt the rest of her designs. Growing thin, the base spread it out into a three foot square that cleared her over the grass. Atop it, the rest of her gelatinous mass molded itself into an open mouthed cylinder. Defeating three monsters at once had seemed quite a problem. The solution became obvious once Cas reformulated the question, however. She stopped asking herself how she could defeat these creatures, and instead decided to consider: she¡¯d just picked up 65 pounds of high quality mass¡­ what could she do with it? And the answer to that, once run through Cas¡¯s imagination, was: quite a lot. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. The cylinder expanded further, flanging out to create a bell-shape that funneled back to a solid cube of gelatin. This solid cube of gelatin was the smallest piece of the entire design, yet ¨C unlike the hollow bell and thin stand, it held the vast majority of her mass and future expectations. She called it the reaction chamber. A grandiose name for such a simple structure, but ¨C as Cas had learned so recently ¨C few things were simple in life, and fewer still in a slime. In the reaction chamber, she connected a hose to the belly of the bell, and huffed in like a bellows, sucking in gallons of air. It was a familiar enough process. She¡¯d done it every time she wanted to create a false lung for her vocal chords. The scale was new, however. The gas pocket expanded until the reaction chamber was double the size of the bell. And from there it just kept ballooning like an over inflated tractor tire, walls thinning as it grew to oversized proportions. The creatures leapt back at the sudden change in size, but quickly regained a threatening posture, emboldened now that their enemy had taken a more corporeal form. Solidity made the opponent more real, Cas realized. And real enemies were less frightening than ghosts. [Rapid Processing] activated. Cas never grew tired, but she could feel exertion, and right now it felt as if her entire being was in explosive motion. A halo of Aura filled the entire clearing with the splendor of her efforts, glowing like an explosion as all that energy concentrated itself in her reaction chamber. [Alchemy 101 Level Increase: 15 -> 16] The air pocket inside of the reaction chamber made up most of Cas¡¯s current volume. However, being an air pocket, it was also an empty space. To Cas, the air pocket was where she wasn¡¯t; it felt more like an object in her grasp rather than a part of her. It felt like she was holding a gigantic marble of air. Air was a strange object to be holding. Cas had taken breaths as a human, but the insides of her lungs were a senseless material, at best she felt a tension at her chest during such times. Now that she was a slime, however, and one with such a newly expanded sense of touch. The sensation of holding the gas pocket was an intense one. It was like¡­ holding a ball of living, roiling energy, one that was the size of a small refrigerator yet only weighed as much as a wine bottle. It felt like a living creature that wanted to explode out of the confines she¡¯d trapped it in, pressing out like a spring against every surface of her air pocket. Aura flushed into the walls that held the air marble, focusing, breathing, and holding there until Cas suddenly slammed the fridge sized air pocket down to the size of a wine bottle. It felt something like closing her hand on a rock, as the air crushed down until it just simply refused to yield, leaving her with a pill-shaped pocket of intensely hard air that pressed back against her. The process surprised cas with how suddenly the taste of the air intensified. Cas hadn¡¯t even known Air had a taste. It was a spritzy flavor, with hints of acidity in it. Those subtle flavors were soon overpowered, as [Rapid Processing] lived up to its name and charged the pressure walls with aura and energy. [0.5ml of Ant Acid] Created [0.5ml of Ant Acid] Created [0.5ml of Ant Acid] Created [1 ml of Ant Acid] Created [1 ml of Ant Acid] Created [1 ml of Ant Acid] Created [1.5 ml of Ant Acid] Created At first it was invisible, but quickly, within seconds, an opaque, pill-shaped cloud roiled within the confines of the pressure chamber. Cas squeezed harder, she felt her body changing without instruction ¨C coiling dark bands of muscle around the reaction chamber to aid in forcing it to compress just those last few inches.. The air inside turned misty, growing hot as aura and chemistry and pressure combined to fill it with a cloud of poison. The reaction chamber was almost burning hot, now, and as hard as steel. [Max HP Reduced By 12] [Max HP Reduced By 8] [Max HP Reduced By 6] [Max HP Reduced By 5] Cas could feel herself losing water. A dark mist of steam up from the surface of the reaction chamber. Droplets of caustic dew were condensing on the interior walls. All of this took a few split seconds. And, at the end of those split seconds, Cas was left holding tightly onto a grenade. [Max HP Reduced By 3] [Max HP Reduced By 4] [Max HP Reduced By 7] [Max HP Reduced By 2] Another burst of stream broke the standoff. That sudden interruption of the brief silence seemed to grant permission for others to do the same, and hyenas took full advantage, howling madly as ready legs and springing spines launched them forward with inhuman speed. Despite their lopping gates and flared shoulders, they moved like balls of tense energy, everything about them almost painfully contracted as they dug their hindlegs into the dirt and sprung forward, clearing half the distance with three strides. Cas, finding herself holding back a bomb, was in the exact opposite position. All she had to do was connect the pressure vessel to the bell, and relax... [Max HP Reduced By 53] The chamber emptied violently, all the gas exiting in a single, great hiss that kicked her back several feet. The inner surface of her bell was stripped away by the force of the blast, ablating 53 hp worth of her body into a fine mist. The air itself was particularly reactive as it shot forward, turning almost incredibly cold as it expanded, and condensing suddenly as it slammed into the atmosphere and braked to a sudden halt, depositing everything in a sudden, freezing condensation as with a snapping poof a dense fog of white gas drew a line to the edge of the clearing. ¡°Ugh! Gugh!¡± The woman, at the far edge of the clearing, coughed violently, bloody hands wiping at her tears as she tried to scramble away in a limping retreat from the teargas. The monsters, hidden in the hazy heart of that sudden cloud, were in a worse condition. Inhuman screams of pain and agony shook the air, and three panicked figures scurried out from the horrid, acidic center of that fluffy white hell Cas had created. The creatures were undoubtedly intelligent. Even their routing retreat was orderly enough, considering they all went in the same direction. Perhaps they were merely heading to the same exit, or maybe they were following eachother¡¯s cries of pain. It didn¡¯t matter too much, Cas considered. After all, they were blind, and ¨C much as she had learned to admire her sense of touch, she was still of the opinion that becoming blind in a fair fight was a death sentence, and Cas was happy to play the bit of executioner.
The first creature was a laggard, disorientated as it slammed head first into a tree-trunk with a painful crack, barely managing to shake away the confusion before her rusty blade exploded out the side of its throat, gushing darkly into the underbrush like heavy raindrops. [3326 XP] [Level Increase! LVL 7 -> 8] It screamed like a pig, a cry that seemed to carry for miles and encourage its compatriots to get away. Cas had gained another fifty pounds by the time her new, trundling, ¡®bison¡¯ form caught up with the second. It wasn¡¯t the stealthiest of forms. Even blind, the creature sensed her presence easily enough. Ah, yes¡­ this was the one with the ¡®Sensor¡¯ skill, she recalled. Its eyes were squeezed shut, fluttering was it trid to force them open against the tears. It suddenly reared around to face her, muzzle scrunching with hatred as it bared black fangs and lunged, just in time for her curved horn to swoop up like a fishing hook through its esophagus, muffling its noises with the gurgles of its own blood. [2482 XP] Cas, by now, had reached her maximum weight for this level. All 165 pounds of her planted deep footsteps into the black soil. By the time she¡¯d reached it, the third creature had already regained its eyesight. It was breathing heavily. It stared at her. Cas could kill it easily enough. Her bison form was a mirror of it, in a way. Upward sloping back, large forelegs that held up a barrel like chest. Inside of her chest, all around her floating eye, colorful chemical pathways trailed throughout her interior like a subway map; a dozen reagents were shunted throughout and delivered to her reaction chamber¡­ it was a logistical operation that felt more intense than any gun-fight, and it all occurred in a few split seconds. Soon a miniature bottle of explosive tear gas was ready, and her bell-head pointed at the creature like an air-raid siren. It would be simple enough to blind it again, and dead-easy to kill it afterwards. All she would have to do was stop holding that death back.
Rock Jaw was dead. If words could be put to the thoughts of the monster that called itself Spitter, that was the sentiment which ran rampant in its mind like a dreadful loop. All of them were dead. Being the last survivor was perhaps the most dreadful fate. Knowledge of your death was an additional burden, and death was here, now, for him. The figure hunting him was a large one. Size had never intimidated Spitter, but, as he stood frozen, staring at the latest form the creature had taken, he was able to tell that this creature had no eyes. It had an empty face, and a scent like ghostly remnants of the rest of his pack, and that hollow, horrifying face was changing now, warping into an impossible and familiar shape. Spitter knew the futility of running. He¡¯d been on too many hunts from the other end. So, he stood, tense like a statue, as he stared over at the beast. Most of its body was hidden behind a high bush. It was just that soul-less head pointing in his direction. It was just that mountainous silhouette standing there, it was just the smell of empty death all about it. And then, turning around, it walked away.
Cas retreated on stiff steps, lengthening her stout legs before transitioning to a trot. Cas had only been chasing after them because of the threat they might have posed. That last creature, she realized, was unlikely to pose much of a danger, or even to threaten as much. There was really no point in killing it. If she bothered to interrogate herself, Cas couldn¡¯t be certain why she spared that last creature. Maybe because it looked frightened. But, that was senseless, they¡¯d all be scared. Every animal she¡¯d killed had been scared before she ate it. That hadn¡¯t stopped her. Of course there was no point in killing it. It was no threat to her or to the woman anymore. But, given that, there was also no point in keeping it alive. Killing it would have been a simple matter, and it would have given her valuable XP. In the game, she¡¯d killed monsters by the thousands simply because of their title, and because the plot told her to. But, that creature had seemed more like an animal. It had emotions and intelligence behind the eyes, and a certain inability to overcome its instincts. Why hadn¡¯t she killed it? Maybe it was because it could see in the dark. It could look at her. It could look at its own killer and¡­ Cas didn¡¯t feel any pity for the monster, far from it. But¡­ it did lead her to question herself. Was she really the kind of person that would kill for no reason? Was it already so natural for her to kill something because ¡®there was no point¡¯ and for nothing else? Cas turned her trot into a gallop. The ground rushed beneath, and the treetops whirred above. She needed to get to the woman quickly, she decided. And, besides, running helped her escape her thoughts.
Despite her best efforts, her suddenly depressive mood persisted as she ran into the clearing. The woman looked tired, lying back against a spot of ground that was clear of bones, face streaked with bloody lines where she¡¯d wiped at her eyes. Cas had hoped that the sight would distract her from her earlier doubts, but it only brought them into sharper focus. The dying woman, the blonde hair, the terrified look etched into her delirious expression and squinted, nightmare eyes. Kari¡­ she remembered. Cas almost laughed at herself as the terrible memories stabbed at her. She laughed at her own idiocy. What, had she honestly expected to be able to forget her failures forever? To be protected from their horror by endless distractions. She ran away. Cas had abandoned a girl she promised to protect in a murderous village and, because of her own stupidity, ruined everything. Not a single good deed. The phrase that had been bubbling in Cas¡¯s subconscious frothed over her, now. She hadn¡¯t done a single good deed since she¡¯d gotten here. She could have helped the villagers, but had spent all her efforts trying to play scientist and satisfy her own curiosity. She could have helped Kari, but couldn¡¯t even think outside of her own needs for one second to realize the girl was hurting! She could have, she could have, she could have¡­ and she didn¡¯t, not once, not at all. Not one single good deed. Maybe that had been why she¡¯d spared that terrified creature. Maybe it was some desperate attempt to do something human. The woman shifted suddenly, coughing as a dark shot of blood squeezed out of the fabric of her dress. Cas¡¯s eye drifted out from the wound, seeing the liters of thick blood that pooled about the woman. She was a lost cause. That much was obvious. The amount of blood she¡¯d lost¡­ stopping her bleeding would only serve to prolongue her suffering. If¡­ if Cas had done more, could she have saved her? The thought scraped along her hackles like a cool blade. ¡®Could have, could have, could have,¡¯ the taunting voice twisted the knife. It was hard, seeing a person die. It didn¡¯t cause Cas any panic or fluster, but¡­ that perhaps was worse. Without the haze of fear, the terror of the situation was crystal clear: The woman was dying now, and Cas just didn¡¯t know what to do. She just didn¡¯t know.
Chapter 40: Surreal Cas summoned new facets of herself whenever she created a new form. This latest figure, which Cas had christened [Ambulance Camel], left her feeling¡­ surreal. Cas had never got surrealist art. She¡¯d always suspected it was some sort of social-signaling among the artists. Handicaps were common in nature, after all. The peacocks¡¯ tail feathers were the paradigmatic example. They were heavy, cumbersome, hobbling and liable to get a peacock killed; an obviously detrimental adaptation that ¨C nevertheless ¨C managed to display a creature¡¯s fitness and get him all the chicks. Cas had figured that surrealist art worked on the same principle. Succeeding in art despite only making ugly paintings was an objectively impressive feat in a usually subjective field No matter its accolades, surrealism had always seemed like the product of crazy people looking for attention. [Ambulance Camel] changed her mind. She now realized that ¨C contrary to popular belief ¨C surrealism was actually quite a practical matter. Surrealism was, in fact, the simple consequence of trying to satisfy the demands of an insane universe. The Camel, as she termed it, was her attempt to meet just such demands. Long, spindly legs were the hallmark of the design, seeming ethereal as they lifted the greater mass of her body ten feet high into the air, walking forward with lazy, yard-long strides. The feet were like rounded tea-cups. They splayed out into clover-shapes whenever the weight of her body pressed on them, springing off violin-string tendons when the timing called for her next footstep. Atop these spindly spires of bone and tendon was the greater mass of her body; it was stretched and disproportionately long, like a hearse. Her back was a flat bed, molded to the shape of the dying woman that rested upon it. Much like the Bison, Camel was a sculpture created by distorting her memories of the dead calf she¡¯d eaten all those months ago. As a result, the suspension was better than Cas alone could have designed it, and the woman¡¯s body barely swayed as they sailed over the ground. Still, Cas couldn¡¯t help occasionally glancing down to check on her. Her crystal eye floated sixty feet above the rest of the body, suspended in a miniature fish-bulb that peeked over the treetops like a periscope. Below the bubble-eye, sixty feet of neck stretched down into the body below. This ¡®neck¡¯ was the thickness of a pencil and had the consistency of a wet noodle as lofted her eye high into the air. Occasionally, stray branches blocked the path, and it arced and weaved around them with a dancing stride. Her eye kept a forward gaze as it bounded through the treetops, charting a straight course towards the end of the forest ¨C where treetops grew sparse and transitioned to flat plains. Cas wasn¡¯t sure why she chose the plains as her destination. Clear cutting was a sign of human presence. Maybe there would be people there. Then again, it could also be a natural grassland. It probably was. Maybe she just craved a change of scenery. It made her feel like she was making progress in any case. It gave some meaning to her action, and made her believe that she wasn¡¯t just carting around a dying body because she was too afraid to stay still. A bright flash of lightning broke through her thoughts. The storm had been building for a while now, chill winds howled over the treetops, buffeting against her eye and straining all sixty feet of the pencil neck strung below it. Aura flared visibly across the entire length of the periscope. Cas felt an intense resistance as she forced her aura to the distant limits of her physical body, feeling like she was trying to blow up a bicycle tire by the time the faintest traces of aura reached up to cover her bubble-eye. [Skill Level Increase: Aura 1 -> 2] [Skill Level Increase: Aura 2 -> 3] Cas didn¡¯t have time to process that discovery, as the whole forest lit up like a camera flash. CRACKABOOOOOOOM! Much closer this time, thunder echoed through empty space as lightning danced through the sea of clouds above. And, as if the sound had shaken them loose, the clouds started pouring. Cas was in a very sparse section of forest, with the sky almost constantly visible; the ground was quickly growing mottled with wet patches. In response, Cas hardened a stout, a-frame tent over the woman¡¯s body, flexing transparent slime material between the posts. The tent set itself up with a thought, racing ahead of the storm. The sound of pitter-pattering was the only hint of rain which made it into the interior. It was an air-tight and water-tight shelter; Cas had foresight enough to create a louvered vent in the roof. As had become her habit whenever something did or didn¡¯t happen, Cas twisted the periscope to look down at her own back. The tent was low, with the ridge of the frame barely three inches over the woman''s body. It looked like a glass sarcophagus had been erected around the woman: something in between Snow White and Lenin. It left the impression of a geometric hump rising over the silhouette of her bizarre body. It left her feeling that maybe there had been a premonition of accuracy in the name she¡¯d given this form. Still, the final figure resembled a casket more than it did a camel hump, and the comparison only served to heighten Cas''s anxieties as she lavished her attention back onto her patient. Creating a second eye in her main body below, she once again surveyed the status of the woman''s injuries. A sterile gauze of slime material was glued over the bloody gash in her side, papering over the exposed rib and stuffed into the bloody teeth-marks that tunneled into her obliques like a nest of wounds. A soft tube rose out of the flat back and draped into the woman¡¯s mouth. There, the sensitive tip monitored her breath, occasionally pumping a slurry of food down the woman¡¯s throat. You were supposed to give people easily digestible stuff when they were wounded, right? Or, were you not supposed to feed them at all? Sensing that the woman¡¯s breath was growing dry, Cas pivoted and started spritzing salt water into the woman¡¯s mouth. Hydration was a must, or something like that. Wasn¡¯t there an acronym for this situation? Something about ABCs? ... It wasn¡¯t lost on Cas that she didn¡¯t know what she was doing. The thunderstorm grew darker.
CRRRAAACKAAKAKAAKAK! A dizzying stairstep of white light cracked through the clouds, refracting through the hazy curtain of rain. The forest was truly sparse now, replaced by a flat plain where ¨C every now and then ¨C an aged tree might pass by like a signpost. The rain was chilly and hard, and it cut against Camel''s body at acute angles. Still, Cas was surprised at just how cozy the environment remained inside the tent. The floor was transparent, giving a clear window through the back of her body, where she saw the skeletal muscles tugging at the leg tendons like marionettes whenever she took a step. The working muscles created heat, which warmed the interior and formed a soft haze of frosty dew on the tent walls. Despite the amenities, however, the atmosphere in the tent had become intensely uncomfortable for Cas who ¨C for the twelfth time ¨C checked again on the woman¡¯s breath. It had been weakening steadily for the past hour. Cas¡¯s disappointment was a surprise to herself. She¡¯d only bandaged the woman on a slim hope, after all. So what if her breath was weak? What else could be expected of a dying person? Irrational feelings were perhaps the hardest to discard, however, and Cas studied the woman, closer this time. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. The woman was surprisingly hardy, She¡¯d held strong for the most part. She¡¯d even tricked Cas into believing she might recover, but the past ten minutes had been a continual collapse of her medical state along with Cas¡¯s hopes. Her face was the definition of pale, now, turning clammy and worn with pained expressions. Her breath was a wispy thing, barely registering on the tip of the feeding tube even as her heart rate grew increasingly erratic. A pained whispering gasp escaped the woman. The sound of suffocation was painful, and paranoia Cas to check the air vents again. They were fine. Cas had known that before she checked. She could taste the fresh air whispering in through their bent forms, but she felt an intense, needling pressure to just do something. She felt an urge to check on the amenities, to activate the feeding tube again, to pump the air vents, or to give the woman a foot-massage, or just to do something, anything! She wanted to race ahead; she wanted to do something; she wanted to hide away and let the woman die out of her sight. What was the point in carrying her around if she wasn¡¯t going to get better? Cas clamped down on all of these disparate commands. Taking a moment, she allowed herself to think, and her thoughts organized themselves in a mechanical manner, listing all the variables with dispassionate clarity. The woman was in critical condition. That much was obvious from the beginning. Cas had closed her wounds, but¡­ But then what? Cas tried to recall everything she¡¯d learned from House MD. The woman was pale, erratic heartbeats; she¡¯d just been stabbed and lost a lot of blood. Probably not lupus, Cas gathered. In fact, feeling a bit adventurous, Cas was willing to bet that this was a case of severe blood loss. It pained Cas to acknowledge the obvious: that this was an ailment with only one remedy: the woman would need a blood transplant. That was a scary reality. Blood transplants required equipment. It required the ability to test for blood types, and sterile needles, and hospitals, and someone who knew what they were doing! Not to mention the fact that, most important of all: A blood transplant needed blood! Cas would have screamed if she could, feeling her anxiety reach new peaks as the woman moaned again. Cas''s eye paced through the observation tank she¡¯d raised in the tent. She didn¡¯t even know why she was still thinking! There was nothing to do. She didn¡¯t have a single needle on her, much less an iv and¡­ blood. Then Cas stopped, and remembered what she was: a sakkari. More than that, she was a sakkari that had just unlocked Create Structure as an ability. How had she been so stupid!? ... It was said that one shouldn¡¯t handle sharp objects while excited, but ¨C despite her tizzy anticipation ¨C Cas¡¯s stalk was as steady as a clock. It grew slowly out of Cas¡¯s back, next to the woman¡¯s left arm. The tip molded itself into a straight needle-point, and the stalk arced around like a hydra that, after a moment¡¯s probing at the woman¡¯s skin, punctured the vein at the crook of her elbow. The flowing, mild taste of the woman¡¯s blood washed over the needle. [New Reagent Catalogued] [Human Blood] The taste was watery, punctuated by an acidic tinge that seemed to spike with every heartbeat. Likely, this was being caused by an overload of carbon dioxide in the blood. Another desperate gasp from the woman attested to this, and Cas hurried to the solutions that came to mind. Scanning through the reservoir of materials suspended in her body, Cas was quick to notice that she had several dozen liters of fresh monster blood in reserve. She tried to transform it. [Transmutation Failed] [Alchemy 101 at Insufficient level to break Monster - Animal barrier] [Minimum required level: 55] Despite her hopes, the failure didn¡¯t surprise her. With her newly refined palette it had been obvious ¨C though not urgent to note at the time ¨C that the monsters she¡¯d eaten were¡­ different. It was hard to explain how, but... have you ever compared a human skeleton to a horses? A discerning eye could note that they were, essentially, the same skeleton. At the basic level, both skeletons were made up of the same bones arranged in the same order, just stretched and distorted to create different shapes. And, taken in the grand scheme, horses, and vultures, and calves and mice and humans were made up of the same basic ingredients. It was the reason that, ¡®I¡¯m so hungry I could eat a horse¡¯ was a saying. A human could eat horse-meat and turn the horse meat into well¡­ human meat. It was a testament to the brotherhood of all life, if you looked at it in a certain, cannibalistic, sort of way. Because, despite all similarities, all life on the planet was related. Monsters, however, just weren¡¯t. The monsters Cas had eaten: they were alien. Their flesh tasted strange, their blood was of a completely different nature, and even their skeletons had too many shoulder blades and strange articulations. Cas would¡¯ve had more luck trying to make human blood from tree leaves. This wasn¡¯t the end of the world, however. Cas had a reservoir of mouse blood she¡¯d collected while hunting during the migration. It was only a minute amount, barely a cup, but the pained groans of the woman recollected her, and Cas ¨C remembering something about beggars and choosers ¨C resolved to work with what she had. [Transmutation Failed] [Alchemy 101 cannot transform **Mouse Blood** to **Human Blood**] [Minimum required level: 30] Again, Cas¡¯s pessimism had foreseen the issue before it arrived. Cas had a catalog of materials. She knew what mouse blood tasted like, and how it differed from human blood, but knowing was different from doing, and transfiguring blood required a whole lot of doing Cas had worked with materials before. She¡¯d managed to make vulture bone from cow bone for [Killer of Omens], but that had been a simple change in the shape of the structure. Changing blood, on the other hand, required transmuting the fundamental chemistry of a substance. And no matter how hard she tried¡­ [Transformation Failed] [Alchemy 101 cannot transform **Mouse Blood** to **Human Blood**] [Minimum required level: 30] Nor how earnestly¡­ [Transformation Failed] [Alchemy 101 cannot transform **Mouse Blood** to **Human Blood**] [Minimum required level: 30] It still failed. It was an intensely frustrating project. It felt like trying to stack marbles with tweezers. The blood just always slipped from her grasp at the last moment... [Transformation Failed] [Alchemy 101 cannot transform **Mouse Blood** to **Human Blood**] [Minimum required level: 30] Cas''s rage flew to new heights, blown up by the horrid feelings of death the woman inspired. She stared desperately at her character sheet. That level 15 sat taunting her as a signpost of her own impotence. The blood rushing past her needle reached ever new heights of acidity, and, and¡­ As she took a closer look at her sheet, something made Cas forget her emergencies. It was something like a feather tickling the back of her mind. [Human figure] was lit up again. Cas had almost forgotten the sight. For the past few months it had been grayed out, inaccessible due to the weight requirement, but now that Cas was over weight again, it was back again in beautiful green. That fact ran contrary to her pessimistic expectations because it¡­ shouldn¡¯t have been accessible to her. Her mass was mostly monster flesh, at this point and [Human Figure] turned her into, well, a human. The Human - Monster barrier, as her status sheet had called ¨C it required level fifty-five in alchemy, didn¡¯t it? And then it hit her. [Human Figure] was a level sixty skill. It could transform monster flesh into human flesh. It could make working human cells out of basic proteins, it could make functional eyeballs, and a nervous system, and all the myriad miracles in the human body which had once been attributed to god. It could perform the miracle which might save this woman''s life because without need for thought or skill, it could make a perfect replica of Cas¡¯s human body. It could create a supply of Cas¡¯s human blood¡­and Cas was O-Negative. Bulumbp! A wet sound, as sticky mud engulfed the Camel¡¯s forehoof, sinking it several feet into the sucking ground. The tent pitched suddenly, almost tossing the woman before quick restraints rose up from the Camel¡¯s back to catch her. Cursing, Cas switched her attention to the periscope. A black mass of mud extended for miles in every direction. ''A bog?'' Cas thought, ''In the middle of a grassland?'' This didn¡¯t look natural.. It wasn¡¯t natural. Cas noticed the distinct, parallel lines that ran through the field. This wasn¡¯t a bog. It was a farm! Tilling had a way of killing everything that kept soil together, and cas could see the chittering puddles that glimmered between the furrows. Cas raised her eye another forty feet into the air, searching through the haze and the rain until she saw what she expected to find. A hill, no, a village! It was an indistinct mass of dark figures, but a brief flash of lightning revealed all. Cas saw many houses in the distance. They were all dilapidated. Chapter 41: To whom do you think youre speaking? Cas flattened her hooves into clover-shaped mud shoes, racing easily over the bog until the battered village fence flew under her like a victory tape. Cas stretched her neck above the pointed roofs. It had been obvious from a distance that everything was abandoned. For good reason, considering that every house ¨C despite sporting a fresh coat of paint and new roof tiles ¨C was in varying states of collapse. There was one house, however, that had most of its roof intact. It was one of the smaller houses, with an expansive, unkempt lawn in its front yard. Cas could see many small creatures hiding in the tall grass. Apparently, it was a popular spot. Their eyes glowed as they looked up at her. They hissed and chittered with monstrous sounds when Cas took a step too close to the house. Cas shot several clouds of acid over the field, and they scattered. Not wasting a moment, Cas walked up to a broken, second story window, carrying the woman past the jagged portal of broken glass and making her preparations.
Cas worked quickly once inside. Her body morphed into a crawling centipede as she squeezed through the window, holding the woman close with strap-claws on her back. All the exterior windows were broken, and rain spattered into the house like the sky was a malfunctioning car wash. Splashing through the cold puddles, Cas crossed into a hallway, and crawled into the first interior room without windows. She slammed the door closed behind her out of habit, and was surprised at how completely dark it became. Windowless-ness came with disadvantages, she supposed. Cas lit a dim glow bulb and stuck it to the ceiling, where it cast strange, down-ward shadows on everything. Finding nothing suitable to lay the woman on, Cas transformed her body into a resting place, and began her preparations. ¡­ As soon as Cas had seen the houses, and confirmed they were abandoned, her body had moved like a corpse, moving with a mechanical disinterest whilst her mind raced with ideas and plans. All of those pent up expectations and overthought schematics flowed from her like water once she was in the room. Cas¡¯s body bloomed like a timelapse of spring. The major part of her body spread out like a low couch to support the lying woman, manipulating her figure like a tongue until she was sat reclined in a low, therapy session posture. From this low couch, two needles grew out on stalks, one ¨C pressurized against backflow ¨C grew out next to the reclined woman¡¯s elbow, sliding easily into the blue vein at the crook of her arm. Simultaneously, on the south end of the couch, near the woman¡¯s feet, another stalk and another needle slithered out. Cas ignored the second needle for the moment, the majority of her attention focused on the interior of the couch. Normally, Cas¡¯s body functioned automatically. Food would be at hand, and a stack of instinctual responses worked to break down, digest, and catalog all its constituent components. Right now, however, Cas had to build a machine which ¨C of its own accord ¨C would be able to filter, separate and pump human blood up to the woman. That couldn¡¯t be done by instinct. That required planning, and Cas had spent every moment of her journey to this house taking account of all contingencies. ¡­ The secondary needle, which waved out from the foot of the couch, was the first step of the process. Blood would come through the needle and gravity would dribble it down the IV into the end of the couch. There, it would enter the couch, where an artificial heart stood ready to pump it through a series of large reactive filters. [Sakkari Clone 5 Created][Rule 1: B1 >= B2; B1 - B2 = X; B1?¡ûB1?¡ÉB2 !!!? ] Cas saw the pop up even as she ignored it. Her clones could accept simple instructions, but they didn¡¯t speak any human language. Rather, it was a more intuitive language Cas commanded them by, one created out of her thoughts and intentions, and the first rule she assigned would¨C if translated to human language ¨C say something like: compare the tastes of the first and second blood samples, filter any differing tastes out from the donor sample. Do it quickly. Untranslated, the instructions took the form of a series of small filter tubes and clearways in the lower body of the couch. The filter was larger than it needed to be, and the normally transparent body of the couch turned hazy from the sudden complexity of fibers that grew there, stretching for three feet from the foot of the couch up to the woman¡¯s hips, where all that filtering collapsed down to two separate tunnels. One tunnel led to a waste vacuole. The other went to a secondary heart where, after another few feet, and several contingency rules, the path finally connected up to the woman¡¯s IV drip. And, after triple checking the design, and feeling for any discrepancies in her intuition, Cas baked the rules in and let the couch gain its independence. [New Slime Clone Created] [Name: Hospital Bed] [Rule Count: 6] Cas felt a sense of sure relief wash through her as she budded off from the couch. She had dedicated most of her mass to the creation of this clone. She¡¯d dedicated most of her hopes to it as well. She felt less lonely now that there was another figure in the room, even if that figure consisted of a mass of slime and blood filtration equipment. Secretly, Cas was glad that events had forced her to externalize the process as much as she had. It felt less personal, and therefore more safe, to entrust success or failure to a machine. And cas had put granted every advantage she could to the machine. Every component was over built twice over. In fact, she¡¯d dedicated two thirds of her mass and all her hope to the creation of the clone. That left seventy three pounds and a hopeless expression for Cas, as she slid away from the couch and ¨C with a brief thought ¨C engaged the [Human Figure]. It was a familiarly extreme sensation. The flash and power of change struck through her like a lightning bolt, impossibly intricate structures assembled themselves, and in a moment she was left standing on two legs, taking deep breaths in the darkness. Quick strides brought her to the foot of the couch. There, with the manner of an impatient snake charmer, Cas grabbed the head of the waving needle and stabbed the singular fang into her vein. Her needle was larger than the woman¡¯s, and the associated Iv tube was more like a hose. A black line of thick blood ran down the transparent cylinder, glimmering darkly in the dim light. It reached the couch and ¨C as if jump-started by the taste ¨C the translucent heart awakened and started beating, turning dark as the blood stained its flesh. Budump. Budump. Each muffled heart beat forced more and more of the blood through the hazy filter. Cas was a universal donor, so ¨C theoretically ¨C she shouldn¡¯t have needed to filter anything, but she played it safe considering she was on an alien planet. And she was glad to have done so. The couch shuddered a bit at the taste of her blood, and the waste vacuole quickly started filling with dribbles of clear liquid which had been separated out from the blood. Something in her plasma? The red pigment passed the security check, however, and the second heart started beating, stained a darker color by the more concentrated solution of blood. It beat at a slower pace than the first heart for some reason, and a cacophonous chattering was the result as the two hearts fell into and out of phase. BadumpBadump. BadumpBadump. Badump. BadBadump Two more feet of trave through the couch, and various contingencies diluted the dark liquid with salt water, and soon a perfect bead of blood was arcing up into the woman¡¯s elbow. And then¡­ nothing. For seconds, then minutes, then nearly and hour of nothing and silence. The wooden floors thudded heavily as Cas paced at the foot of the couch, the IV needle tugging at her like a chain whenever she strayed too far.. Cas didn¡¯t know what she¡¯d been expecting from the woman. A sigh of relief? A musical number about how she instantly got better? The woman hadn¡¯t changed at all! Cas looked again at her face. It was muddied by dirt and her hair ran in wild strands, but there was something peaceful in her expression¡­ something which seemed to reflect the edge of her mortality. Maybe that was just her beauty talking, though. Beautiful people tended to have their expressions described with more eloquence, and Cas was always quick to find a reasonable justification whenever something touched that venerable side of her. And then Cas referenced her internal clock, noticing that the woman hadn¡¯t moaned or gasped gasp for over ten minutes, now! That was a hopeful sign. It felt so crude to be using visual signals to diagnose the woman. Cas had gotten so used to tracking the woman¡¯s blood acidity by taste, she¡¯d forgotten that Human Figure couldn¡¯t do any of that! She¡¯d have to remember to create a display next time she made a clone like this. BadumBadum. BadumBadum. A sudden change in the tenor of heart beats distracted her. They sounded more¡­ hollow. now. Looking down, Cas saw that the Hospital bed had clamped her donor tube shut, and the hearts were beating empty. Cas removed her needle, sticking it into the couch¡¯s flesh for want of a holder. That was a good sign. The couch had been instructed to stop the transfusion whenever the woman¡¯s vitals held steady, and the woman¡¯s face looked just a little bit more quiescent, anyhow.
Unhappily, the good news left Cas with little to do, and she spent the next several hours worrying. Eventually, even her pacing lost its lustre, and Cas once again fell prey to her desire to do something which at least seemed productive. Checking over the woman again, Cas resolutely turned her back and made for the door. Opening the door let in a flood of white sun-light which washed into the room like a flash-bang. Cas stepped back from the doorway. She resisted the urge to squint as the light overexposed itself onto her retinas. Squinting was a purely human habit. The light didn¡¯t hurt the crystals which sat at the back of her eyes; reacting negatively to the pain would just be a poor form of larping, as far as necessity was concerned. Still, it was a surprise just how sharp her senses were. It had been so long since she¡¯d used [Human Figure]. It was easy to forget its advantages. Her vision, normally dim and distorted by the shape and color of her body, now had an almost spectral clarity. Looking closely, she could see the individual grains of wood in the door, and everything seemed to have a third dimension to it. Walking out, Cas splashed by a puddle of cool water that had formed near a broken window, surprised at how disappointingly dull her sense of touch seemed. You couldn¡¯t have everything, she supposed. Turning down the hall, she walked deeper into the house, searching through all the rooms and closets. Having given up most of her mass to the hospital couch, Cas was left with seventy three pounds to make her body out of. That came out to twelve years old, as far as Human figure was concerned, and that resulted in almost all the dressers and doorways being out of reach for Cas¡¯s diminutive figure. After four rooms worth of searching, however, finally, she came upon a miniature dresser her own size. It was a tiny thing, barely taller than Cas¡¯s diminutive figure and with the tiny cabinet pulls perfectly sized to Cas¡¯s child-like hands. Even the sound was well engineered, as cas battered the doors open. Inside were various dresses, sized to fit the interior of the junior wardrobe. Luckily, all of them seemed to be just her size. ¡­¡­¡­ Ok, in truth, they were just a bit oversized, but eating a few pounds of mass from the couch and gaining a year had been enough to make the article fit nicely. Cas twirled about in front of the mirror, giggling and twisting as she checked the look of the back. The frivolity of the gesture was at odds with the style of the dress. It was a plain, black and white apron dress. It had crisp corners and plain stitching. It felt almost like wearing a school uniform, seeming to lack any color or pop that might be present in a more personal design. Then again, it only looked black and white to Cas. For all she knew, it could have been dark red and neon yellow. Cas sometimes needed to remind herself that colors existed outside of her character sheet. Shoes were scarce in the house, but the interior was all rugs and polished wood, in any case, easy on the feet. Taking a closer look at her new dress, Cas resisted the urge to count the stitches. Her new powers of sight wanted to goad her into making full use of them. In fact¡­ ever since she¡¯d taken on human form, it felt as if she were bursting with power! Her aura seemed almost tactile as it sparked through the hot blood and flashing nerves of this new body.! It felt like the aura was tickling her all over with joy, and the recent success of saving the woman was intoxicating, and not to mention this cute new dress! Cas felt the need to start squealing, and with the shamelessness of a child, she did. ¡°EEEEEK!¡± hopping lightly on her feet, sheci rcles in front of the mirror. ¡°Hahahaha!¡± she started laughing whooshing around the room with her hands out in airplane posture! Being a child was amazing! Cas had been stuck in the mentality of her sixteen year old body for so long; this was just the restart she needed! ¡°Vwooooom!¡± she motored out, sprinting down the stairs and circling the living, skidding to a halt suddenly as she saw something shiny in the couch cushions. Snatching it up, Cas studied the glimmering coin in her hand. It felt large in her small hands, heavy with wealth as she counted the intricately stamped leaves in the metalwork. She wanted to hold onto this random coin forever. Was this what if felt like to be a stamp collector? It felt like the whole world was sparkling with joy. Cas didn¡¯t even care when she splashed into the cold puddles and soaked her new dress. It was all just so amazing. Even just pretending to fly as a child had brought her more joy than actually flying as a sixteen year old! It was obvious, now that her mental age carried over from the age of her last [Human Figure], and Cas was tempted to make sure she stayed twelve forever. Being a teen had been such a dreadful bore! Painful memories resurfaced at that, however, about all the frivolous mistakes she¡¯d made because of her childishness back in the desert village. That pang of guilt cut through her joy. Despite her mental outlook, Cas still had the memories of being an adult back on earth, and her intelligence stat seemed unchanged if her status sheet was to be believed. Although she had lost a few points in wisdom. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Perhaps it would be wiser to get back into an adult body before committing to any major actions. Enthusiasm was a good substitute for competence, but competence was nonetheless desirable. Still, despite that conviction, Cas managed to convince herself to stay in her twelve year old form for the next few days. After all, the woman needed constant looking after, and leaving the house to hunt for more mass or disturbing the couch was a no go. Granted, the couch had been overbuilt from the start, and it wouldn¡¯t do much harm to steal mass away from it, at this point, but Cas refused to think on the matter any further, and for the next few days busied herself with caring for the woman with a vigorous intensity which had rarely come so easily to her as an adult.
Cas shouldered the door open, casting a rectangle of sunlight onto the woman''s upper body. Carrying a wobbling wash pan filled with water in her arms, Cas resisted the urge to yell some happy greeting as she walked into the hospital room. Recovering guests needed quiet. BadumpBadum. BadBadum. BadBadum. The hollow, chattering heartbeats of the hospital bed greeted her, filling the room with their muffled pulsations. The heartbeats weren¡¯t necessary at this point, but they continued beating senselessly. This happened because Cas hadn''t explicitly instructed the clone to stop pumping when it was done. Common sense wasn¡¯t an element of its design, apparently. Still, it was a harmless thing, and Cas easily overlooked it as she set the washbin down next to the woman¡¯s bed. The sounds had already faded into the background as she pulled out the washcloth and squeezed it dry. ¡­ Cas cleaned whatever parts of the woman were exposed to the sunlight, wiping away the obvious flecks of dirt that smeared her face, and carrying away a good bit of makeup along with it, to tell by the sudden lightening of her eyelashes. From there she moved to her hands and feet, where she vigorously scrubbed under the woman¡¯s fingers and rubbed the dirt out from under her nails, washing away the caked blood and hard scabs wherever they stained the skin of her torso. As a perfunctory effort, Cas made a visual inspection of the hardcast which she¡¯d taped over her wounds. It was transparent to light, and Cas was able to see that the woman was healing fascinatingly quickly. The exposed rib was already covered over by flesh. Curiouser and curiouser¡­
[ Blood transfer appears successful. Universal donors transcend universes, it seems. Although, the Hospital Bed rejected something in my plasma. This suggests that there might some difference in the humans of this world. [New Note] Her constitution continually exceeds my expectations. The wounds in her side have almost half healed in a few hours, now that her blood levels have certified. Although I worry such rapid healing might stress her. Aura is able to do amazing things, but I doubt it can create matter from nothing. Drawing on so much energy to heal might stress her reserves. Perhaps it¡¯s time to start a feeding schedule? ]
Cas, now a ball of slime and of a juvenile enough mind to enjoy the constantly beating hearts, stood beside the unconscious woman, perusing her ingredients list. Her most recent use of Human Figure had wiped away all the monster parts, and her reagent mix was left as a pantry of human body parts. It was a creepy list to read through. Human blood, human flesh, human bile¡­ Cas felt it in bad taste to feed the woman food made from human body parts. Technically speaking, it wasn¡¯t cannibalism. Those human parts were originally synthesized from the remains of horrific hyena monsters, after all, but Cas wasn¡¯t sure if the woman would be able to see the silver lining in that. Still, beggars couldn¡¯t choose, and Cas had been panhandling for months at this point. Getting over her ill feelings, Cas synthesized a sugar slurry from the blood, and stuck diligently to the new feeding schedule she¡¯d drafted: twice a day, nothing but sugar water and plant slurry, just like your hospital used to make. In fact it was probably better than hospital food. With such fine control over the mixture as Cas had, it was a simple matter to filter out any indigestibles from the final product, turning the food into an almost pure essence of sugar and nutrients. This stuff would probably rush into the woman¡¯s system with a minimal need for processing. And, hopefully, a minimal need for waste disposal as well, Cas hoped, looking upon that brown possibility with some discomfort. ¡­ A day passed with no number 2s, and Cas was left to brood in the night, pacing through the finely decorated interior of the house. It was a small house, two stories tall and barely wide enough to let Cas travel ten feet before a wall or corner forced her into a turn. Still, a thousand square feet was a full quest of exploration when seen through the eyes of a child, and Cas¡¯s twelve year old mind ravished every square inch of it with attention. The exterior design was almost modern, but it was obvious the people of this world had yet to appreciate open floor designs. The whole inside of the house was siloed into a maze of interior rooms connected by thin passageways. Every closed door and locked cupboard seemed like a secret chamber, goading Cas to discover its secrets. Mainly, those secrets were unfurnished rooms and broken windows, and puddles of rainwater soaking the sheets, but Cas never seemed to tire of the discoveries nonetheless. Life was what you made of it, and Cas¡¯s youth had managed to turn an open house into a treasure hunt. She couldn¡¯t say what she was looking for, exactly, but Cas knew she¡¯d found it when she peeked behind the downstairs couch and found the doll. ¡­ It was a pretty little thing, with dark hair and brilliant gems encrusted into the wood in place of eye-lashes. Cas appreciated the weight of it in one hand, tossing it lightly and watching as the limbs clattered about senselessly. She felt drawn to the toy somehow. Cas had never cared for dolls, but there was something about this one that weighed more heavily on her mind than it did her hand. Finding so many abandoned houses had been a fortuitous thing for Cas. Busy as she was with the blood transplant, Cas hadn¡¯t thought much of it, but now that the woman was stable, Cas felt her curiosity ignite at the strange set of facts. This house was¡­ exceptionally nice. It had slate roofs, fresh paint, clean rugs where the rain hadn¡¯t soaked into them. In fact, if you ignored the broken windows and that hole in the roof, it looked almost brand new. Obviously the damage hadn¡¯t been from old age. The house also seemed to be lacking in valuables. No jewelry, no money except for a stray coin she¡¯d found in the couch cushions, and no personal effects other than a forgotten doll. Everything here ¨C the clothes, the cutlery, the rugs ¨C they were the sort of things you left behind in an emergency. It seemed whoever lived here had just enough time to take their shoes and valuables before evacuating. But why had they been running? And how long ago? Cas looked at the doll. Transforming back into her slime form, Cas glommed it into her body. [New Reagent: Human 2 Skin] [New Reagent: Human 2 Hair] [New Reagent: Human 2 Oil] The skin oils left a patterned film all across the surface of the doll. Obviously it hadn¡¯t been washed in a long time, and the oil itself was hardly dried. The doll couldn¡¯t have been abandoned for more than a week. Cas spent the rest of the night licking doorknobs and smoking imaginary pipes. It was surprising how much you could learn about a family by hints. It had been a three person household. One girl was being raised by a single mother for the past few months. The skin cells on the only male uniform in the house were distinctly different, and far older than any other sample. They seemed to have abandoned the residence a few days before the earliest signs of damage to the house could be accounted for. So, they¡¯d known it was going to happen ahead of time, whatever it was that had caused so much damage. And Cas, for some reason, felt an intense interest in finding out what it was. Maybe, as a jaded teen, Cas had found it easy to fly over thousands of miles of mysteries, but right now Cas felt like she wanted to know everything in the world. Why, why, why was the essence of the thought driving her. And, indeed, ¡®why¡¯ was the look in the woman¡¯s eyes as she woke up the next morning.
It was like something out of a movie. The woman¡¯s eyes were a light color as they fluttered open, squinting against the sunlight that streamed in through the open door, seeming annoyed by the cool towel the girl was rubbing on her forehead. ¡°Huhhh?¡± she groaned out deliriously, looking over at the girl who beamed down a smile at her. ¡°Hey.¡± Cas said softly, removing the towel and leaning on her seated knees in an excited posture, trying desperately not to jump up and pull a victory screech at the recovery. She¡¯d known the woman¡¯s vitals were stable for the longest time, but to actually see her waking up! ¡°I¡¯m Cas. You don¡¯t know me, but¡­ well, I suppose I should ask how you¡¯re doing first.¡± Cas spoke thoughtlessly in English, the words tripping over themselves to get out of her mouth. The woman merely offered a confused look in her direction, trying to say something but feeling dragged down by exhaustion before fluttering her eyes closed and she fell into a deep sleep again. Cas cursed herself for wasting the opportunity. What was she thinking, speaking in English of all languages? She would have been better off trying Nemorian. At least that was from the same universe. It had been an honest mistake. Cas had developed a habit of speaking in English ever since she¡¯d left the village. The habit started when she caught herself thinking in Nemorian, and making basic English mistakes which would have ¨C on earth ¨C drawn out that pedantic crowd of grammar snobs which corrected people''s use of homonyms. Granted, Cas had been an armband toting member of the Grammar Nazi arty, back on Earth; it was partially the reason she¡¯d committed herself to remembering the English language. Secondarily, her status sheet was written in English. Most importantly, however, Cas considered the language as one of the only things she¡¯d brought over from home. Even if it didn¡¯t have any use in this world, Cas wanted to hold it close, as a reminder of a time long past. She dreaded the day she wouldn¡¯t be able to remember old conversations and famous quotes from that other world.
A second day passed uneventfully, and Cas kept to the feeding schedule. However, she stayed in the room when night fell, this time, eager to be present, should the woman wake up again. Dawn passed to midnight, and Cas entertained herself with the contents of the room. After all, just because she couldn¡¯t leave the room didn¡¯t mean her exploring had to stop. Back in a slime form, Cas took an indistinct shape of bulbs and stalks that reached out to taste everything in the room. Cas paced around the borders of the room, careful not to disturb the Hospital couch in the center. She traveled and tasted everything, the well worn stools and short desks that lined the walls, the sugary food stains that had soaked into the floorboards next to the short coffee table, even the old shelves and books that tasted of dust. And indeed, her sense of taste told her more about these people than an hour of conversation might have. It was a study, filled with books, but mainly used for tea-parties. Like she¡¯d suspected, the people that lived here were not big readers. It was in the twilight hours of midnight, however, that Cas was drawn from her investigations by a stirring in the center of the room. Forgetting hersellf entirely, she dropped the metal lamp in her stalk and turned all attention to the hospital bed where Cas¡¯s soul nearly leapt from her body as she saw it! The woman was sitting up! What a joy! What a happy moment! Cas rushed forward, eager to greet the woman and congratulate her on her recovery. The woman had gotten the head start, however, and she surprised Cas with her speed as she stood up from the couch before Cas had a chance to process the new events.
Sara wanted to rub the crud out of her eyes. It was her habit to do so when waking. This time, however, her body changed tactics, leaping up with intense revulsion from the slimy, warm surface she¡¯d been resting on. Up in a flash, her eyes caught up to her body as she looked around. It was almost entierly dark, but for a dim, bloody-red light. The source of it was a fleshy bulb that stuck to the ceiling like some sort of parasite. It was a very subtle light, that the bulb produced, but it gave just enough to show Sara exactly the sort of hell she¡¯d woken up in. BadumBadum. BaBudum. BadBadum. BadaBadum. BadadmdumBadum! A cacophonous noise drew her attention down, where she saw that the bed she¡¯d just been lying on had hearts inside of it. It had two, living, beating, bloody human hearts, and it even squirmed aside a bit, like a disgusting mass of spasming flesh flinching, waving a bloody needle tip around with the incompetent, searching, motions of a blind monster. In fact it was stained with blood, the entire, horrid interior of it filled with flesh and red and horror. And, looking down, the woman saw the hole in her arm, and the blood trailing from it, and the still beating hearts, and she screamed. ¡°HaaaAhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!¡± Sara didn¡¯t know when the far wall had crashed against her back, but it held stiff, preventing further retreat. Her scream filled the room, seeming to come from outside of her, but through it, another voice pierced the veil of sound. ¡°Sore! Sare Namu NoreNore Detu!¡± It was a human voice coming from quite an inhuman figure in the distance. A mass of tentacles and flesh casting dim shadows on the book-case behind it. ¡°Kare hetu-!¡±
¡°A friend! I come, as a friend!¡± Cas spoke using the most basic words she could muster, hoping some, at least, might cross any potential language barrier. It was the ¡®no habla espanol¡¯ of first contacts, and Cas was desperately hoping that the small words were intelligible as she continued. ¡°Friend. Friend,¡± Cas repeated. ¡°I want to help. Help You! Can you understand me?¡± The woman replied fluently in screams. ¡°Ahhhhhahaahahahah!¡± Turning the vibrato into a whining, cringing reprise against her general surroundings. Cas, shocked by the reaction, and quickly understanding how inhospitably she¡¯d decorated the room, tried to speak in loud, though calming overtones, the way one might call to a panicking horse. ¡°Please!¡± Cas begged, trying to communicate with her tone if not her words, a record list of all the peaceful Nemorian words turning in her mind. ¡°Friend! Uh¡­ Friendship! Sister! Safety! Togetherness!¡± ¡°Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!¡± The woman¡¯s voice was powerful, and it filled the room enough to put any Scream Queen to shame. Cas was almost glad to have chosen a room without any glass at hand. ¡°ahhhh-¡± And, it was shockingly abrupt, how suddenly the screaming dissapeared. BadumBadum. BadBadum. The beating hearts reasserted themselves in the quiet, as the woman took a few deep breaths, shaky hands grasping at the flat wallpaper behind her for support. Cas let out a sigh of relief through her vocal tract, trying to seem more human by the action. ¡°Sorry, sorry, sorry. I didn¡¯t want to scare you!¡± She spoke again in the nemorian dialect, choosing simple words and making her tone obsequiously apologetic. ¡°Be friends?¡± she asked, inflecting her voice down in a clear question. The woman, her breathing more even now, stood up from the wall and fixed her skirt. Despite her calm demeanor, her voice was savagely angry, shivering with rage. ¡°Who do you think you¡¯re speaking to, talking nonsense words like that, monster? If you¡¯re planning to say your last words, do try and make them something understandable.¡± What was surprising, was that Cas understood this sentence. More surprising was the fact that Cas understood it because the woman had spoken in perfect English. Most surprising of all were the murmurous incantations that suddenly filled the room as the woman raised a glyph and tossed a fireball the size of a car at the Sakkari. Cas had a brief moment, before the fireball engulfed her, to consider her mistakes. She spoke English? She was awake? Fire? Glyphs? Fireball? Unable to process all of it, Cas decided to address each new fact one at a time. Of course, deciding which fact to prioritize was itself a problem, so Cas picked at random. It, therefore, left a strange impression on Cas, when her final thought before the flame blast hit her coalesced to: ¡®Wait, shouldn¡¯t it be ¡°Whom do you think you¡¯re talking to?¡±¡¯ And then the air boomed and Cas''s world turned into fire. Chapter 42: Regrets and New Dresses A millisecond expanse of time. That was the whole of the interval afforded to Cas. The flame blast felt alive, heating the room as it breathed. It flowed like a dancing snake as it coiled and sparked itself forward, moving with jerky, quick feints before suddenly exploding forward. It was an entire epoch passed in a brief moment, and every detail of it seemed vital to Cas. The woman¡¯s frantically wrathful eyes, the brilliant light which dazzled the room and refracted through the hospital couch. The couch was the centerpiece of the entire scene, in a way. The helpless clone stood rooted in the path of fire, blindly waving its syringe in the air like a mourning banner, casting strange shadows on the polished floor as the light bent and twisted through its prismatic form. Cas¡¯s thoughts raced by at rocket speeds, but her body moved faster than her thoughts, and Cas dove forward, sliding under the hospital couch before the second, feinting spark of the flame engulfed them both. The couch took the brunt of the attack, diverting flame trails around Cas. It dissolved in a moment, however, and soon enough Cas was in intimate contact with a river of fire. Again, the flame blast wasn''t normal. It felt alive, complex, and every subtle part of it seemed to have been created with human intention. It was a horrendously designed thing. Back when she still lived at the village, as a curiosity, Cas had walked into a bonfire. She discovered that, as a slime, she was quite resistant to the flames. The moment she stepped into the fire, and the flames licked her skin, steam puffed up from her body, creating a surface barrier of water vapor which shielded her from the flames and even suppressed them whenever they got too close. This fire wore the mask of a living creature, however. It breathed like a person, and feinted like a hound, and struck like a snake. And it dug flame-like fingers into the barrier of steam that rose up around Cas, sundering it apart and blowing it away. Cas was stripped naked of her steam armor, exposed to a hurling river of flame that charred over the surface of her skin. [HP Reduced: -34 HP][HP Reduced: -46 HP] [HP Reduced: -74 HP][HP Reduced: -12 HP] [HP Reduced: -54 HP][HP Reduced: -53 HP] [HP Reduced: -76 HP][HP Reduced: -23 HP] The immediate feeling was¡­ chilly. It was like the temperature of fear, the cool feeling when October winds blew over your neck and raised your hackles. It was the shivering, harsh chill you experienced when you yawned and felt your soul slipping through your throat. It was the feeling of having all the warmest parts of you burned away. Mind racing, Cas felt the instinct to draw herself into a hardened sphere, but the brief flame had already disappeared by that point. The sudden absence of flame and peril left Cas feeling empty. A bright stream of moonlight caused Cas to look behind her, where she saw the trail of charred flooring leading to a fresh new hole in the wall. Cas was smaller now, a little creature hunkered down and hugging the floor for some sense of stability. All around her burning hot air miraged through the moonlight, a suddenly cool wind came through the hole in the wall. Ahead of Cas stood a rocky, cracked burnt thing. It looked like a giant piece of discarded bubble gum. A hot crack in the middle caused it to leak some hissing fluid. It took a second glance for her to recognize it as the remnants of the hospital couch. It had taken the worst of the flames, thankfully leaving Cas in relatively good condition. Enough of it remained to block her vision, however. Cas was dreadfully curious to see what was happening on the other side of it: that half of the room had been a source of interesting events lately. Tentatively, she peeked an eyestalk over the rim of the corpse. The entire room was filled with a shimmering heat-haze. Several shelves worth of books had spontaneously combusted in the oven-like atmosphere, and a thin film of gray smoke had risen up like a curtain as a result. Another stream of fresh air came through the wall, and it disturbed that curtain enough for Cas to see to the other side. ¡°Hahhh, hahhh, hahh!¡± The woman crouched on the other side of the smoke cloud. Cas could see her face had turned an almost ghostly pale from the exertion. She attempted to stand, but shaky legs turned that into a stumble that forced her to lean against the top of a nearby bookshelf, resting her elbows on it and looking as if she were about to wretch. She seemed tuckered out. Cas decided that now would be a good time to start a talk, and she¡¯d even formed vocal chords to do just that when better judgment stopped her. It¡­ was probably better to stand by the exit for this conversation. Flattening herself down into a moving puddle, Cas moved with stealth towards the fresh exit that had been blasted out of the back wall, keeping a low profile which kept her hidden behind the burnt couch until most of her hung outside of the hole in the wall. ¡°Hello?¡± Cas tentatively called, priming herself to jump away at the first sign of chanting or glyphs. The woman actually did jump, letting out a short scream as she hopped up onto the bookshelf. There, a broomstick with burning bristles leaned against the wall like a reverse torch. The woman seemed to have an instinct for improvised weapons as she picked it up and pointed the flame-end threateningly in Cas¡¯s direction. The woman stumbled after the exertion and nearly collapsed. ¡°Are you ok?¡± The worried exclamation broke from Cas. It felt strange to be speaking English to another person, almost joyful in a way. ¡°Stay back, monster,¡± the woman threatened, waving the broom with a fiery sound. ¡°I¡¯ll kill you if you come any closer! A lady does not stand for encroachment!¡± That response had been less than joyful. In fact, it was downright insulting, and Cas was quick to forget her fear in the face of it as she rose a bit higher over the edge of the breach. ¡°I¡¯ll have you know, I saved your life!¡± she replied, annoyed. The wind died from the woman¡¯s wrathful heading. She cocked a confused eye-brow at the sakkari. ¡°You¡­¡± she pointed at the diminutive sakkari, ¡°saved me?¡± Cas elaborated. ¡°Remember those four monsters that were trying to eat you? Do you think your unconscious body fought them off and made it here by itself?¡± The woman¡¯s confused look quickly turned defiant. ¡°A lie! A lady does not stand for lies either, you know. It was an angel that saved me! It led me away on glowing wings, and it even cared for me in the form of a little girl.¡± ¡°That was me!¡± Cas said, growing a bit heated at the lack of credit. To prove her point, she transformed into [killer of omens], stretching her wings a bit longer than necessary as she activated the glow potion, casting a soft halo into the room. Cas held back her desire to hum angelic choir noises as she did this. A look of recognition was quashed by yet more suspicion on the woman¡¯s part. ¡°A trick,¡± she decided. ¡°Who knows, you may have led me to that trap so that the monsters would get me in the first place.¡± Considering Cas had led her into that trap. She couldn¡¯t find too many arguments to be made there, so she pivoted. ¡°Are you just going to be suspicious? I literally saved your life!¡± ¡°A lady can never be suspicious, only questioning. It¡¯s her right of dignity,¡± the woman replied as if quoting a handbook. ¡°Besides. I know you didn¡¯t save me, that girl- ¡°That girl!¡± the woman interrupted herself with a start, looking all around. ¡°What have you done to her!?¡± she accused, looking over at Cas. ¡°I swear, monster, if you¡¯ve hurt her!¡± ¡°I was that girl!¡± Cas said, feeling embarrassed. Her claims were beginning to sound ridiculous even to herself, at this point. ¡°I even went out of my way to take care of you. Would a monster do that?¡± This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. The woman outright laughed. ¡°You? You were that angelic girl that saved me?¡± All her confusion seemed to disappear at once with that notion, replaced with a stolid determination as she refixed her grip on the broom handle. ¡°As if I¡¯d believe that!¡± Cas, still of a twelve year old mind, was quite a proud little creature, and she relished the act of proving someone wrong about a basic fact. ¡°Well, you¡¯d better believe it, because that was me. Don¡¯t you recognize my voice?¡± The woman¡¯s expression became less combative, if only for an instant. ¡°Hmph!¡± she harrumphed. ¡°The worst two-penny jester knows how to throw a voice around. I¡¯m sure monsters can do the same. And, for your sake, I hope the girl you stole that voice from is still alive. Otherwise, I assure you ¨C you will be joining her in a very painful manner.¡± The threat in her voice was hard as steel, though the effect was ruined by her generally weak posture. ¡°I¡¯m telling you, that was me!¡± Cas insisted. ¡°I can transform!¡± ¡°Is that so?¡± The woman laughed insultingly. ¡°Fine then!¡± She stood up straight, as if finding energy from her indignation. ¡°Transform right now and prove it. I¡¯m waiting.¡± She waved a hand in a ¡®go ahead¡¯ posture. Cas, for her part, lost all her enthusiasm for proving the woman wrong. She had been dreading this part of the process. ¡°Well¡­ the thing is-¡± ¡°Aha!¡± the woman accused, hopping back and pointing a straight finger at Cas. ¡°I knew you were a liar. You-¡± ¡°I can transform,¡± Cas interrupted with a note of frustration. ¡°It¡¯s just that¡­ you burned my clothes away.¡± The woman blinked rapidly. ¡°...What?¡± ¡°My clothes,¡± Cas explained again, ¡°you burned them away with that attack. I¡¯d be naked if I transformed now.¡± The woman seemed to forget her earlier emotions in favor of perplexity. ¡°Modesty? From a slime?¡± She almost laughed. ¡°I repeat again, I am human!¡± Cas insisted. ¡°And If you¡¯re wrong, do you want to be responsible for forcing a lady to stand unclothed in the open ? Weren¡¯t you the one saying something about a lady¡¯s dignity a few moments ago?¡± The perplexity of the situation, as well as the sudden turn of argument, seemed to freeze the woman¡¯s face in a buffering state. ¡°Very well,¡± she acquiesced, at last, carrying the face of someone who¡¯d just been checkmated on their own chess set.
¡°Fine! This looks like your size.¡± A gray and white mass of pleated skirts were thrown over Cas¡¯s figure, draping her in a hamperful of linen. The woman had become exceedingly accommodating after that last appeal. Although, considering how exhausted she looked, perhaps she was just buying time until her magic returned. Cas decided to keep an eye on the woman¡¯s fingers as she crawled in through the bottom of the dress and transformed. In the back of her mind, Cas had been worried about what would happen to the dress if she transformed while inside of it, but her body seemed aware of the conundrum and modified her transformation accordingly. All the necessary parts of her fitted themselves to the inside of the dress. Crystal eyes flowed past the choke point of the neck. Growing arms shot through the sleeves and, like a kitchen timer going off, a short ding baked the form into reality, turning the roiling mass of proteins and biological gunk into a full fleshed human being. The dress, as it turned out, was not her size. It was much too large. Long sleeves hung past the ends of her hands, and the dress bunched up to her knees. It left her feeling¡­ toddlerish, which was technically what she was, now. Apparently, she¡¯d lost more than a year¡¯s worth of mass in the fireblast. Looking down at herself, Cas was also left feeling juvenile by the fact that she¡¯d grown into the dress¡­ backwards. The high back of the dress pressed up against her throat like a brace. ¡®First time dressing in front of someone and you put your shirt on backwards. Amazing, just amazing.¡¯ Cas thought, trying not to show her embarrassment as she looked up at the woman. Her embarrassment quickly disappeared as she saw the woman¡¯s expression, however. The broom in her hand trembled. Cas expected her to drop it and run, or maybe to hit her with it while screaming ¡®monster!¡¯ again. She hadn¡¯t been expecting the woman to drop the handle, and to fall to her knees along with it. ¡°I¡­ I almost just killed a child!¡± she said, voice hollow. ¡°I¡­ just tried to kill the child that saved me!¡± Cas hastened to correct her. ¡°Well, ¡®almost killed¡¯ is juicing the stats there, a bit. I mean, I was fine.¡± Cas¡¯s first instinct had been to protect her ego, though she quickly shifted tracks when she noticed tears and panic filling the woman¡¯s eyes. ¡°I mean, I¡¯m fine!¡± she added, suddenly turning her face into a smile and hopping forward to hug her arms around the woman. ¡°See!¡± Stepping back, she brushed her dress down as if to prove the fact, turning in place to present herself. ¡°And, it was kind of my fault, too. I did scare you after all.¡± Surprisingly enough, the woman immediately started laughing through her sobs, her face lighting up the moment Cas had deigned to show her a smile. Was this what it was like to be a child? Cas thought. Were all adults programmed to try and keep a brave face around you? Cas didn¡¯t remember, though she was glad to use the moment to distract the woman from her own thoughts. ¡°Look,¡± she said, pulling back from the hug and looking the woman in the face, ¡°it¡¯s been a long day. Why don¡¯t we go into the study and I can get us something to eat.¡±
The woman agreed to the request, although with a few caveats. ¡°It has to be a proper tea,¡± were the words she¡¯d used. ¡°It¡¯s been so long since I¡¯ve had a proper table to sit at, and frankly I¡¯ve grown sick of stuffing my face with field rations. Besides, It¡¯ll give us time to talk.¡± The lady had a casually imperious way of making demands, lacking any self consciousness as she presented her own requirements. ¡°Of course,¡± Cas agreed despite the fact that she had no idea what a ¡®proper tea¡¯ entailed. ¡°I¡¯ll get the food, and you can set up the tea. There¡¯s a table in the dining room, and I saw some tea sets in the kitchen. You can set it up how you like.¡± ¡°That¡¯s acceptable,¡± the woman answered simply. ¡°I¡­ will need to wash first, though.¡± She looked down at herself, touching the bloodstains in her dress which had by now scabbed it over into a grotesque corset. ¡°You can¡¯t imagine how disgusting I feel.¡± Cas guided her to the bath. Surprisingly, the plumbing was still intact, and the wooden bathtub had filled with a turn of a knob. ¡°Ugh! The water¡¯s cold!¡± The woman shivered, pulling back her toe from the tub. ¡°Really?¡± Cas sent a disbelieving look at the woman. ¡°Couldn¡¯t you just ¨C ¡° Cas held up her fingers in a firing posture ¡° ¨C fwoom, bam bam, until it¡¯s warm? You certainly know your way around a fire,¡± she said, with not too little bitterness in her voice. The woman retorted frustratedly, ¡°I¡¯ll have you know, nearly dying takes a toll on your magic. You should be thankful I¡¯m still recovering, otherwise you wouldn¡¯t be alive to snark at me for having standards.¡± The woman dipped more of her toe into the tub, shivering with some discomfort. ¡°Couldn¡¯t you use your aura to stay warm?¡± Cas suggested helpfully. The woman looked at Cas with a disappointed expression: the kind all of Cas¡¯s friends wore when they tried to vent and got unsolicited advice instead. Taking that as her hint to leave, Cas ¨C after warning to the lady not to touch the pressure bandage, and several assurances from the woman that she was capable of taking care of herself ¨C toddled out of the house and went to collect her part of the tea.
A quick flight up confirmed that the surrounding fields were barren, black mud and weeds spreading out for acres to every side. Shooting down Cas dove back into the mass of slime she¡¯d abandoned on the ground and transformed. Not all transformations were created equal. Some, like [Killer of Omens] require meticulous attention from the most discerning corner¡¯s of Cas¡¯s mind. Others, were quite forgettable, and Cas generally designed them anew everytime she had need ot them. Cas felt her ¡®front¡¯ distinguish itself from the sphere of her body, growing out a spade like lower jaw that stabbed into the mud with an earthy crunch. The jaw then swung slowly upward, accompanied by the cracking sounds of a thousand snapping grass roots as the ball of dirt and grass and worms smashed between two flat crushing jaws.. Cas barely even bothered to chew. Thee black mass of dirt dissipated inside her body, dissolving everything and leaving behind a trail of white sand and dry silt behind her as she tore a path through the village green, changing course whenever a particularly large bush or flower garden made the mistake of existing in her line of sight. After trawling through eighty pounds of dirt ¨C filtering away everything that could harm a human ¨C Cas finally scraped together enough usable material to make food for tea, as well as a human body. Cas took a moment to appreciate the new milestone age. She was twenty two! Finally, she could drink again! Of course, Cas¡¯s new maximum weight was over two hundred pounds, more than enough to get her back to her original age. But, Cas held off on aging up, for now. It would be such a waste of time to collect the extra five pounds, after all¡­besides, who didn¡¯t want to be young again? Cas was quite glad to have made such a vain decision, when she turned back into a human and realized that the child-sized dress she¡¯d been given now barely reached her mid-thigh. Any more weight gain and that the dress would have gone from shameless to ''cougar'', and Cas -- however much she respected the woman-- had made a conviction to never end up like granny. Looking down at herself, she shifted uncomfortably, bare feet squelching in the mud and bare thighs rubbing together as she tried to pull the hem of the dress down to cover more of herself. She¡­ was going to need some new clothes. Chapter 43: Its technically Looting Cas decided to focus her looting efforts on all the most destroyed houses. She felt less like a burglar when her surroundings looked post-apocalyptic. Besides, it wasn¡¯t stealing if everything was abandoned, right? And so, Cas went on an aggressive foraging expedition through all the nicest looking closets. All the wardrobes were in the same style. The staple articles were long dresses and corsets, as well as some official uniforms and dress suits. ¡°Dang it!¡± cas cursed as she opened up the latest wardrobe. Did this world have a minimum height requirement for pants? Every set had been sized for someone at least three inches taller than her. Growing increasingly frustrated, Cas broadened her search area to the better maintained homes in the outskirts, finding more of the same everywhere until ¨C by pure happenstance ¨C she found just what she was looking for in the most unexpected of places. Giving up on her search for clothes, Cas walked into some stables she found near a farm house. There were no animals inside. Not even a trace of a hoof-print in the hay lined floor. That was disappointing. Cas had been curious to see what sort of creature the people this world used in place of a horse. Her bad mood only lasted an instant however, as, at the far end of the stables, inside a closet obviously designed for human use, Cas found it. Pants! The tight pair of riding pants hung in the closet next to a full uniform. They were even sized for a woman, if the curve of the hips was to be believed, and those curves ¨C after a thorough round of disinfection ¨C slid onto Cas¡¯s hips like a glove. ¡°Haha!¡± Cas posed in front of an imaginary mirror, running her hands down the tailored waist of her top coat and throwing the large fur coat in a dramatic manner. It wasn¡¯t really her style, granted. Cas had never been the type to wear tight pants or organize fox hunts, but Cas wasn¡¯t a complainer. Besides, she was just glad to have pants. Every dress she¡¯d worn had hitherto managed to mop up every stray puddle Cas deigned to walk through. As a child, splashing her clothes with cold water was fun. As an adult, Cas was growing tired of having to hike her skirt up just to walk across the living room.
Cas stepped confidently through the trawled mud-path she¡¯d eaten out of the front garden, knocking her new boots against an upturned stone. The stone flew several feet before, landing with a bowling-ball thud, off behind some hedges. Cas had said it before and would say it again: Aura was a hell of a drug. Ever since turning human, Cas had gained a greater appreciation for the effects it had on a living body, and the effects seemed to encompass everything. The world just felt brighter somehow, as if every sight and sound had been highlighter in marker pen. And everything felt lighter. That stone, which should have weighed thirty pounds, had flown like a soccer ball, and her body felt like it was made of air. lt felt like gravity had been turned down several notches. In fact, looking down, she noticed that she could feel her clothes. like they were a second skin. She could feel the wind caressing against the tips of her lapels and the muddy beads of water running over the top of her boots. At first, she¡¯d attributed this to the tight pants but, upon closer inspection, she noticed that her aura had seeped into the materials. Her status sheet, slow on the uptake, noticed this with a small delay. [New Item equipped!] [Coat: +2 armor] [New Item equipped!] [Boots: +3 armor; -1 strength] [New Item Equipped!] ... Cas banished the status sheet before more updates came. She¡¯d been sick enough of Excel back on earth, and her recent exposure had been entirely too much. Besides, It had been so long since she¡¯d been able to see the world through human senses. She wanted to appreciate the sights a little longer before the mysteries of her status sheet drew her back in. The sun had risen above the neighbor¡¯s roof by now, and it illuminated Cas¡¯s house in quite an unflattering light. The fire blast had formed a greviously large exit wound. A small landslide originated from the interior room where the blast started, creating a small hill of burnt timber and shattered roof tiles where the rest of the house should have been. Cas could see into the interior room from the outside, actually, and it was only two stories above her. Huh¡­ only two stories above her. Cas hopped lightly on her toes, testing her weight. She could probably jump that.
Cas, as it turned out, could not jump it, catching onto the roof with her neck and letting out a chocked "gyak!" as she hooked her arms over the floorboards, pulling herself up with scrambling hands. Digging her fingers into a crack, Cas muscled her hips up over the ground line, rolling over onto her back with a heavy thud that drew a dangerous creak from the charred, wood floor that only begrudgingly supported her weight. ¡°Ahhh!¡± As was becoming tradition, the woman greeted Cas with a surprised scream. She leapt up with surprise, holding a tea-pot out like it was a pistol, her face lashing between panic, and then surprise, before settling on bewilderment. She lowered the kettle and gently sat back down, trying to manage her breaths. ¡°Sorry about that,¡± she said, sending a nervous smile in Cas¡¯ direction. ¡°I didn¡¯t recognize you. I mean ¨C¡± cool eyes ran over Cas¡¯s figure ¡°-- hey say children grow up fast, but you seem to have lived a lifetime out there.¡± ¡°Oh!¡± Cas looked down at herself with equal surprise. She wavered her hand in a circling motion as she crawled up to a stand. ¡°I¡­ can change ages depending on how heavy I am. I just ate a lot of food while I was outside so I guess you could say I grew up.¡± ¡°Oh? And, did you discover your love for fox-hunts while you were out there, too?¡± the woman teased, pointing out Cas¡¯s new outfit. ¡°No,¡± Cas answered, indignant. ¡°I just decided to borrow some new clothes.¡± Cas took a seat at the short table, where a porcelain cup had been set for her. Across from her, the woman picked up the steaming tea kettle, pouring it over a small porcelain figure of a veiled woman before filling Cas¡¯s cup. ¡°Borrow?¡± the woman projected a teasing note in her voice. ¡°I wonder when you¡¯re planning to return the articles.¡± It was not lost on Cas that the woman was herself wearing a brand new dress. ¡°Same time as when you return yours,¡± she responded. ¡°My dress was torn,¡± the woman justified proudly, sitting back against her seat after pouring her own cup. ¡°Besides, you said you were going to get food?¡± Cas pulled out a wooden bowl from a leather purse she¡¯d also borrowed. It was a large bowl, requiring two hands to balance, it was overflowing with a pyramid of transparent food blocks. It shook the table as Cas dropped it down, the food blocks jiggling in response to the sudden shock. They tasted ¡®fine¡¯ as Kari had rated them, but the woman must have been starving, to tell by the degree of effort she seemed to be exerting not to scarf the whole bowl down, her lady-like composure warring with her hunger and eventually losing as she dropped her fork and started popping them like pizza rolls. Though, even this she did with two fingers, an impressive maintenance of composure. The woman deftly ignored Cas¡¯s staring, pointing out the training doll Cas had in her pocket and waiting to swallow before speaking. ¡°That aura trainer¡­ where did you borrow that from?¡± The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°I wasn¡¯t planning to keep it,¡± Cas said, embarrassed. ¡°Anyway, I found it downstairs. I thought it was just a doll. You said it was for training?¡± ¡°Run aura through it,¡± the woman answered. Cas did just so, gripping it in her palm and trying to run aura through it¡­ failing miserably. The doll¡­ a light wooden object in her hand, felt like a river of led the moment her aura broke against its exterior. It was the woman¡¯s turn to stare now, looking at Cas as one might a particularly slow child. That level of embarrassment was just what Cas needed, however, and she nearly crushed the toy in her grip, focusing herself and hammering aura into the doll until her palm burned. And, then, all of a sudden, the gates opened and slowly, very slowly, Cas felt the aura trickling into the object. The doll reacted to this, the limbs curling inward like some automaton. The woman broke with the impatience of someone watching their grandparent send an email. ¡°Oh, you¡¯re doing it all wrong,¡± she started. ¡°It¡¯s a puppet. You¡¯re supposed to be able to make it dance, here.¡± ¨C she held out her hand ¨C ¡°Let me show you. Cad did so, and Sara, rather than grasping the object, simply placed it on the table and pressed her fingertip against the top of the doll¡¯s head. Then, like a jolt of lightning, Aura hammered into the woman¡¯s hand, sending a jolt through the table and nearly spilling Cas¡¯s tea. Cas couldn¡¯t see the aura, but she could feel it, concentrated in the woman¡¯s hand. A slight heat distortion rose from the doll''s surface, and, slowly, with surprisingly human-like motions, the doll rose onto its arms and legs, placing a hand on its knee as it pushed up into a tall stance. ¡°See, the woman said. It¡¯s supposed to train your control and dexterity. Like this.¡± As if to show off just that, the doll rose up onto the point of one toe. Bringing both hands together, it twirled like a ballerina before hopping up into a cabriole. And for a second, when it was in the air, the doll almost felt alive. It¡¯s glittering lashes and painted face seemed almost real, as it strove and broke its limits like only a human could, as it leapt up and reached for the sun. It was rare that something could look so purely like art. The landing was a bit rough, however, causing it to slip from the woman''s finger and collapse onto the wooden table with a clatter. Dead again in a second. What was it they said about icarus? ¡°Well¡­ sort of like that, anyway,:¡± the woman said, looking disappointed at the collapsed body. The dead doll reminded Cas of something. She took a sip of her still too-hot tea to avoid speaking of it, but, eventually, the drink was done, and Cas felt the burden of responsibility pressuring her. ¡°Regarding how we met¡­¡± she said, finally. ¡°When I first found you, I saw that there was a wagon full of people nearby when the monsters were chasing. I¡­ didn¡¯t find any other survivors. I¡¯m sorry.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t be,¡± was the woman¡¯s immediate reply. ¡°I was only traveling with that group out of necessity. They were very bad people, you know.¡± Cas was unused to having facial expressions, and so did a very poor job of hiding her incredulity. The woman only stared blankly at her. ¡°I can sense a judging look in your eyes.¡± ¡°Oh! It¡¯s just..¡± Cas panicked. ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± the woman said. ¡°I¡¯m a lady, not a prude. Adaptability is the most noble trait, after all, and I¡¯ve been in a desperate way lately. I¡¯ve had to associate with more than a few people that made me want to pinch my nose. I appear to have quite a talent for finding myself chained to ruffians.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± Cas could think of nothing else to say. ¡°Again, don¡¯t be,¡± the woman flicked her hair up proudly. ¡°They never harmed me. I¡¯m quite good at associating with people, getting them to like me and so on. It¡¯s a skill that has to be well cultivated if you want to survive as a woman of leisure. Grand balls can be quite ruthless places, you know. Gossip and lies, all of it.¡± The conversation died here for a second. Cas could sense that it had become ¡®her turn¡¯ to add to the conversation, but she¡¯d never cultivated much of a talent for small talk, and what little she did had been thoroughly killed by months of isolation. Cas thought about mentioning the weather, but the Lady interrupted her. ¡°Why did you save me?¡± she asked suddenly. ¡°What?¡± Cas said. ¡°Why did you save me,¡± the woman reiterated, leaving no room for confusion or escape. ¡°I mean, why are you asking?¡± Despite the woman¡¯s best efforts, Cas did maintain her confusion. This wasn¡¯t exactly the kind of response she expected. Shouldn¡¯t the woman have been grateful, or at least something other than accusatory? ¡°You needed help, and I was in a position to offer it.¡± ¡°Really?¡± the woman said, looking incredulous. ¡°I must say, if that¡¯s the case then you¡¯re either naive or a liar. And, given my experience with Grand Balls, you don¡¯t seem like the latter.¡±. Cas herself grew incredulous at this. ¡°What? I¡¯m naive because I didn¡¯t leave you to die?¡± ¡°Well,¡± the lady said, introducing the fact gently, ¡°you are a monster, and I am a human. I threw a fireball in your face on sight. Were I a less reasonable person, you might have had an army on your tail before sundown.¡± Cas almost spat her tea. ¡°You mean¡­ I should¡¯ve just left you to die!?¡± The woman looked surprised at the response. ¡°Well, not necessarily that,¡± she answered thoughtfully. ¡°I¡¯m¡­ merely noticing that it must have taken a lot of effort on your part to save me. A hundredth part of that could have kept your discretion, is all. Certainly, considering your talents, it wouldn¡¯t have been difficult for you to pretend to be human.¡± ¡°Well, maybe,¡± Cas admitted, remembering how badly she¡¯d botched their first contact. Thinking about it with a more adult mind, Cas realized it would¡¯ve been the easiest thing to hide the fact that she was a slime if only she¡¯d just cleaned up the hospital bed and maintained a human figure when the woman woke up. In fact, why hadn¡¯t she just done that? Then Cas remembered: right, she¡¯d been distracted collecting couch change and licking doorknobs. Apparently, twelve year olds could be absent minded and irresponsible¡­ who knew? ¡°I had a lot on my mind,¡± Cas finally answered, deciding the full truth about her changing mental age would be difficult to explain. ¡°Besides, you said something about having an army on my tail? Are you able to communicate with an army?¡± Cas asked. ¡°If so-¡± ¡°Stop!¡± the woman bent a wrist up to present a flat palm. Her voice was natural and even, but the abruptness of the sound hit Cas¡¯s train of thought like a speed bump. Before Cas could even gather her thoughts, the woman continued. ¡°You just lied right then. Don¡¯t try to deny it. I can tell.¡± She placed the teacup onto an ivory coaster. ¡°When you said ¡®you had a lot on your mind¡¯, you weren¡¯t being entirely honest. There was another reason that you forgot to hide your nature.¡± ¡°Well,¡± Cas¡¯s thought staggered from the announcement. ¡°I was just-¡± The woman didn¡¯t allow Cas to gather any momentum. ¡°I know, I know,¡± she replied consolingly. ¡°A little white lie, something to make the conversation go more smoothly. Everyone does it, and you didn¡¯t mean any harm by it, as far as I could tell, but¡­ you¡¯re a monster, darling.¡± The woman leant forward as she made that accusation, her sparkling eyes and bright voice almost making the announcement sound positive. ¡°Don¡¯t think I¡¯ve forgotten that just because I¡¯m having tea with you. I¡¯m only talking to you right now because you saved my life, but, much as I¡¯d love to talk about niceties and dolls all evening, and as crass as it may be to ask you directly, I¡¯m afraid I will need to know some things about you if I¡¯m to trust you. ¡°So, I must ask that you be completely honest with me¡­ at least for the duration of this tea,¡± she gestured sharply to the table between them. ¡°We can go back to a world of white lies and half truths afterwards.¡± She capped this speech off with a bright smile, crossing one leg and sitting back prettily with a proud expression. Cas was stunned at the clarity of the diatribe. The woman had a way with words, if it were to be put lightly, and she wasn¡¯t asking for anything egregious. Cas herself would¡¯ve probably asked for more if she woke up with a monster as her bed. More than that, she could sense that the woman had recovered more completely from her earlier exertion, and she certainly seemed confident enough in her abilities to press the point with Cas. Left with such a complete proposal, Cas could only nod. ¡°Very well,¡± she said. ¡°But, I¡¯ll have to ask that you be completely honest, as well. I have some questions of my own.¡± ¡°That¡¯s only proper,¡± the woman answered simply, letting the silence hang at the end of her sentence as a motion for Cas to get on with it. Cas felt a bit stuck at the silent prompt. There was just so much about her life to go through. She wasn¡¯t sure where to start. A look at the expectant woman¡¯s face gave her a hint for her thesis. ¡°Well,¡± Cas started. ¡°I suppose we should start with names. I¡¯m Cassandria,¡± she stuck out her hand. ¡°My friends call me Cas.¡± ¡°Much obliged,¡± the woman took her hand in a dainty shake. ¡°I am Lady Sara Mathalthizar Quinnecient-¡± she halted a moment in the middle of her introduction, as if remembering something embarrassing. ¡°Well, you may call me Sara, in any case.¡± Noticing her obvious slip, she hurried to change the subject. ¡°And, I¡¯d hate to suppose, but should I call you ¡®Cas?¡¯ I wouldn''t call us friends, but you did just save my life, if that counts for something.¡± Cas laughed. ¡°Sure, you can call me Cas.¡± Sara mirrored her gesture. ¡°It¡¯s quite funny. I¡¯d never thought monsters could have names, much less friendly ones.¡± Cas took that as her second thesis, rolling her eyes up to a corner of her mind as she thought of how best to phrase it. ¡°Well, that¡¯s maybe the second thing you need to know about me, Sara. I¡¯m not a monster.¡± And Cas explained herself, and told the woman a story about a little world called Earth, and the biologist who¡¯d dedicated her life to studying the life on that world before hers was ended. Chapter 44: Magic The way Sara had set it, their Tea Party had an air of majesty. A gleaming, silver samovar stood high in the center of the table, steaming with tea and presiding over a bright tablecloth inhabited by a small population of porcelain cups and candle holders, and two attendants on either side. Cas was one of these attendants, and she felt the sacred atmosphere Sara had set up weighing on her. She¡¯d promised to be completely honest with the woman for the duration of their tea, and she intended to be. The woman had also promised to be honest, and Cas believed that she would be. Naturally, Cas immediately wanted to blurt out: Magic! Tell me how to do Magic! Magic, Magic, Magic, Magic! Like, fwoom! Ya know? Fireballs! Unfortunately, her sense of dignity prevented such a direct approach, and Cas had to tell her story first. As promised, Cas was entirely honest, and she had a lot to be honest about. It was the better part of three hours by the time her story caught up to the present. Sara gasped as Cas came to the end. ¡°What! And they tried to kill you after all that? Why, you even saved their Oasis! Why those ungrateful¡­!¡± the woman was an attentive audience member, and she¡¯d spent the past hour paying rapt attention to Cas¡¯ life story, giving colorful commentary and shocked gasps whenever the plot twists demanded them. She wasn¡¯t shy about expressing emotion, a fact that was endearing to Cas. Sometimes the woman¡¯s passion was such that she didn¡¯t even seem to be listening to the story, getting lost in her own, ranting tangents whenever something struck her as particularly unjust. This animated performance was almost hypnotizing. It drew Cas¡¯s attention away from her own self, and it encouraged her to speak with less self consciousness. Despite this, Cas was able to notice something becoming more so about the woman. A brightening of her aura. Pausing for a moment, Cas decided to pay a bit more attention to it. Cas was left surprised by what she saw. The woman¡¯s status sheet was¡­ lavish, for lack of a better word. More than that, her aura had more favorable luster to it. It reminded Cas of the sand angler, except where the angler had dealt in lies this seemed more akin to¡­ minor embellishment. It felt kind of like looking at someone¡¯s life through their diary, with edits and whiteout and all. The stat sheet itself confirmed this perspective. Unlike with most creatures, Cas had no trouble at all reading this woman¡¯s stats¡­ some of them, anyway. The woman was purposefully amplifying the readability of those stats, Cas realized. Considering the above average nature of all the stats, it seemed obvious that the woman had chosen the stats which put her in the best light. ¡°-s. Cas?¡± Cas blinked awake from her studies, sheepish. ¡°Sorry,¡± she smiled, ¡°what were you saying?¡± The woman gave the practiced, forgiving look of a lady who was used to people staring. ¡°I was asking if you weren¡¯t going to eat?¡± Sara gestured at the half-empty bowl of food blocks which sat between them on the table. That came as a surprise to Cas, who stared with some hesitancy at the bowl. ¡°I actually don¡¯t need to eat,¡± Cas tried to explain. ¡°Like I said, I made this food from the stuff I already ate, so it wouldn¡¯t really make sense-¡± ¡°Upupup!¡± the woman interrupted, raising a palm in objection. ¡°If I recall correctly, we both agreed to a proper tea, and that means all guests partake. No excuses. Besides, you¡¯re making me feel like a pig, fasting over there while I stuff my face.¡± That last point seemed of particular importance, and Cas, deciding not to belabor the argument, took a hesitant bite, trying not to think about the fact that she was technically eating herself. Sara took the moment to refill their tea. Picking up an ornate, silver samovar which sat bubbling in the center of the table, she tilted it gently over Cas¡¯s cup like one might a drunk friend over a toilet bowl. The samovar did it¡¯s business promptly, and Sara placed it back down with an empty, hollow clunk. It was obvious to both of them, by the hollow sound, that the tea time was coming to an end, and with it their pact of honesty. Sensing that the time for hard questions was running out, and not wanting to waste the opportunity, Sara broke the silence. ¡°What do you want?¡± Sara had a naturally self confident air, which never feared being misunderstood or considered rude. ¡°Excuse me?¡± Cas asked. Sara let out a pained sigh. Whatever she¡¯d meant, it was obviously a delicate matter for her, and she resented Cas for forcing her to explain. ¡°Well¡­¡± she started, speaking with the lilting tones. ¡°You did save me,¡± she admitted, ¡°I suppose I owe you my life, and, well, naturally, it¡¯s only right to repay someone in equal measure, and I do consider my life to be quite a valuable thing.¡± Sara¡¯s words were uncharacteristically terse and disjointed as she circled about the issue. A slight expression of embarrassment colored her face down to the neckline. ¡°What I mean to say is¡­ I would repay you with money, but¡­ I¡¯m of humble means at the moment, so naturally I¡¯d like to know what I can do to repay you by deed.¡± ¡®Oh¡­¡¯ Cas realized. ¡®She wants me to put a price on her life!¡¯ she realized again, with a bit more feeling. Sensing the awkwardness, and not knowing how to handle such an intense request, Cas responded automatically: ¡°Oh! I don¡¯t¡­ I mean, You don¡¯t have to-!¡±\ ¡°Hush!¡± Sara broke. ¡°Don''t patronize me, darling, just don''t,¡± Sara had a glint of anger in her soft eyes as she spoke. ¡°I''m an adult, and when someone pays me a favor, I pay them back thrice over, or my name isn''t Sara Mathalthizar Quintessia Exispestara!¡± Cas found herself missing the mono-syllable names of the desert village. Struggling to find a mnemonic to remember that name by, she gave up and wrote it down in the notes section of her status sheet. ¡°Are you going to keep doing that?¡± Sara asked. ¡°It''s kind of rude, you know.¡± Scrambling, Cas dismissed her sheet, returning her full attention to the conversation. ¡°Sorry!¡± she apologized with an embarrassed laugh. ¡°It won¡¯t happen again.¡± Sara quirked an eyebrow. ¡°But¡­ you¡¯re still doing it.¡± she looked at Cas with some distrust. Cas paused as well. ¡°Doing what?¡± she asked. Another annoyed face, and another obvious explanation. ¡°Masking your aura!¡± Sara said with simple exasperation. We¡¯re having tea, not a knife fight, you know.¡± Like a person suddenly reminded of the fact that they were breathing, Cas woke up to the obvious knowledge of her faux pas. Unlike the woman¡¯s billboard of a status sheet, Cas¡¯s was an invisible wisp. Cas had been clamping down on her aura, hiding all traces of information which might have been gleaming from it. Cas relaxed her grip on her aura, and filled the room like a lightbulb. Sara¡¯s eyes widened slightly as she was given a more complete look at Cas¡¯s aura. Strangely enough, her eyes drifted downward, staring through the table at Cas¡¯s belly, as though she were looking at something that suddenly appeared there. ¡°Sorry,¡± Cas apologized, ¡°I didn¡¯t even notice I was masking. Just a force of habit, I guess.¡± ¡°A habit?¡± Sara let out a look of surprise followed by pity. ¡°Oh, dear. You said the villagers were hostile, but I never imagined they¡¯d be so ghoulish. You¡¯ve truly never found someone you could be relaxed around since you came to this world?¡± ¡°Oh, It wasn¡¯t the villagers,¡± Cas hastened to correct. ¡°I actually started training to hide my aura after I left the village.¡± ¡°Why?¡± Sara looked puzzled. ¡°Well, I knew I¡¯d find people eventually,¡± Cas shrugged. ¡°I guess I was worried they¡¯d see that I was a¡­ well, not human, if they got a good enough look at my aura.¡± Sara¡¯s expression instantly brightened, and she laughed. ¡°Haha! I keep forgetting you¡¯re from a world without aura. Aura can¡¯t tell you things like that!¡± ¡°Really?¡± Cas said. ¡°Of course,¡± Sara assured. ¡°After all, did my aura look that different from the Glass Dogs that were chasing me earlier?¡± ¡°Glass dogs? Is that what they¡¯re called?¡¯ Cas asked, growing more curious as to what sort of classification system the people of this world might have. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°Stay on topic, darling,¡± Sara eased, noticing the excitable glint in Cas¡¯s eye. ¡°Oh, right.¡± Cas deflated a bit. ¡°To tell the truth, I really couldn¡¯t, ¡° she admitted. ¡°You all had the same Aura ¡®color¡¯-¡± ¡°Hue,¡± Sara corrected quickly. ¡°Right, hue. Although, the plants had a different hue to either of you. So there¡¯s that.¡± ¡°Plants are different, darling,¡± Sara answered, hurrying to get over the basics. ¡°You can¡¯t reincarnate into a plant, after all, even if monsters are fair game.¡± ¡°Well, that¡¯s comforting to hear,¡± Cas admitted after a breath. ¡°You¡¯re sure no one will be able to tell, though?¡± ¡°I¡¯m certain,¡± the woman assured. The confidence in the woman¡¯s voice eased Cas¡¯s worries more than the arguments had, though not by much. ¡°Well, if you say so.¡± Cas decided she¡¯d just have to take the woman¡¯s word for it. Seeing the hesitancy in Cas¡¯s acceptance, Sara decided to bolster her confidence with advice. ¡°You know, If you really want to be safe from suspicion. I''d suggest showing more of your aura, not less. Nothing attracts interest like closed curtains, after all.¡± Seeing the logic in it, Cas rolled her eyes up to stare at her own character sheet. Ever since getting her Aura skill to level one, Cas found that her aura acted more and more like a part of her body, like she¡¯d developed an instinct for how to use it, and like a turning hand she flared it out, brightening everything and organizing all the discordant waves of information into neat convergent beams. Her status sheet was quick to update to this. At the last minute, however, remembering Sara¡¯s descriptions, Cas decided to try something new with her status sheet, weaving her aura in intricate patterns and creating a rule to highlight her attributes depending on their strength. ¡°Oh! Bravo!¡± the woman clapped her hands impressively at the new display, selling her impressed reaction. ¡°It¡¯s absolutely fantastic, darling!¡± Cas withered under the burden of public praise. ¡°I mean, It¡¯s ok,¡± she diverted. ¡°Oh, hosh,¡± Sara spoke, offended on her behalf, ¡°it¡¯s perfectly fine! It¡¯s better than most that I see in town.¡± ¡°So, you¡¯re sure I wouldn¡¯t stand out with this?¡± Cas gestured up at where her status sheet was floating, even as the woman stubbornly continued to look down into Cas¡¯ belly for the answer, squinting her eyes with a considering posture. ¡°Well, I wouldn¡¯t say you blend into the crowd,¡± Sara answered. ¡°Your resiliency is something rather inhuman. I''ve honestly never seen any human or monster with such an intense brilliancy in that trait.¡± "I... Take it you''re talking about my 167 in constitution?" Cas ventured. Sara blinked wildly as she processed that statement. ¡°Constitution? 167? Are you¡­ your aura gives you a numerical account of people''s attributes?¡± Sara seemed aghast at the idea, even as she laughed at the ridiculousness of it. In between her laughs, she managed: ¡°as in... It gives a number to every part of a person?¡± Cas leant back with an annoyed posture. ¡°Well, how does your aura show it, if you think it¡¯s so much better?¡± "Colors and sound, darling," Sara explained easily. ¡°When I look at you, I see hundreds of thousands of little lights in your belly, like a ringing, refracting gem that shifts whenever an attribute changes.¡± That¡­ was way cooler than an excel sheet. Though, even Cas¡¯s burning jealousy didn¡¯t stop her from noticing the pertinent bit of Sara¡¯s description. ¡°Wait, did you just say attributes can change?¡± ¡°Of course,¡± Sara answered, ¡°they change all the time. Each attribute has dozens of faces that are constantly balanced against each other. A person¡¯s strength might wane as they tire, or their brilliancy might spark up with a boost of confidence.¡± Cas wondered about this. Sara apparently saw hundreds of different attributes, whereas Cas had a grand total of six spread out on her display. Maybe that was the deficiency inherent in using numbers? After all, what was ¡®Charisma¡¯, and why did [Killer of Omens] have a 60 in the stat for apparently no reason? How many different facets of a personality had to be rolled together to produce a singular, unchanging number in that attribute? ¡°¡­ I think my status sheet might be skimping on the details,¡± Cas leant forward and rested her on two palms. She glared up at her floating display with disappointment. ¡°I can only see six attributes, and they don¡¯t change, unless I change forms that is.¡± Sara, noticing her bad mood, rushed to console. ¡°Oh, I didn¡¯t mean anything by it. I was just surprised, is all. Everyone sees Aura differently. It¡¯s hard to say any one way is better, at the end of the day. ¡°Also, I''m flattered by your trust, but you don''t need to show off that much of your aura,¡± Sara added with a judgy note in her voice. ¡°Among strangers, It''s fine to show off only some of your ¡®attributes¡¯ as you call them.¡± Cas found herself forgetting her bad mood, as the choice presented itself. Which statuses should she present? After a quick preview off her sheet, she decided Wisdom, Intelligence and Charisma would be the final draft picks. Of course, her strength was higher than her charisma, but¡­ it just felt crass to show it off, like she was threatening to punch people by virtue of displaying it. Not to mention the fact that Cas wasn¡¯t that strong to begin with. No, she¡¯d stick with the mental stats, Cas decided. There! Cas sat back, satisfied with the result. Sara, on the contrary, was far from impressed. ¡°Really, darling?¡± she said in a disappointed voice. ¡°What?¡± I know I said ¡®preferably¡¯, but you seem to have lost the plot. We just talked about your resiliency, didn¡¯t we? It¡¯s the best I¡¯ve ever seen! Why are you hiding it?¡± Cas, sensing the disappointment, rushed to justify herself. ¡°Because it¡¯s suspicious!¡± she answered obviously. ¡°You even said it was, and I quote, ¡®inhuman¡¯. I¡¯m trying not to get the Frankenstein¡¯s Monster treatment here!¡± ¡°Ok, first of all, I have no idea who this Frankenstein is, and secondly, you worry too much. I said it was intense, yes, but nothing is too suspicious as long as it has a good story behind it. In fact¡­¡± she stood up suddenly, eliciting a clattering of porcelain as she pushed off from the desk ¨C ¡°you¡¯ve told me such a wonderful story, I feel it¡¯s my turn to repay you. Say¡­ that game of yours, the one which taught you about our world, Diablo, did you call it?¡± ¡°Siablo,¡± Cas corrected, with an annoyed note in her voice. ¡°Yes, that. You said it had a complete world map, and something about a second continent?¡± Cas vaguely remembered saying that. She hadn¡¯t even known why she¡¯d bothered mentioning it; the second continent was just part of a DLC package Cas had too much self-respect to buy. ¡°Yes, there¡¯s a second continent, but it wasn¡¯t part of the main story. I don¡¯t really know much about it.¡± ¡°That¡¯s perfectly fine,¡± the woman answered briskly, pacing excitedly now as possibilities flew through her head. ¡°You at least know where it is, right?¡± ¡°It¡¯s on the other side of the world,¡± Cas answered immediately before pausing, ¡°... your people do know the world is a sphere, right?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Sara hissed. ¡°We¡¯re not stupid, you know? In any case, tell me what you think of this. You are¡­¡± she waved a hand in Cas¡¯s direction as she looked up for inspiration ¨C ¡°the third daughter of a minor king. Upon your coming of age, you were given a ship, a crew, and told to make a name for yourself. The dream of all sailors is to cross the oceanic boundary. We can say¡­¡± Sara drew her syllables out again, evidently making the story up on the spot ¨C ¡°you tried to do the same, and were attacked in Sea Monster Bay¡± Cas remembered the bay from the game. It lived up to its name. Cas mulled the story over in her head, looking at it from multiple angles. ¡°A shipwreck there would be believable, ¡± she admitted tentatively. Sara was far more excited about it. ¡°Not to mention,¡± she continued, ¡°all the major currents there flow past Rock Pass. That¡¯s not too far from here. We can say you survived the attack, and washed up on shore here.¡± Sara paced more excitedly, now, as all the facts of this fabrication came together. Cas, catching on, put words to the vital point of the story: ¡°and the ship, all my crew, and all my treasure would be on the seafloor!¡± ¡°Which explains any lack of any evidence very neatly, if I say so myself,¡± Sara completed her sentence, nodding triumphantly at her accomplishment. Cas was never one to accept a happy ending so uncritically, however. ¡°Yeah, but what about my ¡®resiliency¡¯ as you called it.¡± She pointed a teaspoon at the woman with a skeptical manner. ¡°This story doesn¡¯t explain that.¡± Sara shrugged as if that were the easiest thing in the world. ¡°We can just say that you have water-attribute magic. Someone who¡¯s mastered the self-healing spell might be expected to have a resiliency on par with yours.¡± Cas shot another skeptical look. ¡°Would they really believe that I spent my entire life studying the most useless spell in the game?¡± ¡°They¡¯d have to believe it,¡± Sara smiled deviously. ¡°After all, what¡¯s the alternative? That you¡¯re a slime which took human form?¡± ¡°Touch¨¦,¡± Cas pronounced. ¡°But we don''t even know my magical attribute. What if I discover it¡¯s actually fire or something? How are we going to explain that?¡± ¡°First of all, people can have more than one attribute,¡± Sara explained. ¡°I have three, in fact.¡± Cas was surprised to hear that. That¡­ had definitely not been an option in the game, probably for balance reasons. Then again, considering Cas had unlocked flight at level 6, it was obvious this world didn¡¯t care much about balance. ¡°Second of all,¡± Sara continued unabated, ¡°You in particular don¡¯t need to worry about discovering a contrary attribute.¡± Cas was confused. ¡°Why not?¡± Sara answered most naturally, ¡°Because monsters can¡¯t do magic, of course.¡± That¡­ hurt to hear, more than Cas had expected anything should. No magic? Ever? Just like that? It was so sudden, it felt like she¡¯d been given a terminal diagnosis at the doctors office. Cas sat up a bit, crossing her arms obstinately. ¡°You seem disappointed,¡± Sara noticed. ¡°No,¡± Cas looked aside. ¡°Why would I be disappointed? The magic in this world didn¡¯t seem that interesting anyway.¡± Sara allowed a slight smile to show. ¡°You know, on this world, we have a story called sour grapes.¡± ¡°Yet you don¡¯t have Frankenstein. Maybe appreciate the classics a bit more, huh? And are you done with this interrogation? I have questions, too, you know.¡± Cas was still smarting from the bad news, and she let it seep obviously into her voice. ¡°Of course,¡± Sara obliged, sending an apologetic smile in Cas¡¯s direction. ¡°You¡¯ve been very patient with me, and I¡¯d be happy to answer any and all questions you might have. Although, if you don¡¯t mind, I do have one final question. I¡¯m sorry for not asking it earlier, but we got a bit sidetracked. Cas calmed from her bad mood enough to nod. ¡°Sure,¡± she raised her hands in an accepting posture, ¡°go ahead. Ask away. Not like I can get more annoyed.¡± ¡°Oh, that¡¯s good!¡± Sara cheered calmly. ¡°It¡¯s nothing too strange, I just wanted ask because, well, it¡¯s not important, really, more of a curiosity of mine.¡± Cas raised an eyebrow, sensing she knew where this was heading. ¡°What did you wanna ask?¡± "Well, it''s just-" "What?" Sara answered immediately. ¡°Why are you Black?¡± Chapter 45: The most patient of all creatures. Cas was tempted to pull a Mean Girls quote during her round of questions, but she remained professional and kept her questions on topic. Sara answered all questions promptly, and most of it only served to confirm that Cas¡¯ knowledge of the games was mostly accurate. For her part, Cas wasn¡¯t too curious about Sara¡¯s personal affairs, and so allowed the conversation to slip into more casual matters. Sara was a fun person to talk too, as it turned out, and time flies when you¡¯re having fun. Night fell before Cas had realized it, and Sara interrupted herself with a yawn, scratching her chair back as she stood up into a reaching stretch. ¡°Well,¡± she said, patting down her dress skirt and looking over at Cas. ¡°It is getting late. Would you like the bed? Oh! Wait, I forgot slimes don¡¯t sleep!¡± she chuckled, looking attentively over at Cas. ¡°I thank you for all the help, and for keeping me company through the day.¡± Lowering her arms back down, she winced a bit as her shoulder traveled through a sore spot. ¡°I think I¡¯ll be strong enough to travel by tomorrow. I¡¯m late enough for my post as it is. Can I expect you¡¯ll still be here in the morning to accompany me? I¡¯d be happy to introduce you to ¡®civilization¡¯ as you termed it.¡± Cas almost couldn¡¯t believe her luck at the offer. ¡°You¡¯d do that?¡± she perked up, sitting a bit straighter in her chair. Sara was covered entirely by the shadow of the wall, so that the moonlight contrasted plainly on her delicately smiling teeth. ¡°Of course I would, darling,¡± she answered smoothly. ¡°It¡¯s the least I can do for someone that saved my life.¡± Another yawn took her. ¡°Anyway, I absolutely must go to bed. I¡¯ll be in the children¡¯s room down the hall. The one with the in-tact wall. fJust kick me awake if I¡¯m not up by sunrise, good night!¡±
Cas, for the first time in a long time, spent the night idly. She didn¡¯t sleep. Rather, her chest was full of so many fluttering emotions, and her thoughts so occupied with possibilities, that she found enough in her musings to keep her entertained for hours at the table. Eventually, even that burned through Cas¡¯s patience however, and she started pacing the floors. A cool wind blew into the room through the hole in the wall, and the charred floor boards creaked painfully with every step. Cas was just so worried! She was going to meet other people, soon! And she was wearing tight pants¡­ and a fur coat, ugh! She recoiled a bit from the sight of herself in a nearby mirror. She didn¡¯t look bad, but¡­ it just didn¡¯t seem like her personality to wear such a thing. And, there was also the language thing to consider. The language! She hadn¡¯t even asked Sara about why she spoke English! How could she forget such a basic thing? How were they going to explain that! And her status sheet was ok, right? It didn¡¯t look too shabby. She pulled up her ¡®presentable¡¯ screen once again, looking worriedly at the suspiciously high Constitution modifier. Maybe she should reorder it? Cas suddenly stopped and taking a moment to breath, relaxed¡­ Turning back into her slime form had that feeling of laziness to it. As her body liquified and dribbled down into the floor, it felt like every cell in her body was relaxing to the maximum extent. And with her body relaxed, she also found her emotions cooled. The electric feeling in her gut disappeared, and the thundering in her heart dissolved, and she was left alone with her mind. Huh, strange how easily calm came to her, in this form. She¡¯d be fine, Cas reassured herself. She¡¯d asked all the really relevant questiions. All that was left was to walk Sara over to her meeting and be introduced. Simple as.
Cas decided to spend the early morning scavenging, finding a leather purse and filling it with various trinkets she didn¡¯t need. By the time she¡¯d found match-sticks, Sara ¨C awake now ¨C was waiting for her at the edge of the wide, dirt road that cut through the dilapidated town. There, Cas joined her and, fixing the bag strap diagonally over her torso, set off with her to the east. ¡®The East,¡¯ was quite a fanciful way of putting their heading. In reality, it consisted mainly of a hundred hills and an expansive wasteland. The fields were barren, and the whole of the earth was scourged. Ten miles of walking had done little to improve the conditions. Even this far away from the village, large scorch marks painted the dirt where acres of trees used to be, and a field of craters where mountains of dirt and bedrock had been gouged from the earth by tremendous forces. And, all around, the world was silent, not a single bird song or cricket chirp in the air. Cas felt herself shivering, as the weight of miles and destruction seeped into her. It felt as solemn as a graveyard. ¡°What happened to this place?¡± Cas murmured, looking steadily more amazed as the miles passed, and the damage hardly seemed to wane. ¡°Battle,¡± came the answer easily. Ahead of her, Sara walked around the craters and burnt stumps like a familiar grocery store. It was disconcerting to see how casually the woman trod through so much carnage. Eventually, however, even this went away. Twenty more miles of hiking passed, and the surroundings healed, and the craters fell away with the day-light as night fell over the world and they stopped to camp. Sara seemed in a better mood, now that they were in a living forest. Cas sacrificed thirty pounds of mass and created a tent clone for them to rest in. Inside, Sara lay down on her back, using her hands like a pillow and staring up through transparent roof at the twinkling stars, apparently enamored by the novelty of a moon-roof. Cas sat beside her, once again a teenager wearing suddenly baggy clothes and stabbing emotional baggage. 14, as it turned out, was a precarious age, and worries were abound like a whirlwind in that mind of hers. Because, right now, despite her midnight convictions, Cas couldn¡¯t help dredging up her more intense worries. ¡°So, Sara¡­¡± Cas ventured awkwardly, just hating how her voice sounded in the cramped, tent space. ¡°Yes?¡± Sara answered serenely, still taken with the view of the stars, and the feel of the aura-warmed air that the tent encased them in. ¡°Are you sure my status sheet is going to be ok?¡± Cas asked, bringing up her aura and highlighting the Constitution score once again. Sara, sensing the genuine distress, sat up to look directly at Cas with a reassuring expression. ¡°Absolutely,¡± she answered. ¡°Any discrepancy is permissible with a good enough story. Just stick to the story we came up with, and I promise no one will think twice.¡± ¡°Are you sure I couldn¡¯t hide it, anyway, though? Just to be safe?¡± Cas felt a sudden bout of self consciousness as Sara looked over at her, hugging her knees closer to her chest and hiding the lower half of her face behind them. Suddenly, she realized how silly she was being, and felt even more self conscious because of that. ¡°That would only draw more attention, darling,¡± Sara reminded, gently, speaking without condescension. ¡°The best way to avoid questions is to answer them before they get asked, after all.¡± Huh, food for thought. Cas mulled over that latest saying, forgetting her shyness temporarily and raising her head back up into view. It was only a second later she caught herself and hunkered back down. ¡°Ok, but what if they ask more questions about the story?¡± Cas challenged. ¡°According to you, I was supposed to be the captain of a ship. I don¡¯t know the first thing about sailing..¡± Sara shifted over, hugging her knees to her chest and mirroring Cas¡¯s posture in a way that put the little girl at ease. ¡°Listen, Cas. Tell me again what you were back in your own world¡­ you mentioned that you were a scholar of some sort?¡± ¡°I was a research biologist, yes,¡± Cas nodded. ¡°Right, and if your world is anything like this one, I take it that becoming a biologist requires a lot of effort and study and self discipline, right?¡± ¡°Right!¡± Cas nodded, sparking with pride. ¡°Well, forget all that,¡± Sara said plainly. ¡°Huh?¡± The blonde woman laughed in a way that mellowed Cas''s worries. ¡°Look, the story itself is fine, but the story you say doesn¡¯t matter as much as how you sell it. You¡¯re not a scholar anymore, Cas. You¡¯re the third daughter of a minor king! ¡°You¡¯re like every other noble child without a real inheritance. Do you have any idea what those lost children are like?¡± ¡°Uhm¡­ to be honest I¡¯m not really familiar with nobility, outside of story books and the occasional overpriced wedding, that is.¡± Sara sighed. ¡°Look. I¡¯ll introduce you to some, later, but the average third child tends to be wasteful, incoherent, and fancifully unaware of what the word responsibility means. You asked me earlier who in their right mind would waste their life learning the most selfish and useless spell in the world, right?¡± Cas nodded, ¡°You would!¡± Sara answered pointedly, ¡°as would every other third child I¡¯ve met my entire life. And they would all be exactly the sort of people to buy a ship and staff it with the cheapest crew around while knowing nothing about sailing. Trust me, Cas, the only thing you¡¯ll be interrogated about are how your parents managed to raise such a responsible and level headed child without bribing them with an inheritance. So, don¡¯t worry about it, ok?¡± ¡°Ok,¡± Cas answered. ¡°And, don¡¯t worry about odd questions either. I¡¯ll step in for you if anyone starts pressing you for details.¡± Cas did feel much calmed by that. Although, the pit of anxiety in her gut remained. So close to her meeting with civilization, it was hard not to feel a little excited. ¡°You said we were close to your camp, right?¡± Sara had already laid back down. ¡°Yes. It¡¯s just twenty miles to the northeast. We should be there by tomorrow.¡± ¡°What¡¯s it like?¡± ¡°Oh, I¡¯ve never been,¡± Sara answered. ¡°I was called here to replace one of their Psylens. This is my first time working in this region.¡± A raised eyebrow dragged Cas¡¯s face up over kneecaps. ¡°If you¡¯ve never been here¡­ then how do you know where it is so exactly? ¡°What, your game didn¡¯t tell you that?¡± Sara teased. ¡°Sara,¡± Cas said, almost growing with annoyance. Curiosity was genuinely painful at this age, and she demanded relief. ¡°I can sense them,¡± Sara answered, tapping a finger to her temple. That¡¯s actually the job I¡¯m supposed to be doing for them, helping them keep track of their soldiers, letting units communicate over distance, that sort of thing.¡± Cas blinked back in surprise. Hmm¡­ that hadn¡¯t been a class in the game. Then again, the game had been focused entirely on small group combat. The more logistical elements of magic probably took a back seat to the fireballs and deathrays. ¡°Wait, so you¡¯re a soldier? Are you with the Kistal army?¡± That was the human nation, as Cas recalled it. ¡°I am Kistan by birth,¡± Sara answered, ¡°but I¡¯m not working with the army directly. I was actually headed here with that caravan as a part of a¡­ strength bolstering mission. The army wanted to hire some outside forces, and I ended up being in a position to help them.¡± Cas thought about it for a moment, her naivete wrapped around her train of thought like a rubber band, holding her back from the right conclusion before everything snapped into place and she gasped, pointing an accusatory finger in the woman¡¯s direction: ¡°you¡¯re a mercenary!¡± she all but shouted, suddenly losing her self-conciousness as the accusation bounced around the cramped walls of the the tent interior. For the first time, Sara seemed to lose her cool a little. ¡°I am not,¡± she denied sharply. ¡°I just¡­ happened to work and travel with mercenaries. I¡¯m more of an adventurer, really.¡± ¡°Riiiight?¡± Cas teased, flexing her sarcasm muscles just a bit. ¡°Oh, grow up!¡± Sara muttered, turning on her side and facing away from the obnoxious child. Cas only giggled, and very soon after grew bored, noticing that Sara had either fallen asleep or was ignoring her. That was another issue with being so young. You got bored easily. The flipside of that was you could also be entertained easily, and Cas proved this to herself as she dug an arm into her satchel and drew out the gem encrusted doll she¡¯d found in the house earlier. Somehow, it was more enticing to her, now, and she found herself more interested in it as she focused her aura and forced it into the miniature figurine. Unlike when Sara took the doll under her tutelage, it refused to dance for her. Rather, the aura ¨C as if under the burden of some massive weight ¨C resisted Cas as she tried to force it into the figurine, and after a minute of intense effort, it was all she could do to make it raise its arm. Aura: +30XP, +50XP, +20XP! It was slow going, but Cas found she had a lot of enthusiasm and time to spare in the night.
The next morning, Cas reconstituted the tent and gained enough mass and maturity to offer an apology to her guide. Partially, this was done out of genuine guilt, and more partially out a realization that Sara was about to lead her into a camp full of soldiers, while holding a dozen secrets about her. Safe to say, getting on her good side quickly became a priority. ¡°Hmpf!¡± Like any true lady, Sara had an ability to accept an apology like it was overdue debt. ¡°Well, I should hope you¡¯re sorry!¡± she pronounced sharply. ¡°Prying into a lady¡¯s business is quite the imposition, much less making accusations.¡± Seeing that Cas was thoroughly, sorry, however, she was quick to mellow. ¡°And¡­ apology accepted.¡± ¡°Glad to hear it,¡± Cas said. The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. As they had every morning. Sara was lying back against a tree trunk, and had pulled her top up to reveal the wound in her side. Cas replaced the pressure bandage, astounded to see how quickly the woman had healed over most of the wound, the fist sized wound and exposed ribs now looking hardly any worse than a stab wound. Which, granted, a stab wound itself was pretty bad, but the injury values here seemed heavily depreciated. As with any doctors exam, it was quite awkward for all involved, and that had done quite a bit to blunt the force of Sara¡¯s verbal attack. Placing the new pressure bandage on, and stiffering it, Cas resumed her human form and drew down Sara¡¯s dress. ¡°You¡¯re good!¡± she smiled. ¡°Excellent,¡± Sara stood up, stretching her arms up a little painfully and turning around with that innate sense of direction which had guided them thus far. ¡°This way,¡± she gestured, strolling forward. ¡°They¡¯ve moved camp since last night, and they¡¯re a little closer to us, though not by much. I think we can meet them by noon if we keep a good pace.¡± Seeing the intensity with which Sara took off walking, and with the memory of her wound fresh in her mind, Cas felt some discomfort in letting the woman push herself so. ¡°You know, I do have a transformation that can carry you.¡± ¡°No, thank you,¡± Sara replied adamantly. ¡°I¡¯m quite capable of walking myself, and I¡¯m not looking forward to riding side-saddle, in any case,¡± she said, fluffing the wide-brim skirt of her dress out to either side in demonstration. ¡°Oh, you wouldn¡¯t have to ride. It¡¯s like a moving tent, see-¡± ¡°And, even if I wanted to be carried. We¡¯re quite close to the camp,¡± Sara continued on. ¡°I think it¡¯s best if you refrain from transforming until we¡¯re in a more private place.¡± ¡°We¡¯re miles away from the camp. Can they really see us from all the way over ther?¡± ¡°An adventurer can never be too careful, nor too wise, and wisdom is a field for paranoia,¡± Sara preached, holding an instructional finger up in the air. ¡°Sounds like adventuring is a rough life,¡± Cas commented. ¡°Why¡¯d you take it up.¡± ¡°That¡¯s personal,¡± Sara nodded resolutely. Cas was aghast. ¡°Hey! I answered all your questions about my life!¡± ¡°That was during honesty tea," Sara lawyered. "If you really wanted to know, you should¡¯ve asked then.¡± With that, Sara picked up her step and walked off, and Cas hurried to catch up.
With Sara¡¯s past firmly off limits, Cas decided to pass the time on more important topics. Among their myriad conversations, they included philosophy, the differences between this world and earth, morality, physics, metaphysics, meta-metaphysics (apparently, that was quite a topic in this world), and on all the most difficult and complicated topics, they were able to have amicable, productive conversations, even when they disagreed. On all topics, that was, except one. In fact, by Cas¡¯s estimation, the one topic that gave them cause to argue was also perhaps the most important, and Cas just couldn¡¯t help bringing it back up for the seventh time as she whined. ¡°But why can¡¯t monsters do magic?¡± ¡°Because they just can¡¯t,¡± Sara answered sharply. ¡°Even if they try really, really hard?¡± Cas bargained. In truth, Cas knew she was on the losing end of an argument. Even in Siablo III, she recalled vaguely that most of the monsters she fought in the game didn¡¯t use magic attacks, relying more on crossbows and other tools than the blue laser beams that were ubiquitous on the alliance side of the equation. At the time she was playing it, Cas thought it was just to differentiate the factions, and in fact she thought it hurt the marketability of the game to not simply rip off star wars and give the bad-guys red magic beams. ¡°Well, whatever. It¡¯s not that important anyway,¡± Cas deflected. ¡°Anyway, why are we turning?¡± In her haste to change the conversation to topics less embarrassing, Cas caught onto something useful. Namely, the fact that Sara was taking them onto a wide turn to the north. ¡°Their camp keeps moving,¡± Sara complained with some annoyance. ¡°Sorry to take you on a goose chase, but unless we can find out where they¡¯re heading, we¡¯ll have to trace their steps.¡± ¡°Well, you said you could help units communicate, right? So, couldn¡¯t you like ¨C¡± Cas placed two fingers to her temple ¡° ¨C communicate with them, somehow?¡± Sarah almost laughed. ¡°Maybe if I strained myself half to death. The enemy unit has a Psylen, too, and she¡¯s closer to the action. She¡¯s jamming everything,¡± Sarah said with a note of disgust. ¡°Honestly, she¡¯s not even doing a good job of it. Just screaming energy everywhere.¡± Noticing the slight look of worry at the mention of an enemy unit, Sara rushed to assure. ¡°Oh, don¡¯t you worry. She can¡¯t keep me from tracking them, just from communicating. I¡¯ll be able to get us there in no time.¡± Cas replied a bit slowly. ¡°Well, honestly, it¡¯s the getting there I¡¯m worried about. You didn¡¯t exactly mention there was going to be a fight!¡± ¡°Well, that¡¯s what army units do?¡± Sara replied dumbly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. ¡°I thought it was implied. Besides, you seem like you can handle yourself. Saving someone of my caliber is quite a feat, you know!¡± Sara was trying to hype her into doing something stupid, and Cas wasn¡¯t having it. ¡°I was able to kill those hyenas because I could transform into a flying creature! I don¡¯t know how to fight as a human! I can barely control that aura doll you gave me!¡± Cas pulled out the aura doll and waved it around like a limp model. Sara, to her credit, seemed genuinely shocked at this. ¡°You¡¯ve never trained how to fight?¡± she said, aghast. ¡°No!¡± ¡°But¡­ but, I know you don¡¯t have nobility in your world, but you said your parents were wealthy, were they not?¡± ¡°Welll¡­ yeah,¡± Cas admitted, ¡°relatively speaking.¡± ¡°And, they never enrolled you in a wrestling class?¡± ¡°That was not my vibe in highschool,¡± Cas said, not even daring to consider it. ¡°You never had any fencing tutors?¡± Sara continued, trying to contain her disbelief. ¡°No!¡± ¡°Dueling classes?¡± ¡°They have classes for that?¡± ¡°You¡¯ve at least learned to hunt on horseback?¡± Sara tried, grasping for some last signs of hope. ¡°Why would I ever learn that?¡± Cas said, sensing Sara¡¯s indignation, and masking her embarrassment with anger. ¡°You¡¯re literally wearing a hunting outfit,¡± Sara gestured to Cas¡¯s riding pants and hunting coat. ¡°I just thought it looked nice!¡± Cas admitted with a yell. ¡°Is that so illegal. Didn¡¯t you say earlier noble kids don¡¯t have to know anything about anything.¡± ¡°Oh my gods, you really are a scholar!¡± Sara said with a horrid realization. ¡°You¡¯re saying you¡¯ve never been trained how to formally fight.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve never even been in a fight before I got into this world!¡± Cas said, feeling panicked at the direction this conversation was taking. Sensing the downward slope of their attitudes, Sara took a breath and came back fresh with a smile. ¡°Well,¡± she allowed, ¡°that¡¯s fine enough. It¡¯s not like you¡¯ll need to fight in any case.¡± ¡°Well, I¡¯m not sure the enemy army is going to give a choice,¡± Cas said. ¡°Oh, hosh. Prince Haowi is an honorable man. That I know. He¡¯s not one to conscript the unwilling. You have my word that I¡¯ll vouch for you, and you¡¯ll be placed under his protection until we get back to the city. At most, you¡¯ll be asked to carry water or tend the wounded.¡± ¡°I¡­ suppose that¡¯s fine,¡± Cas said, not able to believe her own words as the thought of imminent war, real war, made her stomach queasy. Catching on quickly, Sara reassured. ¡°And don¡¯t you worry. Units are always jockeying in this area, but it¡¯s rare anything comes of it, and moreover, I know this to be the safest unit in the entire region.¡± ¡°You know that for a fact, do you?¡± Cas said, recalling many bad car-sales that had started off with similar phrasing. ¡°I do,¡± Sara said confidently. ¡°Paranoia, adventure, I already told you the saying, darling, don¡¯t make me repeat it. Anyway, I¡¯m not one to throw my life away for some money. I choose my work very carefully, and I happen to know,¡± she leant forward a bit, whispering despite their isolation, ¡°that prince Haowi has the Banner.¡± ¡°Really?¡± Cas said. ¡°And what¡¯s that.¡± Sara grew a bit flustered at Cas¡¯s apparent unwillingness to work with her here. ¡°I¡¯m saying he has the banner. Not one of the lesser ones everyone¡¯s flaunting.¡± Cas was unwilling to give Sara a break from her amazement, however. ¡°I don¡¯t follow.¡± ¡°The Banner!¡± she said again. ¡°Trinket Ember? The first Banner of Ember Regalia?¡± Finally, something she knew! Ember Regalia was a familiar term to Cas. In Siablo, Ember Regalia was an undefined maguffin that the whole plot of the game revolved around. This first Banner nonsense, however, was new to her. ¡°I¡­ wasn¡¯t aware that Regalias could have fragments.¡± Cas answered. ¡°Well, they do,¡± Sara replied shortly, ¡°and Prince Haowi has the First Banner. It¡¯s called Trinket Ember.¡± ¡°Well, ok, but it doesn¡¯t sound that impressive.¡± Cas, as her usual tactic for when she became confused, tried for brutal honesty. ¡°I mean, what exactly is an ¡®Ember Trinket¡¯ supposed to do-¡± Cas shut up immediately, when she noticed Sara¡¯s face, which looked like Cas had stepped on a Bible in front of her. ¡°I mean,¡± Cas corrected herself immediately, ¡°tell me more.¡± Sara took a calming breath. ¡°First of all, the proper way to address it is ¡®Trinket Ember¡¯ not ember trinket or whatever it was you said. And all you need to know is that I know for a fact that Prince Haowi is in possession of it.¡± Sara continued, unusually nervous to speak on the topic. ¡°Also, please understand that is to be kept in the closest confidence between us. I only tell you as a show of trust and confidence. The royal family doesn¡¯t like things like this getting around, understand?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll keep it to myself,¡± Cas promised. ¡°Although, I¡¯m still not sure why it matters?¡± Sara seemed to be at the end of her patience with Cas, at this point. ¡°I thought you said you played the game!?¡± ¡°I did. I¡¯m not going to read the lore logs, though! I have a life¡­ had a life. I don¡¯t even know what Trinket Ember does! I don¡¯t even know what Regalia Ember does! Why is it important that the prince has one?¡± Seeing Cas¡¯s true confusion, Sara stepped back, and tried to construct a sentence that would hold all the necessary information. ¡°Prince Haowi having Trinket Ember means that he¡¯s invincible, darling,¡± Sarah answered. ¡°It means he can do no wrong. And it means,¡± she stepped forward, pointing a finger straight at Cas¡¯s heart, ¡°that you will be safer in his unit than anywhere else in the world. There are a million regiments in the grand army, and ten units to a regiment, and only one of those has Trinket Ember.¡± Cas looked into Sara¡¯s eyes. She was sensitive to the fact that Sara was a very convincing woman, but¡­ she also knew the woman had integrity. Cas knew people like her could make you believe anything, but¡­ they also wouldn¡¯t lie while looking you in the eyes, and she knew for a fact that Sara believed everything she said. ¡°I understand,¡± Cas answered. ¡°Great!¡± Sara cheered, clapping her hands and turning away to the new location the Unit had encamped in. ¡°We¡¯re just a few miles off, now. Honestly, it seems like fate has brought you here, since you get to see a Banner so soon after your arrival in this world, much less Trinket Ember! Most people go their whole lives without seeing even a lesser Banner, you know? And here you are,¡± she gestured with two arms at Cas like a proud mother, "ready to see the first Banner." ¡°Yeah,¡± Cas sighed, dejected about the nervous feelings which were taking their time working out of her system. Sensing it was time to change the topic, Sara went back. ¡°Really, though, Cas, you¡¯ve never had any fight training? As in, none at all?¡± "No," Cas said again. "As in, not even an irregular class? Like, winter only classes would technically count." ¡°Does everyone on this world know Kung Fu?¡± Cas burst out. ¡°Why am I getting grilled for not spending my free time punching people in the face?¡± ¡°Well, everyone of means would learn how to defend themselves, yes,¡± Sara answered. ¡°Even scholars?¡± Cas pressed. ¡°Well¡­¡± Sara hesitated, ¡°most scholars tend to focus their efforts on Magic,¡± not bothering to hide the ironic laugh that escaped her voice. ¡°....rude,¡± Cas replied, finding yet another reason to sulk. It was just so unfair! No monsters could do magic. That just couldn¡¯t be right, Cas invoked. Like- ¡°What about night stalkers!¡± Cas blurted suddenly, sounding triumphant. ¡°What?¡± Sara said. In her excitement, Cas forgot that the marketing names didn¡¯t transfer to this world, and tongue tied herself as she tried to recall an apt description. ¡°You know, tall, humanoid, dark purple. They do psychic attacks.¡± Cas mimed what she imagined was an accurate ¡®psychic attack¡¯ gesture with her arm. ¡°Don¡¯t tell me they can¡¯t do magic! That¡¯s basically their whole thing!¡± Sara was unimpressed by the performative argument. ¡°Those ¡®things¡¯ are called Chanezzars, and they can do magic, but-¡± ¡°Ah, ha!¡± Cas leapt mid stride. ¡°You admit the truth!¡± ¡°BUT!¡± Sara interrupted, continuing, ¡°it doesn¡¯t help your argument, in either case. They¡¯re not monsters, they¡¯re demons.¡± ¡°Oh, come on! What¡¯s the difference!?¡± Sara looked at her like one might a crazy person. ¡°Apples and oranges, darling. The difference is they¡¯re completely different creatures! And natural enemies, to boot. Monsters hate demons almost as much as they hate us. Although, it¡¯s hard to find anything in this world that monsters don¡¯t hate. But I digress. The major difference is that Demons¡­¡± she paused for dramatic effect, ¡°can do magic!¡± She smiled gleefully as she spread her fingers out into the air, sprinkling stardust all around her with a chiming sound. ¡°Low blow!¡± Cas scowled, turning away to sulk into her own thoughts. It seemed her cutscene skipping had come back to bite her. Cas vaguely recalled that there was some difference between demons and monsters. As far as she¡¯d been concerned, they were both just packs of red health bars. Although, correlating the knowledge with her experience, monsters being unable to do magic did explain how she ¨C along with every monster she¡¯d thus far seen ¨C had a Magic Affinity score of 5. This was low compared to even regular animals like the Zanzibar and Sand angler, who had 10 and 15 in that stat, respectively. Sara seemed to have an innate sense for when someone had lost an argument to her, though she also had the sense not to gloat. Still, Cas looked back and was able to note the satisfied look on Sara¡¯s face froze, her face turning pale as horror replaced itself over her expression. ¡°Sara?¡± Cas asked. Sara didn¡¯t answer, except to sprint forward, brushing past Cas and almost knocking her over as she tore up the next hill. ¡°Sara!¡± Cas yelled after her, scrambling up to follow. Cas couldn¡¯t see what was beyond the crest of this next hill. But Sara, reaching the apex first, could, and Cas could see the recoiling horror and awe that froze Sara and place as she stood at the precipice of rolling ground. Cas sprinted up, tracking dirt and broken ground in a quick few seconds as she took a place next to Sara, although, she was able to see the spectacle even before then, the entire scene burning itself into her mind the moment her eyes peeked over the crest of the hill. Ember Regalia had many fragments. The first and greatest of these was Trinket Ember, and it lived up to its name. Cas was color blind. Truly color blind, living in a world defined by greys and darks and lights. And never had she been more aware of this fact than when she first laid eyes on the Red Banner. Trinket Ember stood high over the field. It shone with a brilliant, crimson light that touched nothing except the terrain of one''s mind. It felt like Cas just knew it was red, rather than actually seeing it as such, and she knew it was a red so brilliant that no physical object could do it justice. It was majestic. It was like nothing Cas had ever seen before. Most things, you looked at them first. Trinket Ember was different. It was something so important that it deserved to be known, and it was known. Every detail of it that it wanted was known. Cas knew it was red, even though she couldn¡¯t see it. She knew it was frighteningly powerful, despite having no idea what it was. She knew it was noble, and refined, and beyond anything ever conceived. She also knew that it was in mourning, because its holder ¨C brave Prince Haowi, Kind Prince Haowi, the rightful heir of Regalia Ember Prince Haowi ¨C was dying. Prince Haowi was dying, and all hope was lost, and Trinket Ember stood vigil high above his body, even as the men scattered, and the flames spread, and the black cloud of monsters descended to feast upon his corpse. All of this was immediately apparent to Cas. It was a strange story to know, however, because Cas knew that Trinket Ember was powerful. No earthly force, nothing in existence could stand up against it. That begged the question: what could have possibly laid low such a magnificent thing? The answer to that was also apparent, but in a terrible way. Off in the distant horizon, barely a speck to the eye but looming large in the frightened minds that cast their gazes upon it, the Black Flag of death rose high ¨C for the first time in ten centuries. The Black Flag of death, Trinket Sable, had a terrifying presence, it froze the mind and made it realize things everyone wanted to ignore. The Black Flag of death, Trinket Sable, was triumphant. The Black Flag of death, Trinket Sable, had orchestrated the death of Prince Haowi, and all that remained for it to do now was wait. Like the vultures which were its omens, it flew high above the dead and dying. It had time enough. For Cas knew immediately upon seeing it, that Death was a most patient creature. It waited on all creatures. The young, the old, the rich, the poor, the most noble princes and wretched beggars. It was also waiting, Cas knew, for someone just like her to step foot in this battlefield. Chapter 46: Mass Teleportation Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. That verse came alive in Cas¡¯s memory, as the slithering form of Trinket Sable coiled itself around her mind. Dead men head to the land where angels flee. Cas felt herself suffocating in place. The Trinket knew she was here. It had waited a thousand years and it knew! Cas wanted to hide but froze stiff. The whole world seemed exposed in the face of that¡­ that thing. ¡°Wake up!¡± The suffocating pressure eased a bit, replaced by violent turbulence of Sara shaking her shoulders. ¡°It¡¯s not looking at you!¡± Sara yelled, forcibly turning Cas away from the sight. The woman made sure to stare pointedly into Cas¡¯s eyes, showing her the honesty in them as she consoled: ¡°It doesn¡¯t care at all about you! You¡¯re safe right now. Just don¡¯t freeze on me, ok?¡± Sara was afraid, too. And that made her more relatable enough for Cas to accept her message. Cas felt herself able to breathe again. ¡°I¡¯m ok. I¡¯m ok,¡± Cas said, speaking to assure herself as much as Sara. Trinket Sable still hovered in the periphery of her thoughts, but ¨C safer in the knowledge that it had more important things to think about ¨C Cas was able to direct her attention to the surroundings.
Unlike the blasted craters and burnt forests they¡¯d walked through earlier, the land here was astoundingly pristine. A fragrant meadow stretched out as far as the eye could see, interrupted only by a lazy river that swam leisurely through the field, stretching over the land like a glimmering ribbon. The sky was a clear, sunny blue, spotted by a few, isolated gray clouds that hung in the distance. It had the beauty of a rose, thorns and all. The daylight suddenly dimmed, as the black cloud approached closer. Unlike the gray clouds, which hung peacefully in the stratosphere. The black cloud flew with intent, made up of screaming figures and fluttering wings as it stormed through the air, charging towards them from the far distance. In it, Cas could make out a menagerie of monstrous figures, large and small, that danced together in an orgy of confusion. They held tight together in their chaotic formation. Unlike the graceful flocking of a bird formation, the monsters jockeyed and bit and crashed into one another. A constant storm of dead and broken bodies rained down from the cloud of strife, shedding its weaker members as the whole pushed forward with a confused air.. It was obviously not a practiced or natural thing for so many monsters to be so close together. It looked more as if they were being corralled, prodded forward by some invisible force towards the Red Banner. The scene on the ground was barely more hopeful. A thousand men were scattered in every direction, most of them running. In a scene of such confusion, order stood out, and ¨C like a sign-post of sanity in a world gone mad, the small, cohesive formation of twenty armored figures was immediately noticeable. They stood stoically by the hill Sara and Cas were perched upon, organized into a hedge-hog ring, with polearms stabbing in every direction. Sara immediately ran to it, and Cas followed without thought.
Sergeant Dalmatian had a silly name, but his size and demeanor more than made up for it. In a field increasingly infested with giant monsters, he loomed over the space as if he owned it. And this was not without reason, for his space was very well protected. Around him, a hundred soldiers circled in two rows, holding up a hundred pikes that stabbed into the air all around. Sargeant Dalmatian paced in the center of this circle. All around him, intensity was present in the furrowed brow and white-knuckled grip of every troop. All were silent, creating a pocket of stillness for their sergeant to meditate in. A silence that was swiftly broken by a distant and incredible roar. Half a mile away, a black, shelled figure crawled out of the river bank, shaking the water off and baring black teeth in a threatening display. It roared loud enough for Dalmatian to feel it in his gut, planting a gnarled leg into the muddy bank, as dozens more of its brethren swam across behind it. And that was the good news. Because behind that was a screaming cloud that rained dead bodies. Still, not a single soul in his unit wavered. The sergeant felt a spark of pride as he looked out among his crew. Discipline was the first thing to go in the face of danger, but he was, and always had been, a disciplinarian. His soldiers had hated him for that, for the standards he held them to, but it was what kept them alive now, and it was what he, by strength of threat or promise, would hold them to to the end of the lives. Peeking over the gleaming helmets that surrounded him, Sergeant Dalmatian All looked around with pity at the scattered masses of routing men. They¡¯d all abandoned their formations, the fools. Some had even dropped their shields. He couldn¡¯t bring himself to blame them. He¡¯d been terrified, too, when the Black Flag appeared. He¡¯d lost all hope when the prince had fallen. In truth, he was still, to this moment, scared. And it was the instinct of scared men to run from danger, but the experienced soldier in him knew that, sometimes, the safest place to be was just under the belly of the beast. Of course, safer hardly meant safe. The belly of the beast was still quite dangerous. It would require all the focus and concentration his soldiers could muster to survive such a place. So, naturally, he did not much enjoy the sight of a Psylen and a stranger muscling their way into his formation. ¡°Sergeant!¡± Sara called out, flashing an identity badge and pushing her way past the two ranks of spears, intruding quite confidently into his space. ¡°Sara Matalthazar reporting!¡± She saluted. Reaching back, she grabbed Cas and dragged her into the circle, ¡°this is my escort Cassandria.¡± She had to yell to be heard. By now, the screaming cloud had approached so close, that the air was brimming with excited howls and monstrous screeching. Dalmatian was confused for a moment before the name rang a bell. ¡°You¡¯re late ¨C ¡± he began his instinctive reprimand before recalling the situation around him and pausing ¡° ¨C actually, nevermind. I doubt it matters. I¡¯m sure you can tell this unit is dead,¡± he gestured hoplessly around him. ¡°I thank you for reporting, anyway. If you¡¯re looking for your pay, I can assure you I don¡¯t have it. Now leave me be!¡± He turned away to continue his pacing when Sara grabbed him by the words: ¡°I can help! I know your Psylens are all dead. I can¡¯t sense them anymore, but I can reestablish communications-¡± ¡°I said leave me be, Mathalthazar!¡± Dalmatian sniped. ¡°Can¡¯t you see how pointless that would be? The prince is dying!¡± He gestured over to that red spot which every one of them avoided looking at. ¡°The enemy has a Trinket. Fighting isn¡¯t an option, now, just survival. You¡¯re welcome to throw your lot in with us, but don¡¯t even think of ordering the others to start a fight, you¡¯ll only kill more of them.¡± ¡°But, Sergeant-!¡± Sara¡¯s words cut out of Cas¡¯s mind. In fact, the whole world took a back seat to the sudden awareness that occluded her vision. Cas had made the mistake of looking directly at the prince¡¯s location, and the sight stabbed at feelings she never even knew she had. ¡­ ¡®Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,¡¯ It was wise enough, as far as advice went, but ¨C for all the sense it made ¨C Cas had never managed to divine an answer to the question inherent in the quote. What, after all, could possibly scare an angel? Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. Well, at least one thing, it turned out. And, that one thing, right now, took the shape of a dying prince.. It was quite an innocuous sight. The Red Banner gleamed high in the air, and the prince sat underneath it, reclined back against a pile of rubble, pressing a hand to his stomach. The light from the Trinket touched nothing except him, and he glowed red amidst his gray surroundings. Looking at the scene was like staring into a wood-chipper. The sight itself was mundane, but the thought of running into it- Cas shivered and felt the bile bubbling up from her stomach. She flashed her eyes away, and the world came into focus again. ¡­ ¡°-can at least organize a retreat!¡± Sara screamed. ¡°Organize a retreat!¡± the sergeant laughed. ¡°All you Psylens know how to do is organize! You¡¯re not a soldier, Mathalthazar, and stop pretending that you are. Look around you!¡± he gestured to the chaos outside, and the immense cloud of monsters that was now almost painfully loud. ¡°This is not the time for organization! This is not the time for thinking. This is the time for every soldier to do what they¡¯ve been trained to. That¡¯s why we train, Mathalthazar! Having a Psylen poke into their heads and distracting them with nonsense hopes will just get everyone-¡± ¡°Sergeant!¡± Cas yelled. The incredulity of being interrupted was enough to shock the sergeant into silence. Cas took the opportunity to speak. ¡°The prince! You said everyone¡¯s running because he¡¯s down, right? If someone could get him, would that help you organize against the monsters?¡± ¡°Obviously?¡± The Sergeant said with a confused note. ¡°Who the hell are you?¡± Cas took that for the yes it was and sprinted out of the formation, running straight for the prince. Cas¡¯s heart thundered, and her hands grew clammy, and she felt her sense rebelling against such an action. Cas was afraid, and the place she was running to was still a woodchipper. Worse than a woodchipper, in fact. At least, with a woodchipper, you knew exactly what would happen if you touched it. The prince, however, was trapped in a pit of dread and danger, unlike anything she¡¯d ever felt before. A dark place that would shred anything to bits. However, the biologist in Cas knew that ¨C if any creature could survive walking into a wood chipper ¨C it was a slime. Cas charged her aura and charged straight to the hilltop where the Red Banner called. A small hop, and she flew over the eight foot tall pike wall the soldiers formed around her, and just as she touched down on the outside of the circle, she took off running. It was quite a sensation, running under aura power. Each foot step propelled her ten feet, and the surprising thrust her legs could produce almost caused her to trip over herself. Not to mention the wind. It was like standing up in a convertible. Those were fun little details, but they were hardly entertaining enough to distract Cas from the key question that ran through her mind as she approached the prince¡¯s hill. Namely¡­ Why!? Why was she doing this? Why was she risking her life to save him? Why save anyone? Just because she could walk into a shredder didn¡¯t mean she had a good reason to! It was a difficult question to answer. Maybe was doing this because she knew he was someone worth saving? Maybe she was just that soft hearted and impractical? Maybe she thought saving him was the best chance of both Sara and her coming out of this alive? Maybe it was for no good reason at all. Whatever the reason, Cas made an executive decision to think about it after this was all over. Shutting down all the contrary voices in her head, Cas charged forward, and focused all her attention on the task at hand. And there was a lot to focus on, enough to distract her from the terror, in any case. ¡ª-- The screaming cloud of monsters was a mile wide mass of schooling creatures, and it was looming close enough now that Cas could make out individual figures in the whole flock. Most of them were small, but large, toothed things were apparent in the whole, and they were winning the constant jostling battle to be at the head of the pack. The hail of broken bodies landed with splashes, now that the cloud was over the river, and the water was turning muddy with blood Cas shared a destination with them. The Trinket glowed like a waypoint for both their appraisals, and the monsters apparently saw victory where the humans saw danger. Somehow, this barely warranted a notice in Cas¡¯s mind, as she struck forward towards prince hill. She couldn¡¯t afford to think too much lest she lose her courage. Despite her best efforts, however, the occasional thought struck in against her will. Cas tried to ignore the self doubt, but the thought reasserted itself. Cas shook her head. She¡¯d already gone over this. Why were these thoughts still bothering her now? She tried to shut them out. The voice screamed in her head. Wait a minute¡­ that wasn¡¯t her voice. Feeling a ring like a telephone call bouncing against her aura, Cas picked up the line and felt Sara¡¯s voice. Cas thought. The language they spoke in now wasn¡¯t words, exactly. Cas could feel something more to it. There was Sara¡¯s exasperation and worry, for one. But, she also gained an implicit knowledge of her surroundings, like a hub map centered on Sara¡¯s location. And she also now knew the locations of the surrounding soldiers and monsters. Cas answered. She was glad for the conversation. It allowed her enough distraction to think of things other than her worries. Sara said, Prince hill ¨C as she termed it ¨C was half a mile ahead of her. The monsters were four miles away on the other side. Cas was closer to the destination, which was a relief, but the monsters were flying faster¡­. Cas answered simply. Another spike of panic and confusion. Cas had barely formed the thought when a mass of precisely formed emotions washed over her. Sara screamed somehow, even through the medium of thought. Cas answered. Cas answered. Sara answered. Something exasperation soaked into that statement. Cas signed off, finding she¡¯d eaten up more than half the remaining distance in the conversation. The monsters were still more than three miles away, now, new overtones in their chittering calls and aggravated roars.¡¯ She could make it! Cas almost cheered aloud at the progression. They were slow fliers indeed! At this pace she¡¯d make it there with time to spare. To gauge by their distance, she¡¯d probably have two minutes to herself once she arrived at the scene. That was plenty of time to get the prince somewhere! The next thirty seconds were meditative for Cas, as she sprinted through the intervening space towards the prince. Going at this pace, the ground rushed beneath her, and details seemed to flash in and out of existence. Briefly, a small, dog-faced monster sprinted out from the side, and Cas had already leapt over it by the time she¡¯d registered its existence. She turned her head to look back. The monster hadn¡¯t pursued her, more interested in avoiding the sudden hail of arrows that darted into the ground behind her, some clipping uncomfortably close to her heels. Sara assured. Feeling around in the mental map Sara had provided, Cas saw that the formerly scattered individuals had spontaneously conglomerated into an array of cohesive groups, and all of them ¨C though wary of the prince¡¯s hill ¨C moved in unison to create a ground perimeter around the location, fencing it off from the encroachment of the titans. One of the groups had been organized to the north, and they were moving closer to the hill. That was probably the secure location Sara had mentioned. Cas turned back to look in front of her. She was tantalizingly close to the base of the hill, now, just a hundred feet away. She could have reached it in three strides. However, all the hope she might have felt was suddenly quashed. A bright, purple flash filled the whole world, followed by a strange sound of hissing thunder. Cas planted a foot to stop herself, looking all around. It had gotten intensely dark suddenly. A sickening series of thuds and cracks sounded all around her, as a hail of dead and dying bodies broke against the suddenly soggy ground, turning it dark with spurting blood and gurgling croaks. Looking closer, Cas could see they were monsters. Beaked, black-toothed things with webbed wings. It had gotten very dark suddenly, and looking up readily revealed the reason why. ACHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! The screaming cloud sounded with a howling, discordant scream constructed from a thousand voices. ¡®How?¡¯ cas said breathlessly. Off in the distance, the Black Flag of death, Trinket Sable held steady with its darkly glow. It seemed unperturbed by her efforts, as if it had known she would be too late. And Cas was too late. And the hovering mass of hell dropped, crashing down onto the Red Banner, and onto the prince, and onto Cas as well. Chapter 47: A lot bigger in real life. As a child, Cas had been quick to outgrow her fear of the dark. Mom had, at the time, been frustrated at how quickly the brand new night-light became obsolete, and at how quickly her daughter seemed to be growing out of all the cutest phases of childhood. Cas, on the contrary, had been quite proud of her accomplishment. After all, only little babies were afraid of a little dark, she¡¯d boasted. Although, Cas had lied, just a bit, in service of her ego. Because, even after they¡¯d thrown away her nightlight, and she¡¯d been congratulated on her accomplishment, and all her friends on the playground had been sufficiently impressed, Cas still found that ¨C on some particularly cloudy nights, when the darkness was so blinding that she could only see the monsters conjured by her imagination ¨C she became afraid again¡­ just a little. At times like these, when she missed her nightlight, and the darkness seeped into her psyche, and she wanted to run to her parents bedroom and admit her deceit, Cas consoled herself with pleasant mantras ¨C the one¡¯s her mother had taught her. ¡°The only thing I have to fear was fear itself.¡± ¡°There¡¯s nothing in the dark. There¡¯s nothing in the dark.¡± ¡°The scariest thing in this room is my imagination.¡± ¡°It¡¯s silly to be scared of a light switch.¡± These four, often worked, but whenever they failed her, Cas resorted to a mantra she had made up for herself, and which she repeated incessantly when her heart started thumping. ¡°There¡¯s no such thing as monsters¡­ ¡°There¡¯s no such thing as monsters¡­ ¡°There¡¯s no such thing as monsters!¡± ¡­ Cas found that all of those statements failed her, today. The sun became blotted out, and a vast shadow fell over everything. It was unfortunate, in a way, the fact that Cas had night vision enough to see through the darkness. Because what she saw there crippled every brave word and positive affirmation she and her mother had come up with. There were such things as monsters, and they smelled of blood, and Cas could see them in such horrid detail, and they could see her, too. Cas knew this because they were staring at her, with gleaming eyes set deeply into shadowy sockets. Schreeheheheh! Schaahahhahahah! Eghahhahahah! KghaaaaKgggggg! A pandemonium of sound filled the world, all around her the flying creatures swirled in a mass of stretched skin-wings and braying heads.. Item Equipped: Rusty Spearhead +4 Slashing. +7 Stabbing Cas suddenly found that her hand was in a death grip around the socket of her blade. She held onto the worn metal like it was a cross, pulling it close to her as if afraid to lose it. Cas didn¡¯t remember pulling it out, but was glad enough to have it as she looked around her, trying to get her bearings. That was a task easier said than done, however. The air was infested with monsters. A haze of skin and flesh that made the space grow hot. Cas would¡¯ve called it a fog, but it was worse than that. With a natural fog, Cas could at least sense other creature¡¯s auras through the haze. The fog of monsters was more opaque, however. It was made up of living bodies, and each body had its own aura that flashed in her senses, making it impossible to see anything beyond. Most of the creatures were harmless, if disturbing. Small, hand-sized pterosaur-like things, barely large enough to peck at things. By themselves, they posed little danger, but the whole mass of them served as adequate concealment for the siren, such that Cas didn¡¯t even see it coming, until it¡¯s neck struck out at her, too close to dodge. ¡­ ¡°Loose!¡± The Sergeants command went in through one ear and out through the psychic links Sara had set up. Instantly, the order was received, and hundreds of arrows, all miles apart, twanged in unison. A deadly barrage of steel shot in powerful arcs into the great mass of monsters which now demarcated the center of everything, and a hundreds of monsters shed like dog hairs from the circling mass. Sara had been worried, at first, that the monsters might spread out to attack them when they fell, now she was worried at how much unnatural patience they seemed to be showing, as they circled the Trinket, and she was even more worried at how little Cas was moving within the great mass of beings. Sara felt the terrible urge to reach out, to say some words of encouragement to the woman, but cool logic clamped down on such thoughts. Cas would need her sense more than some kind words, and Sara resolved not to interrupt her. With that settled she focused once again on the communications network she¡¯d set up, relaying the Sergeant¡¯s orders, and slipping in a few of her own along the way. Still, hoped Cas was doing ok. ¡­ Cas was, decidedly, not doing ok. Sirens were low level trash in Siablo. The sort of thing you killed in the tutorial to learn how to deal with flying enemies. They were, however, a lot bigger in real life, and a bit like a bear-trap. The siren had the stature of a giraffe, with folding wing bones that curved up into dangerous knife-tips on the forelegs, and a head larger than Cas¡¯s torso. It moved with surprising agility for a creature so large, striking out like a snake, and shaking Cas¡¯s body with the force of its bite before lifting her clear off her feet and violently shaking. Cas¡¯s right arm was pinned against her torso by the creature¡¯s upper beak. Taking the spearhead into her free hand anyway, Cas swung clumsily down at the creature''s face, aiming for its eye and hitting rock-tough skin instead. The creature seemed aware of her tricks, and merely shook harder, the world went wild with speed blurs. Valiantly, Cas forced more aura into her blade and tried stabbing again, but was helpless to do any real damage. Left handed, her strikes were weak, and her aim was what could be expected of a person getting the dog-toy treatment. Her body seared with pain as the creature clamped and sawed and shook, pressing its horrid beak through her torso and prying her apart. Cas¡¯s head hinged away from her torso as a curtain of blood spurted up to block her vision of the rest of her body, and she felt her legs doing the same on the other side before the siren, with a final, vigorous, shake tore Cas into thirds. HP Reduced: -254 HP Cas¡¯s head landed face up with a thud. The creature juggled her bloody chest like a pelican, lifting its head up as it began to swallow. The living fog reacted with horrid excitement to the development, dense lines of scavengers coalescing in the area as they smelled the blood and dove straight for her remains, and Cas saw, once again, the dark light of the Black Flag in the distant horizon, as if death were calling to her. The vision of death was quickly washed out, however, by a dazzling string of red. The immediate space became suddenly clear of monsters, a silent, empty bubble of ash hovering where the hundreds of tiny pterosaurs had just moments ago been flying. The siren remind, but it no longer had a head. A large creature, with metabolism enough to power flight, its blood geysered loudly into the air like some grotesque fountain, black blood raining up into the air, not even managing to land before the ravenous scavengers filled the space to catch the liquid. This distraction gave Cas a reprieve from the scavengers, and she used it well. Melting her head back into a slime form, she transformed into [Crawler] as she ran toward where the pieces of her human lay forgotten on bloody patches of grass, all but ignored by the scavengers as the creatures fought and pecked at one another for rights to the siren¡¯s headless body; The body of the siren stood shock still, through all this, as if it had been too surprised to fall. its neck slumped forward to dribble a faucet of blood. A circle of batty figures hooked onto its blasted neck like leathery flower petals, jostling for position as they lapped at the blood faucet and pecked at its naked wound. Cas took a brief moment to point her eye up at the dead figure, almost unable to believe the sudden transformation that had overtaken it before hastily reminding herself to get back on task. Rushing forward, she leapt onto the sawed off body that had formerly been hers, and reconstituted it. HP Increased: +223 Cas was back in human form again, looking no worse for wear. Her clothes were torn, but the majority of the damage had cut through the junction between her torso and legs, leaving her outfit mostly in tact, save for some peripheral tears and massive blood-stains. She¡¯d seen worse ensembles on the runway. Instinctively, Cas¡¯s hand reached down to her side pouch, passing through empty space where there should have been a weapon. Panicked, Cas patted herself, looking around for the rusty spearhead, hardly able to see even the ground through the haze of bodies and aura that flitted about her. Abandoning the project as useless, Cas instead focused on sensing danger. The dagger hadn¡¯t been much help against the siren anyway, and the smaller creatures were even less of a threat, now that the body was there to occupy their attention. The prince was easy enough to find. The red banner¡¯s glow cut through the aura-haze like a light-house. Even without the Trinket, however, his resting place stood out. It was the one corner of calm in the screaming cloud. Cas could hear the almost unnatural pocket of calm which had formed around the prince, the shadow of silence it created by occluding the mountain of noise that went on behind it. In addition to the quiet, it also became easier and easier to see as Cas approached his location. The air was clear around the Trinket, for it was the one place no monster dared approach. It was easy to pick her next move, under the circumstances.
The Trinket hung high, snaking through the air on an invisible wind. It had no flag-staff, and no guards to lower it; it seemed to stay standing simply for lack of any other option. Underneath all of this ¨C reclining against a pile of rubble Cas recognized to be a collapsed tent ¨C was the prince. He was cast in a red light which seemed to touch only him, highlighting his figure in red. Around him, a thin, marked a circle into the ground. Despite all their slavering impatience and hunger, the monsters seemed to have a measure of respect for the boundary, and a generous berth was given to the space around the red banner. The larger beasts had grounded themselves, and the smaller pterosaurs either perched on the bodies of their larger brethren or simply circled around the glowing Trinket. Twelve sirens stood at the border of the circle, first in line among the monsters ¨C lanky beasts that stood like prison bars around the prince. Unlike the chipper chattering of their brethren, those larger monsters were silent, standing like a funeral party as glimmering eyes brimming with careful considerations observed the prince. This air of mourning was a deceiving one. Looking closer at their eyes, it would have been easy to discern an intense, single-pointed focus, as one might see in a hunting dog that had spotted its prey. All of them had come here with the object of seeing a dead prince, and some were impatient to see that fact through. A puff of dirt blasted up behind one of the titans, as it lunged forward towards the center. It barely took half a stride before a flashed forward from the prince. The siren¡¯s foreleg landed, and it collapsed into a mound of cubed meat. The other sirens shifted, their hungry eyes getting a bit less hungry, as wisdom replaced malice and they all took a collective half-step back. The prince, still sitting with his back against that pile of rubble, seemed relaxed, even taking a moment to draw a pocket watch, fiddling with the gleaming contraption¡¯s time setter. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. The pocket watch was freshly shined but worn with markers of repeated use, and the way the prince adjusted the time hinted at a familiarity, considering how he managed to change the time by feel alone, his eyes maintaining a casual glance at the horde that stood around him. Despite his apparent ease, there was a hardness in his eyes. it seemed a very clear line had been drawn in the grass, which no monster was to cross. Cas decided to risk the danger, gingerly slipping past the front line of sirens, which paid her no heed, and stepping forward before pausing suddenly, toeing the thin, red border which cut dangerously through her otherwise colorless visual space. ¡°Prince?¡± she called out, looking up from the line and for the first time getting a good look at the man of the hour. The prince looked to be an older man. Older than Cas had expected to still bear the title, in any case. He had wide features complemented by a rough, black beard that curled over olive skin, and eyes so dark they seemed to lack irises. He somehow seemed older than his years when he saw Cas, however, greeting her with a smile that was perfectly at ease. ¡°Lady Cassandria!¡± Cas didn¡¯t even try to hide her surprise, and he laughed. ¡°Mathalthazar told me a woman by that name, and by your description, would be coming to my aid,¡± he explained. That seemed to ease Cas¡¯s worries on the matter, but she made no move to progress. Seeing that Cas was still hesitating about the edge of the circle, he made a consoling gesture. ¡°And¡­ you needn¡¯t worry about the border, Lady Cassandria. Trinket Ember is as discerning a marksman as it is a judge of character. It managed to keep you alive, during that earlier carnage, after all, didn¡¯t it?¡± Cas remembered the siren, as well as the red lines which had managed to behead it while missing her entirely. If that had been intentional, did that mean the Trinket had been able to see Cas when transformed into a slime and reformed herself? Did the prince know she was a monster? Shelving that bit of paranoia until a more useful occasion, Cas ¨C looking behind her and seeing that the Sirens had grown bolder ¨C decided to simply trust the process and take a step into the circle. The gleeful, rock-concert chittering of the monsters immediately quietened. The sound of crunching grass beneath her boots crunched serenely against Cas¡¯s raw and overworked ears. If you ignored the almost complete darkness and streaming mass of monsters, it almost felt like a completely different world. Her emotions had hit a different high, too. Stepping over a red-line was a simple action. Cas had done it hundreds of times as a child in the hopscotch corner of her school playground. But, this red line had been different, and Cas as if she¡¯d just hopped off the bottom step of a Lunar lander. Relishing in her accomplishment, Cas rubbed her sweat-slicked hands down her blood soaked coat, tingling with excitement at the sheer fact that she was still in one piece! The same, however, could not be said of the prince. He laughed when she approached closer, and walked around enough of the obscuring rubble to see his whole body. Evidently he found her shocked expression funny. Cas for her part, tried to hide her horror, but a wide-eyed expression took purchase on her features despite her most valiant attempt at a politely neutral expression. On earth, during her college days, Cas had roommates of many different persuasions. There had been overly religious girls, party animals, honest ¡®ta-gawd¡¯ strippers and even a few morticians. Of all her myriad acquaintances, none were so blithe about the horrors of the human body as the medical degrees. Cas, in her line of work, had to handle dead animals, organ samples, and all sorts of icky things on a regular basis, so she was somewhat desensitized to the prospect of seeing a little blood. Her fortitude was quick to fail her, however, in the face of a man who¡¯s entire midsection was missing. Red guts were splattered across the ground, intestines wiggling like worms against the blood-stained grass alongside skin, facia and a confetti of body parts too mangled to identify. The worst part was that the prince was still alive. His insides were so exposed Cas could see the white of his spine where it bridged across the gap between his torso and his hips, and through it all he was still laughing, as if her shocked expression was the funniest thing in the world until a wince of pain made him stop. Cas moved automatically, kneeling down at an angle beside his body like all her first-aid training had taught her to do, and finding her reaction ludicrous once she got a good look at what she was dealing with. The prince stopped laughing to take a deeper breath, his diaphragm expanded into view as a fresh trickle of blood seeped over his white insides. ¡°My sincerest apologies, Lady Cas, for laughing so freely. It¡¯s one of the few liberties I¡¯m allowed in this situation, you understand.¡± ¡°I¡­¡± Cas tried to swallow through a dry mouth. ¡°I think I can slow down the bleeding,¡± she offered. The prince looked less surprised than she¡¯d expected, and ¨C seeing no objection from him ¨C she continued. ¡°... but, you have to close your eyes, and you have to promise the Trinket won¡¯t attack me.¡± She threw the demands hastily like hot coals, but the prince seemed to think little of them, closing his eyes without question. Cas paused for a moment, surprised at the compliance. A cursory double check of the prince¡¯s eyes to make sure they were truly shut, and she transformed into herself and set about her work.
The guts were¡­ a superfluous organ, when it came to questions of immediate survival. They were the first thing to be denied blood flow, whenever danger called upon an animal¡¯s body to start prioritizing. Still, having them replaced with a gaping wound was less than ideal. Cas¡¯s body ate everything organic by its nature, and was naturally sterile. Forming a bandage from it was the most natural thing for her. She¡¯d done it twice before on instinct. This bit of intensive care, however, required a bit more imagination, and skill. Not that Cas was worried. She could have done it with her eyes closed. And, in fact, she did. Once again, Cas relied on her sense of touch. And, she detected that the prince was human ¨C as Sara had been, when Cas set her bandage. Whereas Sara¡¯s wound required a simple pressure bandage, the prince¡¯s condition required a bit more thought. Spreading a tendril out, Cas painted all the exposed flesh with a soft-gel that stifled the bleeding. After that, she reached out a new tendril and created a pressure capsule filled with air and over-wrapped with hardened tension-strings. Her experience creating gas canisters for her tear gas had well prepared her for this, and this bit was completed in seconds. Cas manipulated the stiff tire-bubble of slime material into a new shape, which ballooned up in the prince¡¯s abdomen, anchoring itself against his hips and lower ribs to create a hydraulic support that would replace all the stabilizing muscles that had been in the area. and conforming quite neatly around the still in-tact psoas muscles which cut through the empty space there. In all, it ended up looking quite superficially like a real medical device rather than the child¡¯s doodle Cas had feared it would turn out, with the molded-plastic aesthetic and round corners and all. As a final touch, she separated the support bubble like a polyp, reaching out with her aura and giving it coded instructions to stabilize the Prince¡¯s body in an upward direction. It wouldn¡¯t be a replacement for human balance, but it would do. Once this was set, a fresh coat or three of tension strings covered over the whole abdomen and lower back, and everything was packaged neatly behind a smooth wall which hid all the terrible gore inside. Hp Reduced: -23 ¡°There!¡± Cas answered, fully human again, and relieved to see that the prince hadn¡¯t opened his eyes. Opening his eyes, large hands rapped against the new skin of his gut. Shifting his weight forward, he nodded approvingly as the bubble allowed the motion, reacting to his motion like a balancing pendulum to keep his upright stance. ¡°How is it,¡± Cas asked, surprising herself with how much anxiety she felt at his judgement. ¡°It¡¯s good,¡± he said, hardly stopping to acknowledge the change in circumstance before moving onto the next most dire fact: ¡°now, about those monsters..¡± Cas was surprised at how much the prince was able to take in stride. In his place, Cas expected she, or anyone else for that matter, would be stopping the presses to ask a thousand irrelevant questions¡­ or at least screaming in pain. The man¡¯s eyes held the focus of a target cross, however, as he looked up at the swirling mass that howled above them, scowling as if he could see straight through their bodies and their auras. ¡°Lady Cassandria,¡± he said. ¡°Yes?¡± Cas answered. ¡°I¡­ am not normally the kind of man who makes a bad first impression. Statesmanship grants that one useful skill, at least. Neither am I the kind of man who begs pardon twice to the same person, but ¨C¡± he raised a hand to gesture to the maelstrom around them, and at the surrounding pack of sirens who drew closer on clodding wingsteps ¨C ¡°I¡¯m afraid the situation forces my hand, and I must ask your forgiveness again, for I have a rather rude question to ask you.¡± Cas, heart in her throat, prepared a thousand explanations about why she was a slime, wondering if he¡¯d seen her when she was healing him. ¡®Stupid!¡¯ she thought. ¡®Of course he¡¯d open his eyes, he¡¯s injured and surrounded by monsters!¡¯ Her face and her words were all cool, however, as she answered: ¡°What did you want to ask?¡± ¡°Glory or Honor?¡± the prince said. ¡°Huh?¡± ¡°It¡¯s a subject I¡¯ve been wrestling with for some time now,¡± the prince Admitted, a tinge of melancholy in the admission. ¡°Events like this have a way of forcing you to confront such things, I suppose, and ¨C given that you¡¯re here ¨C I thought I¡¯d ask for your council on the matter.¡± ¡°Me?¡± Cas gestured to herself, looking around as if expecting to find someone else more suitable. ¡°Why?¡± ¡°Like I said, because you¡¯re here. Sometimes that¡¯s all you need to be. Besides,¡± he continued, ¡°I can well imagine the peril you undertook to come to my aid. I¡¯m rather unable to repay your valor with deed, and unwilling to repay you with words, so why shouldn¡¯t I allow you the honor of counseling a prince? I¡¯m about to make an important decision, and I¡¯d like to hear your advice before I make it.¡± Cas understood the words, but the timing of it all left her scratching her head. Looking round, the giant cloud of monsters was still around them. But the demeanor of the prince somehow made the situation seem normal, and seeing nothing to lose by it, she answered him. ¡°I.. I suppose it depends on what you mean? For what purpose?¡± The prince sighed, deflating a bit. Cas noticed the perpetually pained expression that had been the hallmark of his features returned. ¡°That is exactly the issue. We are told nothing has worth except for the purpose it serves, but¡­ can that possibly be false, do you think?¡± Cas succeeded, for once, in hiding her emotions, burying confusion with honesty as she answered: ¡°I think¡­ things often have a value that humans can¡¯t appreciate, even if they should.¡± A sad smile escaped the prince. Cas, worried, ¡°you don¡¯t seem to have liked my answer.¡± ¡°No,¡± he answered. ¡°I suppose I knew the answer all along. One can¡¯t help dallying when things are at an end however. The day is never so beautiful as when the sun is setting. My grandfather used to say that.¡± Looking over at Cas, and her frustrated attempts at comprehension, the prince cut off, a sober expression replacing his jolly sentiments. ¡°My brother,¡± he said finally. Following his gaze, out of the corner of her eye, Cas saw an unremarkable pile of tent-cloth nearby, covered with wooden pillars. Cas moved to the pile. Discovering surprising strength in her arms, she threw aside the tent-poles with a heavy thud and lifted aside tent flap to reveal. ¡°A child?¡± she couldn¡¯t help the exclamation, surprised to find the unconscious figure. It was a boy, of about age nine, lying curled up in the grass. He looked unharmed, almost as if he were sleeping peacefully. ¡°Can you bring him here?¡± the prince asked her. Cas obliged and cradled the boy up to the prince''s reach. There, the prince held out a hand, and a red glow enveloped the boy, and ¨C before Cas¡¯s increasingly astounded features ¨C the boy began to shrink. Cas almost dropped him in surprise, finding her arms collapsing together around the diminishing body until both her hands were clasped together to cradle a sleeping boy the size of a lima bean. Before Cas could say anything, the prince opened his palm above hers and filled her hands with lightning. ¡°Ahh!¡± Cas screamed, jerking her hands away from the fireworks. ¡°Are you crazy!¡± she yelled at the man, taking her hands in a protective posture and bringing her palms to her nose to check on the boy. Her hands were unburnt. And resting on them was a translucent, red capsule with a silhouette of a boy inside. ¡°There,¡± the prince said proudly. ¡°That should make him easier to carry.¡± the prince held out a rejecting hand when Cas instinctively tried to hand his brother to him. ¡°I¡¯ll have my hands full, I¡¯m afraid. You hold onto him for now.¡± Cas, surprised to still be holding such a thing, and having trouble catching up with the surreal event that just took place, looked down at the amulet again, as if to make sure it hadn¡¯t dissolved into a fever dream. Finding her mind running blanks, and feeling the pressure to say something coherent, Cas blurted out: ¡°impressive magic.¡± The prince shrugged. ¡°Shrinking is a simple enough spell, if the subject trusts you.¡± Cas raised an eyebrow. ¡°You¡¯re saying there are more complex spells?¡± ¡°Indeed,¡± the prince nodded. ¡°I¡¯m sorry that I can¡¯t show you any truly impressive magic. I would do more but¡­¡± he nodded his head in a certain direction, towards the dark aura on the horizon, ¡°I don¡¯t imagine Trinket Sable will be happy to let me do anything too impressive.¡± Cas, reminded of the Black Flag, cringed a bit at the weight of death she¡¯d so far been successfully ignoring. The trinkets had an energy that cut straight through the opaque cloud of aura the monsters formed. It was discomforting to feel the Trinket''s energy through so much shielding, much less to be reminded of it. ¡°It¡¯s¡­ not going to do anything to us, is it?¡± she asked, chancing a quick glance back at the dark light. Another laugh from the prince, one perfectly designed to inspire confidence in the face of danger. ¡°No,¡± he promised, ¡°I don¡¯t think dear Sable will be acting too freely, not so long as Trinket Ember stands.¡± He pointed a reverent look up at the red flag. ¡°In any case, we''ve managed to work out a truce, it and I. Do you see that line?¡± he pointed to the which had cut a hole in the formation of monsters. So long as I don¡¯t cross this boundary, Sable has promised to let the monsters take care of me.¡± He shifted his pointer finger to the line monsters that were once again encroaching closer. Cas, almost afraid to hear the answer to her question, asked: ¡°what¡¯s going to happen when you cross it?¡± The prince answered dryly, with an almost obscene sense of ease. ¡°Well... that¡¯s when we start fighting again.¡± The blood flushed from Cas¡¯ face at that. Dragging herself into the woodchipper had been intense enough an ordeal. Now she was in the thick of it, and his words had the same ring as a cranking engine. For once, the prince didn¡¯t find her terror funny, and he spoke with a serious demeanor. ¡°It¡¯s something that has to happen,¡± he consoled. ¡°I can¡¯t stay here forever; Sable knows that these monsters aren¡¯t enough to kill me.¡± ¡°Then why are you guys waiting?¡± Cas sniped. ¡°Why not just get it over with?¡± The anticipation was painful to bear. ¡°Why wait?¡± The prince mulled over her question. ¡°I suppose, it¡¯s because Trinkets understand that... in a battle, the last mover always wins. Anyway,¡± he braced a hand on his knee. Cas saw the muscles in his torso flexing as he leant forward and, with a grunt of exertion, threw himself into a stiff, standing posture. The monsters took this as a sign to start cheering. Sirens reared up on back legs and pounded the earth, howling in unison as they trampled the grass in a temperamental war-dance. One even attempted a surprise charge. The prince, face tensed with pain, raised a quick hand to the north. "Shut up!¡± A millionred beams flickered into a momentary existence, weaving like fingers before dissapearing. A moment of pause followed. Cas looked to the north, where nothing seemed to be happening before a second moment passed and all the monsters fell apart. A receding sound of dropping meat echoed, as bodies turned into a carpet of carrion that stretched for half a mile. The air turned thick with the smell of blood, and for an instant, before the flying mass had filled in the suddenly empty space above the carpet, Cas saw a clear line out to the daylight. She saw the white of a medical tent, and a fresh unit of men had been organized around it. ¡°The safe house!¡± Cas yelled, pointing at the direction the prince had cut. ¡°Yes,¡± the prince answered. letting out a huffed breath as he gripped his new gut. ¡°Follow the trail of meat, and it should lead you to the medical unit. Give my brother to the head doctor once you arrive," he spoke the words very crisply, as if to place particular emphasis on that point and his eyes pointed to the red gem in Cas¡¯s hand as he said this, prompting her to grip the precious object tighter. The prince didn''t sound as happy anymore, but Cas wasn¡¯t going to critique the attitude of a man with half his guts missing. Walking stiffly, he stepped to the edge of the paused. The monsters, now especially weary after that last show, had given the border quite a wide berth. ¡°What now?¡± Cas, stepping next to him, toed the as if it were a cliffside precipice. ¡°Well,¡± the prince said, ¡°now, I step over this line and break the truce with Sable.¡± ¡°Then what?¡± Cas said nervously. The prince answered with generous simplicity. ¡°Then, the Black Flag will attack me.¡± Cas didn¡¯t try to bargain him into another course. ¡°What should I do?¡± ¡°Just get to the medical station and give my brother over to the head doctor. I understand you had your own reasons for coming here, but that is the only thing I ask you to do.¡± ¡°I mean, where should I go?¡± Cas said. She was speaking more quickly, now, and bouncing on her toes in anticipation. ¡°Should I stick close to you? Should I stay far away? It¡¯s not going to blast your location, is it?¡± Cas said, glancing fearfully over her shoulder at that dark aura, at where she knew the Black Flag to be. The prince only mustered one last smile. ¡°I think I¡¯m well beyond giving orders, but¡­ if you¡¯ll have my final words of advice I can tell you this: If you want an easy life, take two steps to your left. If you want the strength to endure a hard one, stay exactly where you are. Otherwise¡­¡± ¡°Otherwise?¡± Cas prompted. ¡°Otherwise¡­ well, just do whatever you want!¡± he advised, lifting a leg up over the red line, and planting his foot firmly on the other side. Chapter 48: Presentiments of victory. Months ago, when Prince Haowi had been making preparations to go on expedition, a mistake had been made. It was an easy enough to make. Expeditions were complex things, with thousands of moving pieces. And the prince''s first aid: quartermaster Piero ¨C running late, muddled from overwork, and battling an unexpected cold ¨C overlooked something as he checked over the staff officer¡¯s tents. The itinerary for the officer''s camp consisted of -- among other things -- fifty tents. That was fifty tarps of various sizes, over ten miles of masting chords, and two hundred tent posts. And, among that two hundred, one of the wooden tent posts had a black spot on its side. It had been infected with rot. The post held up well, despite this, but months of campaigning were bound to take their toll and, unbeknownst to anyone, the support pole began to steadily weaken. This particular morning, when camp was being set up, the rotten pole was picked out of a cart and conscripted to serve as a support stake for the dome tent which housed the prince¡¯s retinue. Ten thousand pounds heavy, the dome tent was a massive construction, towering over the camp like a fabric monolith and casting a shadow so large the rest of the camp could be shaded within it. It was only by the grace of fifty, trunk-sized support poles, alongside a ship¡¯s rigging worth of rope, that it could be propped up in defiance of such tremendous gravity. When the screaming cloud fell, twelve of these posts were the subject of unlucky collisions and broke. What few posts remained strained under the increased load. Incidentally, among these few remaining poles was that rotted post which Piero had overlooked all those months ago. And that rotted pole was straining now, as several dozen masting ropes constricted around it, focusing on it thousands of pounds of extra tarp pressure which sought incessantly for a weak point to break through.
There were few beings in existence who had ever witnessed a Trinket take to battle. All of them could attest to the same fact that Cas was witnessing now. That woodchipper feeling. Cas didn¡¯t know how else to put it. But something dangerous had raised her hackles. It felt like jumping from a building, that peak of terror just before you hit the ground, but happening every second, every moment without break. Naturally, Cas was paranoid, and she prepared herself accordingly. Hunched low, Cas bounced on her toes lightly as her heart tried to tear itself out of her chest, telling her to dodge, to get out of the way, but dodge what? Go where? Cas searched for this unidentifiable threat, extending all her senses, even forcing herself to attend to that changeless feeling of death at the horizon for some hint. The monsters hovered cagily around the prince, blinding her eyes and her aura sense, but Cas stared into the maelstrom like it held all the secrets she ever wanted to hear, her ears ringing as she perked them for the slightest disturbance or change in the maelstrom of noise. Cas had been on alert from the first moment. Her senses primed on a hair trigger to catch the first warning signs of anything. And, when the prince stepped over that line, and the Regalia''s matched wills and machinations, despite all her paranoia, Cas¡­ couldn¡¯t sense a single thing wrong with the world, even as the rotted mast exploded and shot her through with a bucket¡¯s worth of shrapnel. Cas¡¯s body liquified involuntarily, degrading into a slurry of organs and bone splinters. HP Reduced: -10 It was a horrifying thing to experience, but it hardly counted as an injury for Cas. She could rebuild her body in seconds, and she did. But two seconds was a fortune of time, in such vital circumstances. The scavengers ¨C small, fast, bat-winged things ¨C swarmed out like flies to cover her corpse, flooding into view, gulping mouthfuls of flesh before Cas had even half-reformed. HP Reduced: -3 HP Reduced: -5 HP Reduced: -2 HP Reduced: -7 HP Reduced: -6 HP Reduced: -3 Cas felt as if she were in a dream, helpless to exert any real force as she slowly grew out of her puddle of body parts, watching her body reform like molasses as darting, horrible creatures flitted about stripping chunks of flesh from her. After the first second, Cas¡¯s exterior hardened enough to ward off the pecking things, and she¡¯d just about reached a somewhat human state when a basso twang sounded off in the near distance. Out of the fog, a masting rope snapped, cutting through the darkness like a knife and blasting like a ten pound whip through Cas¡¯s still reforming body, splattering her like a paint spill across the grass. ¡­ Helplessness. It was a terrible feeling, and it could be learned. If you threw a rat into an unsolvable maze enough times, they lost the ability to solve mazes that were genuine. If you gave them an unliftable weight, they wouldn¡¯t even try to lift even the lightest blocks. Just being¡­ swatted down like that. Cas empathized with the rats, as she saw her body spreading like jam. The shock and pain were terrible, as the insensate mass of twitching flesh and severed nerves burdened her mind with phantom sensations. It didn''t even feel like she was human, anymore. All her recognizable body parts were in the wrong places, in the wrong states, it all just fell so awfully, horribly, wrong. Cas rushed to fix it, but all her parts took their sweet time, as her aura encompassed the mound of flesh and reformed. Again, Cas was left helplessly watching the creatures pick at her, HP Reduced: -5 HP Reduced: -5 HP Reduced: -7 HP Reduced: -2 Having to sit there in a continually useless body that refused to take directions HP Reduced: -5 HP Reduced: -5 HP Reduced: -7 Preparing so intensely just to be blasted apart by forces she couldn¡¯t even see. HP Reduced: -3 HP Reduced: -5 It was enough to drive one mad. But then, one of the buzzards, a stupid little thing with a crinkled beak and beady eyes, stabbed forward blindly into her lungs and by pure chance took a treasure it couldn¡¯t appreciate. ¡®The Boy!¡¯ Cas recognized the gleaming gem which held the prince¡¯s younger brother, and she felt time slow to an even more agonizing degree as the creature ¨C with the gem glimmering in beak ¨C pushed back from her body and began to take off. Cas felt her focus shrink, as the ruby gem grew to encompass her whole universe. The creature flapped once, twice, already hovering off her remains. And then Cas got angry. Cas, an easy going person by nature, was unused to the emotion, and much less used to how personally she was experiencing it now. Because Cas was livid, hateful, screaming with rage. It hurt! She was so angry it hurt! She felt the emotion burning her body like poison. Her body, which was currently a steaming pile of corpse material and being used as a fucking dumpster by these Halloween pelicans! And, oh, it was so much worse than that, too! Because now they were going to steal that boy from her. Not even a second had passed since he¡¯d been given to her, and he was going to die and it was all their fault! She hated, hated, hated them! More than she¡¯d hated anything in her life. She wanted to reach out and twist their wings off! She wanted to rip that thing¡¯s guts out and feed them to itself, see how hungry it would be then! She wanted that thing in her hands, now! And then, that burning feeling of hatred took on another dimension, and it glowed. Aura XP cap reached: Level 3 -> 4 Aura XP cap reached: Level 4 -> 5 Cas vaguely remembered this emotion, it was much like the warm Christmas-night feeling, but brighter like a flare, coming just in time with her aura as the blue energy exploded and her body shot up into existence like a fountain. "Aghhh!" Cas let out the scream of pain her broken body had blocked, breathing heavily and shivering. Doubling over a bit, she felt something like an instinct to throw up, but there was nothing in her stomach to allow it. Wait, stomach, lungs... she was breathing. She had a body. Looking down, Cas saw her body shaking with shivers of phantom pain, feeling a suddenly intense comfort as if she''d just taken a full-body hit of morphine. Coming into existence that quickly had felt like jumping, and it surprised Cas almost as much as it surprised the little buzzard in her hand. It flapped violently in her grip, twisting and wrenching to get away, the gem still shining in its beak. Cas snapped its neck and took the gem back, slipping it into a leather pouch at her side. Clicking the pouch closed, Cas encased it in her aura. Item Equipped: Leather pouch. Storage: +1 Even through the haze and aura, the prince¡¯s red light was visible like a waypoint marker, and he was already quite a distance away. She should have felt afraid to be so far away from the only creature in the region that didn¡¯t want her dead. After all, fear was a perfectly natural emotion in her circumstances. She was lost, everything smelled like blood and sounded like hell, there were at least a dozen sirens in here, each dangerous enough to turn her dead, and she had just gone through the most painful experience of her life not five seconds ago, with promises for more. Some part of Cas, in the back of her mind, recognized this. The rest of her was euphoric with rage. Cas¡¯s body was electric with fresh aura. She stood up a bit straighter and leisurely walked through the cloud like it was air, not caring if a hundred monsters bumped into her. The feeling was intoxicating. Here she was, in the middle of a maelstrom of actual monsters, and she felt as comfortable as if she were in her living room! It felt like she owned the space, and she didn¡¯t care if she had to fight the whole world to keep it that way. Perhaps this wasn¡¯t the wisest outlook, but the easy, barely jogging pace she kept did save her from bumping into the dome tent, when it suddenly appeared out of the fog. Cas paused in the two feet of clear space the monsters afforded the obstruction. It was a wall of fabric, as far as she could tell. Looking up, she could see a strip of blue sky where the top of it must have poked through the cloud. To tell by the way the flight paths of those creatures arced as they moved around the border of this thing ¨C Cas gathered that this was probably a circular tent, probably dome-shaped. Moving her gaze back down, there was a frayed hole in the body of the tarp. Looking through revealed an exploded tent-post inside, touching the skin of the tent revealed that it was taught like a drum-skin. Oh... this thing was going to collapse, soon. And what a collapse that would be. The fabric alone was like a truck tire, four inches thick and not easily bent. Guessing by the thickness of the tarp, calculating the circumference, this thing was probably on the order of five or six tons, give or take. Peeking her head further inside the frayed hole, Cas was surprised to notice that a dozen or so of the scavengers had made their way in, darting through the dark space. She was surprised that she hadn¡¯t been able to see them earlier. Probably, the tent wall blocked aura. That also explained why she hadn¡¯t seen the prince¡¯s brother earlier, when he¡¯d been hidden underneath a collapsed tarp. It certainly made sense. A society where everyone had x-ray vision would invent some ways to create privacy, especially in a military camp. Don''t want the other side peeking into your showers, after all. She was still able see the prince¡¯s red glow through the tent¡­ probably that was different somehow. Cas realized, suddenly, just how many realizations she was making. In fact, why was she realizing that tent-walls blocked aura now. Why hadn¡¯t she realized it when she¡¯d discovered the prince¡¯s brother hidden under a pile of tarps? A moment of thought pulled out the answer. Her aura level up! Of course! Aura increased her stats on a percentage basis, so her largest stat would commensurately get the largest boost. In [Human Figure] her largest stat was intelligence, so, naturally¡­ Paying closer attention, Cas realized that time seemed to be moving at a more leisurely pace than usual. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. It wasn¡¯t in slow motion, or anything like that. Even her thoughts seemed to be going at normal speed. Rather, everything just seemed less surprising, and surprise -- or rather, novelty -- was the metric biological minds used to measure time. After all, no one remembered a twelve hour layover in any great detail, when all they had to do was stare at a wall. On the other hand, a trip to the amusement park would call fourth a thousand hours of fresh detail, even years after the fact. Huh, she could probably write a paper about that¡­ The Influence of Novelty-Seeking Behavior on Temporal Perception, she could call it. The whole of the world just seemed to make more sense. She wasn¡¯t that much more intelligent, probably, none of the thoughts she was having right now were groundbreaking, but it felt like she was able to internalize her best thoughts more efficiently, hesitate less to accept less ¡®normal¡¯ conclusions. A second had passed since she stumbled across the tent. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed a large shadow briefly occlude the strip of sky-light which illuminated the tent borders. Clear air was a scarce resource in this cloud. Probably, all the monsters wanted access to it to scan for prey below, and ¨C probably ¨C the largest predators would be the ones to get that access. Cas wasn¡¯t surprised when forty feet of monster into her. She¡¯d already been dodging. But, her mind was quicker than her body, in this case, and the siren caught her with a glancing blow. A glancing blow sounded nice in theory, but the sirens had the proportions of a giraffe, and the weight of one, too. The hard beak slammed to her back. It felt like a giant had taken a golf-swing at her with a pick¨Caxe, and Cas was launched ten feet through the side, shooting through the frayed hole and tumbling wildly through the black space of the tent interior. She landed on her head, but her neck and spine had been shattered entirely before that. A flare of aura healed her before she¡¯d fully gotten into a stand. Outside the Siren peeked its beady eye through the tattered, flapping breach in the tent wall, ducking its neck in. The creature was a lanky thing with stiff legs. The tent breach, while large, was only ten feet tall. The siren barely fit, and even then it was splaying it¡¯s wing-arms wide just to hunch it¡¯s shoulders underneath. It had to shuffle forward with awkward steps just to move through. It was only a moment of weakness, on the creature¡¯s part, but Cas had started sprinting before she¡¯d fully stood, rushing forward with the drag of gravity, every step just on the edge of tripping. Cas had no illusions of fighting it. That hadn¡¯t gone well even when she¡¯d been armed, but its awkward posture gave her a head start, and so Cas fled, sprinting wildly as she forced herself directly towards the siren, who in its compromised position could only manage a wide-eyed glare at the human sprinting directly at its nose.
Prince Haowi was in a melancholic mood. It was one of the few freedoms he was allowed in his position, to feel negative emotions even if could never show them. Still, right now, he felt content as he stood in the midst of the screaming cloud. The barrage of sound and blinding darkness was more interesting to him than anything else, and eventually that interest dimmed into boredom, and he turned his sights to more pertinent matters. The prince stood like a statue in just the right place, waiting for the right time. His hands were held up high, as if in position to catch the sky, should it fall. Although, in the chaos around him, some of the smaller monsters did occasionally crash into the ground. With the number of them around, this happened with the consistency of rain-drops, and a constant thudding bass was the result. In the midst of this, one of of those thuds sounded like a clang. A rusty spearpoint came skittering into the reach of the prince, and he kicked it away, sending it flying into the darkness before refocusing on his task. The spearhead didn¡¯t land immediately. In this strange atmosphere of flying monsters, it bounced off flying bodies, and was caught and dropped a hundred times, almost floating in the dense atmosphere of bodies before chaotically finding a path to the ground. But of that later.
Running away. Usually, that involved running, well, away from the thing that was trying to kill you, but Cas found that she still had access to her second order thoughts, even in such a terrible situation. And second order thinking sometimes involved questioning your own premises. A straight line is the shortest distance between two points. Following that logic, it was human instinct to always run directly away from danger, even when it was to their detriment to do so. This was popularly known as the Prometheus reflex. Human instinct told her to run directly away from the monster. Human instinct also told her to run further into the big tent. Shelter was comfortable, and a big shelter all the more so. Cas ignored those instincts, and she sprinted directly towards the siren. The creature loomed larger the closer she got, and even in its splayed and hunched posture it reminded cas more and more of her house than it did a fair fight. Ignoring the screaming, panicked voices in her head, Cas only leant forward and redoubled her pace. building speed until the last second where she tried to duck under the creature¡¯s beak at the last moment and misjudged the timing by just a fraction of a second. The creature capitalized, striking forward and carving a short channel through her skull. HP Reduced: -1 Cas ignored the update and continued her fall, power sliding between the creature''s legs like she was going into home plate. Shooting out the other side, Cas dug her heels into the grass and popped up into a run that took her further into the mass of screeching monsters. It was a truly disturbing atmosphere to return to. Completely blind to everything more than a few dozen feet away, and constantly under barrage from the nail-on-a-chalkboard serenade of horrific monsters, Cas¡¯s instinct screamed at her once again to get away from enemy territory, to return to the tent where she could be sheltered from this blinding nightmare. But Cas understood that, sometimes, the safest place to be was in the belly of the beast. Sure, being in the blinding screaming cloud was terrifying. Being unable to see or hear anything was unnerving, but¡­ this also meant that the Siren¡¯s wouldn¡¯t be able to see her either. The smaller scavengers were the majority in this cloud, and they couldn¡¯t harm her if they wanted. Strangely enough, the screaming cloud was the safest place for her to be. The big top tent had the appearance of shelter, and Cas¡¯s more primal DNA took that to mean automatic safety, but it was a dark cavern in there. The tent was tall enough to allow the Siren to fly within it, and the lack of monsters inside would allow it to track her perfectly through the darkness. No, it was best to stay in the cloud until she could get out of it, and the quickest way out was¡­ Cas looked around at the featureless darkness of screaming monsters, as well as the cool blue of aura which pervaded the space around her. She would have to get her bearings first, Cas decided.
Prince Haowi ducked, a whipping tent-rope screamed through the space just above his head, cutting a trail of gore through the living fog, and leaving behind it a rain of blood and body parts. Haowi didn¡¯t bother dodging this macabre hail. He was well beyond prudishness of that level, at his age¡­ huh, he paused to consider his situation. He had gotten old, hadn¡¯t he? Was thirty four not considered an unseemly age for a warrior? It honestly felt to him that it would have been better to die young. It felt like just yesterday, that he was teasing his fencing masters about their age. Teasing¡­ huh. He hadn¡¯t done that in a long time. Some things were reserved for the youth, it seemed. Another, dangerous groan of straining rope warned him. This time, he didn¡¯t have to move, as the rope cracked like lightning just past his hip, flicking blood like a paintbrush. Haowi wondered what his brother would think, when this was all over, but he quickly quashed that image. There was no point in sad thoughts, now.
Thwak. Hgrack! Ropes as thick as Cas¡¯s thigh blew through the air like lightning, one of them just barely grazed Cas¡¯s belly, leaving her feeling like she¡¯d just swallowed a grenade. Hp Reduced: -5 A flare of her aura restored her body before her next footstep landed. Cas was sprinting now. There was no reason to go any slower. The ropes were breaking more and more frequently, now. Probably a sign of the dome tent¡¯s impending collapse. The ropes had a maximum range of ten meters, and Cas stayed just outside this tumultuous border of gore. Her guess was that the sirens would be staying far away from the tent, so it was naturally in her best interest to be where they didn¡¯t want to go. The smaller scavangers were stupid little things, however, or suicidally intelligent ¨C if you wanted to put it more politely. Cas was covered all over in gore thanks to them, and another Thwack and another rain of blood just added a fresh coat of it to her unhappy expression. Bathing in the blood of your enemies, as it turned out, was not all it had been hyped up to be. Then again, this was technically a shower¡­ Thwack! Another rope flew high, missing her by a mile and giving her a heart attack nonetheless. Thankfully, the blood rain didn¡¯t reach her this time, being soaked up and scavanged away by the myriad creatures that flitted above her. Cas didn¡¯t know how big the cloud was, or where she was in it exactly, but she had a generall heading, now. Uncomfortably, Cas forced herself to focus on the Black Flag. Being on the horizon, it was far enough away to act as a stable reference point. The other thing she could sense was Prince Haowi, as well as the Ember flag which flew always above him. He hadn¡¯t moved at all since she last saw him, which was strange, but helpful to her in further getting her bearings. Having gotten her bearings, Cas knew she only had a quarter turn more to go before the hospice unit would be in reach. That would only take two minutes, she realized, and she tried to keep an upbeat attitude through it. After all, two minutes wasn¡¯t so much time to spend in a screaming cloud of monsters. So what if the entire situation made her want to crawl out of her own skin? She¡¯d be out in no time. Hell, she¡¯d spent two minutes watching infomercials, and far longer listening to her stripper roommate gossiping. She¡¯d practically trained for this her whole life. Really, nothing bad had even happened to her so far. Sure, getting torn apart by splinters was uncomfortable, but all that had done was delay her by what¡­ six, seven seconds? What harm was that in the grand scheme of things And it was just as she was thinking this that the carrion road suddenly appeared out of the haze. It was absolutely caked by the dark bodies of the scavengers feasting upon it, so it hardly looked like a carpet of meat, but it was still just as slippery, and Cas didn¡¯t have the traction to stop herself before stepping in it. Several of the scavengers squeaked like rubber duckies as she crushed them beneath, and Cas cursed like a sailor as she skated across the length of the tripe road, falling forward onto her chest and bounding up just in time to come face to face with another siren. The siren had been occupied when she bumped into it, feasting off the carrion road. A moment¡¯s glance at her quickly shifted priorities however. SCRRREAHHHHHHH! It bellowed out, with a voice that Cas could feel. With a sudden burst of energy it struck forward, twisting twisting it¡¯s head unnaturally as it went to grab her right side. It was too fast for her to dodge, but Cas shot her hand up like a teacher¡¯s pet before the crushing beaks latched onto her, compressing her rib cage and stealing the earth from her feet as she was hauled up fourty feet. It had tried to pin her right arm, too! Cas realized, as it the beak crushed around her, having a harder time of it than the last siren, thanks to her level five aura. Was that trained behavior or just instinct? Cas wondered. Pinning the right arm would be an effective tactic against humans, after all. That was the main weapon hand of the species. Thankfully, Cas¡¯s quick thinking had managed to save her from that fate, this time, but that didn¡¯t matter much, considering she¡¯d lost her weapon during¡ª Schiiing! A sharp noise of falling metal announced something, and the rusty spearhead flittered into view. Cas¡¯s right hand closed around the socket before she¡¯d even realized what happened. Item Equipped: Rusty Spearhead. Slashing +5; Piercing +6 Cas¡¯s right hand stabbed it hilt deep into the creature¡¯s eye-socket before she could think much more about the matter. SCRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! ''See!'' Cas thought triumphantly. ''Now that¡¯s why you pin a human¡¯s arm properly when grabbing them!'' Cas landed just underneath the straining creature, greedily eyeing the massive lump of free meat and XP. Still high on her aura boost, and spear-head in hand, Cas felt a course of insane ambition run through her at this opportunity. She could hurt it, now! Forgetting escape, Cas eyed the creature¡¯s exposed belly, already thinking of all the useful things she could do with its material. If she could create a large enough cloud of teargas¡­ All those presentiments of victory quickly faded, when Cas noticed ¨C out of the corner of her mind which she¡¯d dedicated to paying it special attention ¨C the prince¡¯s red light disappearing suddenly. Trinket Ember was gone.
For once something was discernible over the static background of the monster¡¯s chittering. It was a low, gurgling sound which was felt more than it was heard. The dome tent in the center of it all, skin stretched taut like a drum skin was rapidly breaking apart at the seams, and the tremendous, five ton weight of the tarp was getting ready to blow. Considerations upon considerations. Couldn¡¯t fighting for her life be the only thing Cas had to deal with today? The prince¡¯s red aura was still nowhere to be seen. Cas hoped it meant other than the worst. She wasn¡¯t sure if the prince was still alive, or even capable of being helped otherwise, but Cas worked to direct the general direction of her retreat towards his last known location. The siren, screaming furiously with its one working eye, galloped after her on long strides that thundered over the bloody grass. The monster cloud was a messy thing, constantly littering the floor with the dead and battered bodies of the runts who couldn¡¯t survive the environment. By now, having stayed in one place for so long, the grass was peppered everywhere with small dark shapes and even the torn of limbs of dead monsters, as well as the grounded bodies of living ones looking to scavenge off their brethren. Cas did well to watch her step, knowing how slippery a mashed monster could be, and as such her retreat occasionally took on a skipping cadence as she danced between the empty spots of grass wherever she could find them, zig zagging into its blind spot and making confusing changes of pace and direction in an attempt to lose the siren in the mist. For all her efforts, however, one thing remained clearly evident about the chase: the siren ¨C for all its size, and awkward folded-wing legs ¨C was simply much faster than her, and inspired by pain and rage to revenge itself for the damage she had done. Eventually, that speed and determination paid off, as the Siren galloped into striking range and stuck out its neck with lighting pace. Cas again, raised her hand instinctively to avoid the pin, but the monster displayed more cleverness than she¡¯d expected. Feinting low, it shot high at the last second. A world of pain exploded in her hand, as hard beaks crimped her palm and crushed the bones. ¡°Agh!¡± Cas involuntarily dropped her blade, catching it in her off hand too late, for the siren was already in the air, jerking her up with enough force to pop her shoulder blade out of its socket. Cas hung limply, tumbling uselessly in the turbulence as the siren pulled her up for a free flight.. The whole world went into deep shadow as the hundred foot wingspan of the beast expanded above her. Each wing beat blasted air against her dangling body, and split apart the ocean of smaller monsters like they were floating dust particles. Cas healed her shoulder, and tried to do the same with her crushed hand, feeling the aura shoot into the appendage, and press against the beak that crushed down on it. Shape Change at insufficient level to overcome barrier! Cas stabbed her dagger through the notification, aiming at the creature''s remaining eye. Hanging as she was from a broken hand, dangling in chaotic winds and buffeted every which way by the creature¡¯s wingbeats, Cas¡¯s strike was easily read and easily avoided by a small twist of the siren''s head. Cas tried for another attempt, and the creature swung her away with a particularly hard off-time wing beat. This beat, followed by a second, threw them both up through fifty feet of space, and blazing sunlight suddenly cut through the darkness and haze. Blinking, Cas looked around at her monochrome surroundings, the top of the monster cloud stretched like a whole world beneath her. The density of monsters was sparser at this altitude, but all present were sirens which patrolled the clear air above the rabble below. Cas suddenly felt a fast rush of air stinging against her mangled hand. Looking up, the siren was taking a deep breath, holding it and forcing it to expand its throat. Gruuuuuugh! The siren above her called through clenched beak like a boom horn, it''s call echoed through empty space, and a channel was cut through the cloud as the smaller monsters fled from the terrible sound. The reaction from its fellow sirens was subtler, as they each tilted a wing and adjusted their flight paths to converge at their location. Having seen enough, Cas gripped her blade and shot enough aura through it to turn it into a lightsaber. Flexing her shoulder, she cut her blade up and aimed for that vital spot. HP Reduced: -3 HP The wind howled coldly past Cas¡¯s ears, as she fell through the clear air, trailing a line of blood behind her from that blood stump at her wrist. Her hand healed in just a second, just in time for her to drop into the screaming cloud, battering her way through a thousand small bodies. Tucking her legs in and stretching her arms out, Cas reoriented herself into a pencil dive just in time to hit the ground feet firs, cushioning her fall enough that she didn¡¯t splatter and lose valuable material. KRGHSHGSH! Her body reversed the sounds of breaking as it grew back. Normally, it would¡¯ve counted as a spine-tingling sound, but Cas¡¯s spine had long been desensitized to such horrors by the events of the day. Looking around, a blue haze punctuated by a black spot on the horizon met her gaze. The prince¡¯s red glow was still gone, and she had completely lost her bearings. Making an executive decision, Cas resolved to make escape her first priority. Tshhhhhh. And then, she looked down. Coincidentally, it turned out that Cas had landed on a loading cart filled with barrels. All barrels were marked in plain English and bright letters: ¡®handle carefully. Hyper-explosive.¡¯ If the writing hadn¡¯t been enough, the cracked barrels and black powder spilling out of those cracks told Cas all she needed to hear. Normally, this would not be a major problem, a bit of clean-up at most. Hyper explosive was extremely stable unless exposed to flame. The machinations of time are an agonizing thing, however. For, it turned out that, months ago, Piero had made the inexcusable mistake of loading flint in the same cart as the explosive, and Cas¡¯s rusty blade, still spinning in the air above her from her explosive landing, fell at just the right timing and angle to ignite a necessary spark.. Cas didn¡¯t have time to process any emotions besides ¡®oh fuck¡¯ as she touched toe-first onto the grass and flexed her leg in anticipation for a sprint. The cart had already disappeared, however, transformed into a bright conflagration of flame and plasma, and that concentration of forces engulfed everything, and the surrounding atmosphere of monsters turned into one of flame. Chapter 49: Heavy Armor ¡°Gugh!¡± Cas¡¯s cough, constructed more from dust than air, merely added to the choking fog of dirt which had billowed up around her. It was hard to see, but the half-alive monsters littering the terrain did well enough to give her a general map of her surroundings. There was land rising up in a cone all around her. A pit, rather¡­ a crater. Closer to home, Cas was still alive! Hands came instinctively up to feel her body, as if to make sure it was still there, which it had no right to be. Slime or not, getting turned into a gas seemed hardly survivable. She attempted to sit up when a hot weight rolled down her chest. A tilt of the chin revealed a glowing piece of metal floating on her aura. Cas raised her brows, gingerly picking up the battered spear-head like it was a hot-potato, the intense heat radiating through her aura and her eyes as she plucket it up into the air, tossing it until it cooled enough to hold properly. The blade molded into an abstract shape, with sharp curves and pockmarks cutting through the form. ¡°Ugh. Ugh! Ugh!¡± A cough of dead air beside her drew Cas¡¯s attention. That had been a human cough. In fact, looking through the dust, it was a human aura, and the status sheet gave her few options as to who it could¡¯ve been. ¡°Prince?¡± Cas called through the silence, cringing at how her voice echoed, still able to hear the chittering of monsters far above the border of the sinkhole. ¡°Is that you?¡± she asked. ¡°Lady Cassandria,¡± the voice answered tiredly. ¡°I can tell you¡¯ve been through a lot.¡± ¡°I saw your Trinket disappear. I thought you¡¯d died.¡± ¡°Well, you worried yourself over nothing. Trinket or no, Prince Haowi does not die easily.¡± Cas cut to the meat of that sentence. ¡°So¡­ the Trinket is gone, then?¡± The prince only laughed, though it was a far more bitter one than any she¡¯d yet heard him give. ¡°It means everything is going as it should go,¡± he answered simply. ¡°Trinket Ember has done everything it needed to. It has no cause to stay around.¡± Cas took shallow breaths in an attempt to minimize the dust getting into her lungs. She looked closer at the prince. Though his red glow had disappeared, the blue light of his aura remained. Around his hands in particular, a strong, navy blue light shone, and that light reached out like a string, which connected to an invisible bubble that surrounded Cas. Cas reached her hands out curiously, and rapped her knuckles against the blue glow. It hummed with a crystal, tinking sound before crumbling away as if under the effects of age. Cas looked turned her head from the magic shield to look directly at the prince¡¯s aura. ¡°You saved me,¡± she said. ¡°Aye,¡± the prince nodded. ¡°Thank you.¡± ¡°Do you still have my brother?¡± Unclipping her pouch, Cas pulled out the glimmering gem with the silhouette of a boy sealed inside of it. She held it out to the prince. ¡°No,¡± the prince refused. ¡°You hold onto it.¡± Standing up into a higher crouch, Cas strained her senses. The dust blocked her sight, but it might as well have been clear air when compared to the monster cloud. She could sense aura clear through it, and there the medical unit had been set up for their arrival, and there the Trinket Sable still loomed over the horizon, and above them: ¡°You¡¯ve got to be kidding me.¡± A wall of aura swirled, smaller than before, but the screeching, discordant cacophony of the gathered monsters could still be emanating from it. There were several sirens patrolling the border of it. They could see through the dust just as well as she, and their heads were pointed directly down at them. Cas followed their gazes down to the prince, who seemed completely at ease, or maybe just in too much pain to stand up from his reclined posture. Right beside him lay a thick tent rope, which dangled down the side of the crater, leading up to a looming structure which could be seen on the surface above. To guess by the way the remnants of the monster cloud were treating it, the dome tent had survived as well, and the exceedingly ominous sounds of straining it made warned all to stay far away. Cas looked suspiciously at the rope next to the prince, far too aware of what damage those things could do. The prince treated it like a toy, as he stood up into a kneeling posture and held it aloft, pulling it close to his face for a closer look. ¡°Is that a good idea?¡± Cas pointed at the rope held inches away from Haowi¡¯s nose, looking at it like it was a viper as she shuffled a few safety steps away from the whole scene. ¡°Cas¡­¡± the prince said suddenly. ¡°I have an escape plan.¡± ¡°Really?¡± Cas shifted further away, as the dome tent let out another loud creak. ¡°And what would that be?¡± The prince¡¯s beard hid a smile. ¡°Do you trust me?¡± he asked.
Cas didn¡¯t know what she¡¯s done to get herself into this situation, but she promised to never do it again. A blue glow lit around the prince¡¯s hand, spreading to her shoulder when he touched it, and it felt like sunlight as it rolled over the exterior of her aura, slipping off the surface blue energy like oil skimming the surface of a river. ¡°You have to stop resisting it,¡± the prince warned, ¡°otherwise it won¡¯t take effect,¡± Cas, reluctantly let out a deep breath, extending her aura just as the prince had shown her. Her aura perfused itself, and the spell sank in. It was a small effect, at first. The prince seemed a little taller, and her shoe-laces seemed a bit closer. Soon the changes compounded on themselves until she was half size, then a quarter, and eventually the prince was a giant, his features totally obscured behind clouds of dust as he bent down through them and lifted her up in his palm. In his other hand was a small, leather pouch which ¨C after placing her firmly in the pocket of it ¨C the prince hooked onto the end of the tent rope. Cas could have said it felt like a roller coaster, but roller coasters inspired more confidence. This, whatever it was, wasn¡¯t a very professional affair. There were no seat belts, or warning lights, or even a line of people eager to get in. The leather strap she¡¯d been placed in hugged around her like a hammock. Looking ahead, what seemed like miles of tent-rope ran up the side of the crater before disappearing into the dust. And above all that, a vague darkness put the top of the crater into shadow. Cas knew the rope continued on beyond where she could see. She knew it connected to the dome tent, which had been making increasingly worrying noises as of late, and she understood, vaguely, that the prince planned to use the whole complex as a trebuchet for all his hopes. Cas was dubious about this whole affair, and she grew more and more dubious as the seconds passed, and the sirens descended to ever lower altitudes ¨C and the dome tent crackled like a breaking roller coaster. Never one for religion, Cas was an odd one out among her new-agey acquaintances. Often, she struggled to keep her eyes from rolling whenever a co-worker tried to include her in a prayer, or mantra, or whatever Oprah was saying that week. In particular, she¡¯d quickly gotten sick of the ¡®Law of Attraction¡¯ fad that had taken over her Alma Mater. She¡¯d hated the vagueness of it, the pseudo-scientific pastiche, the cultish vibes. ¡°Put positivity into the universe, and the universe will give you positivity back.¡± You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Hah! What hogwash. As a scientist, Cas had been professionally offended when someone gave her that advice and pretended it had anything to do with quantum mechanics, and she¡¯d immediately set that crystal-toting instagram model right on the matter. More than that, Cas was an atheist scientist. But¡­ you know that saying about about atheists and fox holes. Well, Cas was an atheist in a monster crater, at this point. Worse than that, Cas was an Atheist who¡¯d been shrunk down to the size of a mouse, and loaded into a ten thousand pound slingshot. And so, considering the above points in a rational manner, Cas tried ¨C just once ¨C to put some sanity into the universe as she looked over her shoulder at the prince and said. ¡°Respectfully, are you sure there isn¡¯t a better wa-¡± TWACK! ¡°aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy!¡± The dome imploded all at once with a massive bang that turned the whole of it inside out., Another blanket of dust puffed over the field, and the rope, connected firmly to a corner stake of the five ton tarp, whipped out at lightning speed, arcing through a thousand feet in a fraction of an eyeblink. Cas didn¡¯t feel the movement. It had happened too quickly for her to register. All she noticed was that it felt for an instant as if ten elephants had been stacked onto her chest, and her arms, and her organs, and every single cell inside of her body. She probably broke several dozen bones, but they had healed suddenly. And the tremendous pressure of that false weight disappeared just as suddenly, as if a steel ball had bounced off her body, and then suddenly¡­ she was weightless, trailing a line of dust behind her as she flew into the clear air. Cas had never skydived before, but she was a frequent flyer. Many of the same principles transferred over, and she found herself able to instinctively arrange her posture so that she flew straight like a dart rather than tumbling. This afforded her a steady view of her surroundings as she raced across the crater, then over ten thousand feet of green grass in a flash. At the apex of her arc, now, Cas was surprised to find that the collapsing tent had shot her directly at the hospice unit. Had the prince planned it all this well? It didn¡¯t make sense that he could, a collapsing tent connected to a rope was a very chaotic system. But Cas wasn¡¯t one to bemoan the one bit of good luck on this very bad day, and simply stretched her left arm out, catching the wind and adjusting her fall trajectory slightly to the right, where Sara stood with arms outstretched, maintaining a glowing field of space. Bemused, Cas raised an eyebrow at this. A magical catch-net? Heh, it even kind of looked like the in-game animation for that spell. She wasn¡¯t sure why they even bothered, though. At her size, terminal velocity was very survivable even if she didn¡¯t have an aura. But, again, Cas wasn¡¯t one to turn away good luck, and simply dove directly into the glowing space, making sure to perfuse her aura like the prince had instructed earlier. The glow caught against her aura like a repelling magnet and smoothly brought her to a floating stop in dead air before suddenly unshrinking her. ¡°Woah!¡± Cas tripped as her feet grew, slamming toe-first into the ground and setting her stumbling. A firm shoulder caught her before she fell, and Cas looked up to see a familiar face looking at her with a stern, unreadable expression. ¡°I¡­ I¡¯m glad you¡¯re ok,¡± Sara said simply. She didn¡¯t give time to answer, quickly turning and taking her place back in the middle of the communication glyph that had been drawn into the grass. Cas, about to ask how Sara knew to catch her, remembered that the woman was in contact with everyone in the field, including the prince. Cas¡¯s ¨C still often surprised by her new speed of thought ¨C was quick to realize that reading a Psylen¡¯s expression would be the most accurate way to gauge what was going on in a battle, so she did just that. Sara did not look happy, not in the slightest. Maybe she was just stressed from having to keep up all the communications by herself. She¡¯d mentioned there used to be multiple Psylens in this army, after all. Not to mention, she was probably always in communication with the units that were having the most trouble, or which were losing the most people. Probably, all Psylens looked like the world was ending when they were working. But even as she listed all those perfectly reasonable objections, Cas knew that they were invalid. Because there were different flavors of human unhappiness, and Sara¡¯s was one of unmitigated despair. After all, Sara had just succeeded in saving Cas, and the prince¡¯s brother in one fell swoop. What could possibly have trumped such good news and put such a damper on her mood. Looking around, Cas noticed that the rest of the surrounding unit were much the same. Not a happy face in sight. Sergeant Dalmatian was the closest person to the communication station; there to provide orders, no doubt, and even he lacked the aggressive defiance which had so characterized the man on Cas¡¯s first blush with him. Cas quickly felt her own good mood evaporating in such a despondent environment. Sara opened her eyes and stepped out of the circle towards the sergeant. ¡°The other units are in place to repel any monster incursions.¡± ¡°Aye,¡± a throaty growl answered her. ¡°Is there anything else I ought to tell them?¡± Sara asked. ¡°No.¡± And the man stepped away. Cas took the space he had previously been filling and addressed the Psylen. ¡°Sara¡­ what¡¯s going on?¡± Sara looked like at her like she¡¯d asked why the sky was blue. ¡°Trinket Ember is gone,¡± she answered obviously. Cas smiled at that, happy to provide some good news. ¡°Yeah, but the prince is still alive; you know that! I even asked him about the Trinket personally. He said the Trinket had already done everything it needed to.¡± Sara¡¯s expression only darkened, and Cas felt her doubts start to creep. ¡°I¡­ I believed him, when he said that,¡± Cas said, feeling silly as the words escaped her lips. ¡°The prince didn¡¯t seem to be lying. I¡­¡± her hands were wringing together, now, and a few of the nearby soldiers were looking over at her. ¡°I don¡¯t think he was lying,¡± Cas added more forcefully. ¡°He wasn¡¯t lying,¡± Sara answered softly. Suddenly, a black flash caught Cas¡¯s attention, though it happened in a place Sara had been staring at for a long time, now. In fact, everyone had been looking at it, as if expecting just this very thing. Cas turned to look at the hill. Even through dust and earth, it was easy to see the prince¡¯s aura, but it was no longer the only one in the crater. ¡°Sara,¡± Cas reached out. ¡°He said it did everything it needed to.¡± Near him, standing over him, was the black energy of Trinket Sable, in human form. It reminded Cas of the prince, back when he still had the red energies of Trinket Ember lighting his form. A second passed like a sword stroke, and there was, once again, only one signature in that crater. Cas barely had time to register the change before the woman appeared. Her appearance came as silently as a shadow, but all were aware of it the moment it happened. She had eyes that made everyone avert their gazes, but a presence that demanded their full attention. She was a figure of contradictions, with an aura so terrifying to behold, but a face that was rather beautiful, and an expression serene. Hair as black as coal ran framing arcs around an almost snow-pale face. And, in particular her hands, cold and white, contrasted plainly with the tanned features and dark beard of the prince¡¯s head, which she held aloft like a macabre lantern. In her other hand was a black sword with a gentle curve and a wicked edge. She swung it with a carefree posture as she walked to Sargent Dalmatian. ¡°You are Kelbi Dalmatian,¡± the woman said, more in a statement than a question. To his credit, the man kept an even tone as he answered. ¡°You know my name.¡± ¡°Death is the keeper of all names,¡± the woman replied, holding out the dead prince¡¯s head to him. ¡°It is tradition that the nearest commander retrieves the head of his prince.¡± Dalmatian accepted in gentle hands, holding it close to his chest as if shielding it from dangerous sights. ¡°I thank you,¡± he answered the woman cooly, bowing as best as he could with the burden. Sable answered coolly. ¡°No matter. I do not come here lightly. I have important business to attend to. It will be in your best interest to comply.¡± Again, that tone which spoke in matters of fact, and again an even reply from the sergeant. ¡°And what business might that be, mam?¡± ¡°I have come to kill you, Sergeant Dalmatian, as well as every person associated with the unit you lead in this morning¡¯s battle.¡± Cas¡¯s dagger hand flew upward but crashed into a restraining grip. Sara had a surprisingly strong hand, and an aura which snuffed Cas¡¯s own in a contest of wills. Cas, admittedly, was scared. The Black Flag was a terrifying thing when it was off over the horizon, and now it was here. It was here for the express purpose of killing them! Cas¡¯s body, still riding high off her recent ordeals, wanted to fight Sara; she almost did, straining against the impossibly strong grip before her eyes glanced up and caught sight of Sara¡¯s expression. Cas stopped her struggling, because Sara ¨C if anything ¨C seemed even more terrified. In fact, looking around, fear-paled faces could be seen dotted through the entire unit. It was ludicrous, that so many figures should look so frightened, holding onto their weapons like they were security blankets. Cas didn¡¯t understand any of it. The woman was undoubtedly powerful, but she¡¯d just guaranteed their deaths. Surely, fighting her was all they could do now. A slim chance of victory was better than that, wasn¡¯t it. The camp ¨C which had been bustling with conversation in the wake of Ember¡¯s dissaperance ¨C had fallen silent after the woman¡¯s arrival, and now had adopted the heir of an abandoned cemetery after her final declaration. Everyone seemed to be holding their breaths. In the midst of this serenity, the sound of the screaming cloud fell into fresh perspective. The scattered remnants of monsters came together again in the sky, sounding almost sonorous, now that the torturous over-crowding they had suffered was at an end. The cloud shifted shapes in the air, directionless, waving this way and that like a lost creature, and making worrying forays towards the gathered humans that surrounded it. Trinket Sable glanced over her shoulder at the flying horde. Lifting her wrist, she gestured sharply with her index finger, as if she were flicking a switch. It was a subtle gesture, accompanied by an equally subtle ringing in the dark of the woman¡¯s aura. And then silence. The monster¡¯s song cut off abruptly, and the screaming cloud died, dropping to the ground with a clattering dribble of thuds. Cas felt her dagger hand slacken and drop away from Sara¡¯s grip. Sable turned back to address them, though she spoke mainly to the Sergeant. ¡°You, surrender.¡± Sergeant Dalmatian was an imposing man, with wide shoulders and a figure that seemed to fill his armour to bursting. Yet, he somehow seemed very small before the woman, as he lowered his gaze to the prince''s head in his hands and answered directly. ¡°I surrender.¡± ¡°Gather your army, then. I¡¯ll be sure to select only the ones I need.¡± The woman answered with a practiced ease. There was a perfunctory habit in her words, that told of a thousand similar conversations given in much the same circumstance. Cas looked to the sergeant. Everyone did. Dalmatian was used to this. Being the eldest child in a family of five had prepared him well for the army. It gave him an instinct to take charge of chaotic situations. It had emboldened him with a demeanor that everyone could look to when times were tough. Everyone believed they could look to him to get them out of any situation. Sometimes, even he had believed in that. Dalmatian wore his armor lightly. He felt the weight of it, now, though, as he turned back to his men and relayed the order. It felt cold, and dead, and disgusting to wear ¨C as if it had been soaked with blood. Chapter 50: Death Wish University had a time honored tradition of requiring many electives. Among these were included the most pointless of subjects: basket weaving, ethics, music theory¡­ Cas knew them by heart. It was Cas¡¯s closely held belief, however, that the most pointless course she¡¯d ever taken was Philosophy. Because her first philosophy class proved every preconception Cas had about the subject: that it was, essentially, a waste of time invented to kill sanity and patience. In her opinion all of philosophy was just religion without the tax exemptions. Ie. the most difficult answers to the most pointless questions ever devised. What is knowledge? Who cares? Is there free will? Who could make themselves care? If there was a trolley heading towards five- It all made Cas want to scream. You might as well ask how many angels could fit on the head of a pin! This was exactly the sort of hair-splitting nonsense which had made Cas turn away from philosophy in the first place. And it was exactly the sort of nonsense which made Cas want to tear apart her required readings in Phil 101. After all, when could any of it possibly ever matter in real life?
That was all in the past, though, and life was funny in how it referenced itself. After the Black Flag had made her death wish, the whole army complied, and all the scattered units ¨C even the most distant ones ¨C stirred and went on a united march that brought them all into the center of the field. ¡®I have come to kill you, and everyone associated with your unit.¡¯ It was a clever pronouncement. The thought had vaguely occurred to Cas, as she marched with the spotted unit. By promising to kill only one unit, it gave the rest of the army reason to comply. But¡­ then again, maybe that was just her trying to make too much sense of things. It seemed that Sable would have no trouble killing every single person in this army if she wanted. She hardly needed their cooperation. At least, everyone here seemed to believe that to be the case. Hell, Cas believed it. She remembered how those monsters had just¡­ died. Maybe, Cas considered, this was all an act of mercy on the part of the Black Flag, maybe she had specific targets in mind? Maybe she just didn¡¯t want to waste her time. Whatever the reason, none of those questions seemed important to Cas at the moment. Sitting on the grass with a knot in her stomach, it was a philosophical, hair-splitting question that occupied the entirety of her mind, as she clutched her hands together and tried to discern for herself: ¡®exactly how long did you need to work with a unit, to be considered a ¡®part of it¡¯. After all, it wouldn¡¯t make sense for Cas to be on the kill list, not in any sane universe. She had only shared a single sentence with the Sergeant before she ran off to do her own thing. She hadn¡¯t been working with his unit. Technically, she wasn¡¯t even working with the army. She was just¡­ working in the same physical location towards a common goal. Completely different. There. That was proof enough. She wasn¡¯t a part of that unit, and therefore Sable had no reason to kill her whatsoever. After all, the woman had promised to kill only people that were members of Sergeant Dalmatian¡¯s unit, and Cas wasn¡¯t a member, ergo she was off the hook! Syllogism complete. But¡­ then again, Sable¡¯s exact words had been: ¡®associated with the unit¡¯, not members of it, so- Cas broke the thought before it could finish. She had been arguing in circles for hours, now, and even the most novel arguments were beginning to sound wearisome. Lifting her neck, peering over the arms she¡¯d hooked around her tented knees, Cas¡¯s vision filled with the forest of standing bodies in front. After Sable¡¯s ultimatum, the army had been gathered, and they quickly segregated themselves. Those in the Spotted Unit ¨C ready for death ¨C gathered in the center around Sergeant dalmatian, standing in a rough, horse-shoe formation as if awaiting a rousing speech. The rest of the army gathered around, forming a rough ring around the spectacle. Cas took a seat in the open grass between the two groups, unsure of where she should sit. And Sable, wandering freely, approached the Spotted unit, sword in hand. Cas had no expectations, but she was still surprised when it finally happened. Surprise made no sense, when you had no expectations, but, still¡­ Cas had imagined Sable would go around confirming identities, or asking people to line up, or calling people by name, but no¡­ Sable didn¡¯t ask for names, or affiliations, or bribes. She just started killing. It had been shocking at first. So shocking. For all Cas had been through, she¡¯d never seen a person die, and here a score had been slaughtered before ten minutes passed. Perhaps it was because of the advance warning, but Cas didn¡¯t feel any panic, or fear, or even revulsion. Rather, she felt¡­ negative, if that was a term that could put it to words. It felt like the back of her mind was in shadow, and that it could only host dark thoughts. Sable¡¯s blade whipped through the air, barely visible. Joson¡¯s throat split apart at the collar, letting out a strange, moaning sound as blood and air gurgled through the fresh slit. He jerked his hands upward at the last second, as if attempting a block before he fell, quivering all over. He convulsed on the ground, hands choking his own neck to stifle the stream of blood. His body was incredibly steady, otherwise, and he hardly made a sound ¨C had his face been blocked, you could have confused him for a sleeping man. In the movies, they¡¯d always kick their legs and roll around. Maybe that had been the actor''s choice to heighten the terror of it. Strange. None of the scary movies Cas had seen ever felt this terrible to watch -- the man shuddered his last and sighed and relaxed into a corpse -- not even close. Maybe understatement was the key to horror. And understated was how all the unit soldiers were. They stood steadily by, even as the man next to them suffered his last breath. ¡®Would I be as calm?¡¯ Cas wondered. Another sword swing, another death. After all, these people knew they would be dying, while Cas still had doubts. She still had the faintest hopes because she wasn¡¯t a member of the unit. Choosing to help the prince, at best, made her part of his army, or maybe an unaffiliated ally. Strangers could help one another, after all, couldn¡¯t they? The next person in line was a woman, she died instantly as her head unraveled like a zipper. Maybe she could fake her death, Cas wondered. Let Human Figure die and transform back into a slime once everyone had gone? Sable preferred sword slashes for her executions. Cas was certain she could survive that. Cas had wanted to run away many times during this whole process. The unit¡¯s march had seemed like an excellent opportunity. Yet she stayed. Partially, this was because a successful escape seemed unlikely. That, and Cas ¨C despite her most paranoid worries, was fairly certain of her safety. But there was a third reason, too, and she was sitting right next to Cas. Cas nudged the woman. Like her, Sara was uncertain, and therefore had a lot on her mind. Both of them sat in the clear space between the two groups, with their backs to a parked wagon, and their heads full of thoughts. Alongside them was a third woman who wore dark armor and had long, dark hair that framed a youthful face. Cas didn¡¯t know her name, but she knew the woman by reputation. Like them, her status was uncertain, for she¡¯d been transferred out of Dalmatian¡¯s unit that morning, and that had put her in limbo alongside them. Poor girl. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. The nameless girl sat near the front wheel of the wagon, far away from Cas and Sara, looking blankly off into the horizon. Sara sat immediately beside Cas, hugging her legs and resting her forehead on her knees. She had an expression of forced calm. The occasional, loud death forced a twitch, and she repeatedly took deep, sighing breaths. ¡°Sara,¡± Cas whispered, waiting for a pause in the executions to do so. ¡°Yes?¡± Sara answered, squeezing her eyelids. ¡°When you got hired to work with this army, were you assigned to the Sergeants unit?¡± ¡°I wasn¡¯t assigned to any unit,¡± Sara answered, sounding pained. ¡°They decide that after you arrive.¡± She paused, taking another deep breath ¨C as if preparing to repeat something she¡¯d said to herself a thousand times already. ¡°However, in times of emergency, you can be incorporated into the chain of command of the first unit you run into.¡± Unclenching one fist, Sara extended her fingers one by one and began counting out the reasons: ¡°The prince¡¯s death counted as an emergency; my contract technically started two days before the emergency started; and three ¨C ¡° Sara raised her third and final finger ¡° ¨C Sergeant Dalmatian¡¯s unit was the first one I ran into, and I stayed with him for the duration of the battle to boot.¡± Cas hurried to reply. ¡°But, you technically ¨C¡± ¡°I know, I know,¡± Sara lifted her head, knocking it back against the cart wheel with a metallic sound. ¡°I technically wasn¡¯t incorporated. The Sargent never explicitly said I had to start following orders. He even told me I was free to go the moment I arrived! Don¡¯t you think I¡¯ve been going over that for the past hour?¡± Sara opened her eyes finally, sending a desperate look in Cas¡¯s direction. ¡°Who even knows how she¡¯s picking who dies? Maybe this is all just one big practical joke, and she¡¯s going to kill everyone here after she¡¯s done with them!¡± Sara spoke a little too loudly, and the near side of the spectator¡¯s circle became even more deathly quiet, if such a thing were possible. Cas felt her face fall into a stolid neutrality. She¡¯s never been good at relating to people like this. Jen ¨C her friend from back on Earth ¨C had been. She¡¯d always been able to look at someone going through a rough time and say, ¡®It¡¯s going to be ok. Everything happens for a reason.¡¯ More importantly, she¡¯d been able to believe those words as she said them. Cas could never manage the same. As a young and cynical person, Cas had told herself it was because she was too smart to believe in fairy tales. The harder life got, however, she couldn¡¯t help feeling that maybe it was a deficiency in her wisdom. Sara, for her part, didn¡¯t look at her for long. She wasn¡¯t the type to rely on others, it seemed. Cas felt a spark of guilt peek through the dread that had dulled her senses. It wasn¡¯t that she didn¡¯t care, it was just¡­ what right did she have to express sadness to someone who was going through so much worse. What was she supposed to say? ¡®I¡¯m sure you have it hard, but can you imagine how bad I feel looking at you?¡¯ Because Cas did feel sick at the thought of Sara dying, she literally couldn¡¯t imagine it. And the thought of it happening filled her with dread, more than the actual deaths she was watching right now. Her callousness towards the unit soldiers brought another flare of guilt. Cas recognized their humanity. In fact, if she¡¯d met any one of them before Sara, she might have felt just the opposite, but she knew Sara. She¡¯d drunk tea with her, and told her stories, and laughed at her reactions and traded jabs and went camping with Sara. She knew Sara had a bright personality. She knew Sara was a bit of a snob, and was embarrassed about being a mercenary, and she wanted to know why someone like her became an adventurer. After all, Sara had promised to tell Cas that, hadn¡¯t she? A small laugh broke from Cas. She didn¡¯t feel happy. She wasn''t even sure what had inspired it. ¡°What¡¯s so funny?¡± Sara asked, cocking an eyebrow. Seeing the distraction was doing her some good, Cas decided on honesty, even if it was a bit crass. ¡°It¡¯s just¡­ I remember yesterday; I asked you why you became an adventurer, and you said you¡¯d tell me later.¡± ¡°Maybe later,¡± Sara corrected, putting a fine point on the matter. Cas laughed again. ¡°It¡¯s just that¡­ I didn¡¯t believe you, when you told me that. I remember thinking that one of us would die before you ever revealed that secret,¡± and here Cas¡¯s chuckles almost turned to an outright laugh. ¡°I just,¡± she said in between her breaths, ¡°I just never imagined that day would be today!¡± Sara kept her voice quiet as she answered. ¡°Well, I hope you don¡¯t expect me to tell you now,¡± she said, sitting up a bit straighter and crossing her arms obstinately. ¡°Secrets are a lady¡¯s chambermaids. All she need do is make sure those secrets are beautiful.¡± ¡°Well, is your secret beautiful?¡± Cas inquired, ¡°or is it the ugly type.¡± ¡°That¡¯s enough out of you!¡± Sara immediately fell back to a practiced laugh, the kind meant to obscure her reaction. ¡°I won¡¯t tell, even if you make it your dying wish, Cas. That¡¯s final.¡± Sara turned away from her, looking at a random spot off in the distance. The universal sign for a finished conversation. Cas didn¡¯t try picking it back up. It didn¡¯t look like they¡¯d have time to talk about anything else. There were only ten people left alive in the main unit, and Sable now had to step carefully over the field of bodies strewn about her. She lifted her sword with a bored hand. Rivulets of blood dribbled off the handle, splattering loudly into a wet patch of grass as she stood before the tenth man. The sight was a striking one. Unlike the standard blue, the woman¡¯s aura was black, and all encompassing, and it seemed to engulf the light of whatever person she took with her sword. Cas had tried for hours now, to discern whether the woman would kill her, when the time came. And now that she was so close, Cas realized that she still had no idea. Failing to find her answer in logic, Cas resorted to psychology. She forced herself to look at the one place which might hold the answer. It was also the one place everyone avoided looking: Sable¡¯s face was filled with terrible beauty. It filled her vision, and Cas was surprised when she didn¡¯t immediately flinch from it. Sable had lost that dread aura which averted all gazes. Instead, the feeling Sable inspired now was almost calming, like all the worries and cares which ever bothered you were suddenly lifted off your shoulders. It felt like a peaceful death¡­ The whole universe flipped, and suddenly Cas was staring at the grass. What was that! It felt¡­ convincing. It felt like she¡¯d been given the most enticing argument. It was hard to put into words what the argument was, though. Cas wasn¡¯t brainwashed. She was still able to think, and obviously she hadn¡¯t been fully convinced by the argument Sable was making, but¡­ she did find it hard not to see its point. Life was hard, and full of strife, and even now, in the face of imminent death, Cas¡¯s existence was filled with complications, and guilt, and self doubt. Death would lift all her mortal worries away. Cas knew that from experience. When she¡¯d died the first time, she¡¯d been conscious. It was like a near-death experience, but less half-assed, and it had felt¡­ nice. It felt like that rush of joy when you cancelled some unpleasant plans, but it was a whole life full of plans getting cancelled. Still, despite her personal experience, and Sable¡¯s arguments, Cas had decided she didn¡¯t want to die- ¡°Ghahhh!¡± And apparently so had soldier number nine. Deciding for the moment to treat Sable as a peeking hazard, Cas tried to discern something from the half-remembered glimpses she¡¯d seen of the woman¡¯s face. In the brief time Cas had seen her, the woman had been able to express some emotion: sternness, satisfaction¡­ and nothing else. No worry at facing an army by herself, no impatience at the hours it took to gather the units, no remorse as she cut down their fourth soldier. Three were left standing, including the Sergeant. It got to the point where Cas wondered if the Black Flag even had a relatable psychology. Were any of the Trinkets human at all? Even Prince Haowi. The prince had seemed friendly enough, but he¡¯d been strange, too. Beyond his abnormal cheer, it was something about the way he spoke, though Cas couldn¡¯t quite put a finger on exactly what¡­ As it turned out, Cas wouldn¡¯t have the time to figure it out, because Sable was suddenly there. Cas didn¡¯t notice her approach, though her presence was felt heavily; a black aura seemed to weigh on every particle of hope in the air. Her dark boots were pristine, not a speck of blood on them for all she smelled of the substance, and for the constant trickle of it that dripped down the tip of her blade. Daring a bit, Cas looked up to find that the Sergeant was still standing. There was no reason for Sable to leave him alive unless she had other targets in mindd. Feeling her impending death, Cas dared a bit more, and climbed her gaze up until Sable¡¯s face entered into view. And then Cas¡¯s mind did backflips. This was a perfectly natural reaction, seeing as an angel had appeared on the woman¡¯s shoulders. Or, maybe, it wasn¡¯t an angel. Cas wasn¡¯t sure. It was the first word that came to mind. Wait, no. It was a little girl! Cas realized at last. Except, maybe it wasn¡¯t that, either. Rather, it had the shape of a little girl. Cas wasn¡¯t sure what it was, except to say that it was made out of shapes and hints of sights. It felt like a collage of everything Cas had lost sight of in her life. But the longer Cas stared, the more details seemed to discern themselves, and soon enough Cas was very clearly able to see the girl. She was a little thing, around ten years old, and she sat on Sable¡¯s shoulders unnoticed. She was see-through, and had two translucent hands that reaching forward to cover the woman¡¯s eyes. Somehow, despite the fact that Cas could see Sable¡¯s eyes clear through the girl¡¯s fingers, she felt hidden somehow. That, of course, begged the question: why was Sable still staring at her? Despite the bravery angel-girl inspired, Sable still cut an intimidating figure, smelling of blood and death as she stared ever so vigilantly at Cas. Rather, more particularly, she was starting directly at the leather satchel on Cas¡¯s belt. Cas¡¯s left hand reached into the satchel before she realized it, fingering idly at the gem which contained the prince¡¯s brother. It was obvious Sable knew, and Cas felt uncomfortable with the expectation. She readied to pull it out. A cold draped itself over her shoulders, stopping her, and Cas paused. Looking up, angel-girl was staring down at her, and she was shaking her head ¡®no¡¯. A small scowl of disappointment lit up the girl¡¯s features, and it stayed Cas¡¯s hand long enough for her mind to gain a lead. ¡°Uhmmm¡­¡± feeling the woman¡¯s accusation acutely now, Cas diverted her fingers from the amulet. Pulling her hand out, Cas held up the battered and half-melted spearhead with a guilty expression. ¡°It¡¯s just my dagger,¡± Cas said, speaking honest words hurriedly to paper over her lies. ¡°It¡¯s not good for attacking so¡­ I didn¡¯t think you¡¯d care. You can have it,¡± Cas threw it down at the woman¡¯s feet. The woman stood over each of them. It had only lasted a second, Cas was certain, but it felt like hours to someone holding their breath. Eventually, the woman stepped off without a word. Sable didn¡¯t head toward the Sergeant. Rather, she made for the outside circle of spectators, weaving through the dense crowd and killing with accuracy, the five unit members who had attempted to hide among those not condemned. These people were more desperate to live, and the struggles and deaths were as ugly as they were short. Cas could only hear the horrors, as they concluded behind her. The terror of the screams, of the sound, was accentuated by the lack of sights¡­ it left a lot of room for her imagination to begin wondering about the details. And, questions stuck around in the mind. But memories were for the future. At that moment, in that field, Cas only felt giddy with delight as she looked down at herself, and looked over at Sara, and felt the weight of death lift off their shoulders. She was alive. ¡®I''m alive,¡¯ Cas thought. And the angel girl, floating above her in a white gown that ignored the wind, only smiled a mischievous grin, putting a finger of secrecy up to her lips and winking, before she was suddenly gone again, as if she¡¯d never been. Chapter 51: Grave Robbery. Sable moved as easily as she killed. Of course, some of her chosen targets had decided not to stand out with their unit. Maybe they¡¯d assumed they could fool her, or maybe they were simply unaware of their status, or maybe they were in a gray-area, and had simply hoped for the best, or maybe they were just too scared to move. It happened. No matter their reason for delaying the inevitable, however, those final stragglers were always survivors, and they put up more resistance than the rest had. None fought back, and fewer still attempted to run, but their auras rose up to defend them against the Black Flag nonetheless. The crescent sword of death, coated in a sheen of darkness, cleaved through aura, and armor and bone, and landed with a satisfying thud into spurting rib cages and shattering spines, until the last of the stragglers was dead, and there was only one place left for Sable to look. There, in the center of the whole thing, was one survivor left, standing amidst the bodies of his fallen unit. Sargent Dalmation stood there, bearing ¨C as he always had ¨C the cruel necessities of leadership. To his credit, he let none of this show. He held a brave face. But, standing alone as he was, and with no where to look except at the Black Flag ¨C he looked almost lost.
Before he died, Sergeant Dalmatian made certain that the prince¡¯s head was turned over to the Lieutenant in good order. He seemed almost more concerned about it than his own impending death. Tradition, Cas had heard it called. He took the head, had it identified by members of the Prince¡¯s guard ¨C for the prince was rarely seen in person ¨C and, respectfully, presented it to the Leuitenant who took charge as the new commander of the prince¡¯s army. And then Sargent Dalmatian was killed, and Sable left. Then¡­ life went on. Sara reported herself to high command. There, she also took the opportunity to put in a good word for Cas. The Luitenant, an older woman with tan hair and a sleep deprived expression, signed some papers absentmindedly and handed Cas a bright badge that identified her as an Auxillary. ¡°It¡¯s a tremendous honor, wear it with pride.¡± The woman attempted to give Cas a rousing speech about the importance of the position, but the attempt fell flat after the first syllable, not helped in the least by the fact that the woman didn¡¯t even look up from her paperwork as she handed over the sigil. Cas took it without a word, affixing the bright ribbon. It looked delicate at a glance, made from many thin petals, and it seemed to have a brightness independent of its color. ¡°Now, if you would please leave us, Auxiliary Cassandria. I have some sensitive matters to discuss with our dear Psychic Sara.¡± Cas turned to leave when a hand stopped her. Sara, turning quickly and leaning in, hissed in an urgent whisper. ¡°You¡¯re supposed to run aura through it!¡± Turning back to face the Lieutenant. Cas, nodding, did just that as she slipped underneath the low entrance of the Commander¡¯s tent. Item Equipped! Identification Badge Role: Auxiliary Faction: Regalia Ember Unit: Trinket Ember Commander: Lieutenant Enda Line leader: Chief Auxiliary Barka Charisma: ¡À 24 Cas blinked at that stat modifier. Plus or minus twenty four? Curious, she pulled up her character sheet to find the relevant status completely unchanged. Then again, loudly identifying with a faction was a polarizing action. She wondered for a moment how many people there were in this world that would kill her on sight just for wearing this little ribbon. A tremendous honor indeed. Cas wondered if it was worth it, however. Just then, she felt that familiar phone-line ringing against her aura. She picked it up to find Sara¡¯s thoughts on the other end. The stream of consciousness exploded in Cas¡¯s awareness like a flashbang, and was gone just as quickly. Cas shivered with a tingly feeling at that. It didn¡¯t hurt, but apparently voice-mail was just as annoying over psychic links. Cas headed down the hill, curving her path to dodge around lively conversations and curious strangers. Thankfully, no one minded her any attention. Everyone in sight had the same, tired expression that had confused the Lieutenant, and none seemed in the mood for conversations that weren¡¯t strictly necessary. The command tent had been built atop a fresh hill. The old command post was still in view from here. There was a small unit of soldier¡¯s there, wading through the litter of monster corpses as they worked to retrieve the prince¡¯s body and to salvage whatever material they could from the remnants of the camp. Apparently, little of value had been left in tact, At least, nothing valuable enough to be worth digging through ten feet of corpse litter, for. Massive steel carts were rolled down the hill by manpower, rocking over the uneven terrain of bodies and almost spilling the launder of tarps that had been stuffed into each one of them. Tent materials were apparently in high demand, but not for their original purpose. The dome tent was being cut apart, with glowing swords, being scrapped in order to create orderly sheets that the dead would be shrouded in. The army took great care to lay out the bodies of the dead and to shrowd them in whatever scraps of cloth were retrievable. Apparently, white was the preferred color for funerary garb. The grave-preparers went to great lengths to procure any white cloth they could for that purpose, and where none could be found, they at least ensured that the faces and hands of the dead were covered in a white material that had been cut for the purpose. She could see priests of sorts, standing at the head of the new cemetery, reading something in a somber voice to his departed pulpit. It was in Cas¡¯s instinct to offer help, whenever she saw work being done, but she stopped herself at the last second. It just didn¡¯t feel right to touch any of those bodies, now that it was too late. The space seemed a holy one, and she doubted any of them would want a monster to be the one that buried their bodies. She couldn¡¯t blame them. A sudden storm of melancholy took over Cas, and she headed off to a distant corner of the camp for her own purposes. Sara called her early in the evening, when the meeting had concluded. Cas, for whatever reason, hesitated in picking up, and Sara didn¡¯t call her again.
The next morning was a beautiful one. The stray clouds of yesterday had grown, spreading out into a beautiful vista of floating mountains that reflected the amber rays of the morning sun. Of course, Cas could hardly appreciate the color values, but it was a beautiful sight nonetheless. Although, she was beginning to forget what a sunrise looked like. The base colors were easy enough to remember, but the subtle hues and refractions of sunlight as it scattered through the clouds was a difficult image to grasp onto. ¡°Ahhh! Good morning, Cas!¡± Sara stretched tight fists up towards the sky, back arching as she worked a kink out of her spine, letting the discomfort show in a squint of her eye as she twisted her lips into a guessing posture. ¡°Ooooof!¡± she worked the last kink out, dropping her ams to swing by her side as she looked over at her resident Auxillary. ¡°Good news, I¡¯ve managed to get you a position as an Auxillary in the Psychic¡¯s platoon. That means we¡¯ll be working together,¡± she cheered, pointing a finger between the two of them. ¡°Did you have a good night?¡± Cas was stunned at the sight. She almost didn¡¯t recognize Sara. Somehow, the woman had managed to perfectly do her hair and makeup, despite crawling out of a camping tent ¨C that alone kept her on-brand at least. The rest of her outfit was entirely different, however. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Having abandoned the dress, Sara now wore the same livery as the standard foot-soldier. Dark cloth armor ¨C red, Cas guessed using context clues ¨C hugged tightly around her torso before draping down into an armored box-skirt on four sides. She wore riding pants underneath, in a mis-match of accessories, and the collar of the outfit, which came just up to the base of he neck, revealed an overflow of chain-mail which seemed just too large to be confined by the limits of the outer cloth. It all looked¡­ second hand. Then again, Cas ¨C remembering herself ¨C looked down at herself. Her clothes¡­ had survived surprisingly well, thanks to her aura. That was to say, they were mostly not in tatters. As the various shrapnel holes had been small enough for the fabric to close back around. The blood stains weren¡¯t even noticable, considering they were all camouflage by other bloodstains. Cas took a sniff of her coat. It seemed fine, when she knew it shouldn¡¯t have been. The entire outfit should have been petrified into a giant scab, by this point, but it all seemed still usable somehow. Probably something with the aura. And then Cas lost her train of thought somewhere, left staring at her right shoulder where a particularly dense splotch was still seeping through the fabric, and highlighted the stitch count of her coat quite distinctly. ¡°Hello?¡± Sara brought her back from her musings. ¡°Earth to Cas?¡± ¡°Right,¡± Cas blinked, realizing she¡¯d been late to her end of the conversation and rushing to say the first thing on her mind. ¡°I was just realizing you got your uniform.¡± ¡°Oh!¡± Sara gripped the torso of her outfit with an embarrassed expression. ¡°These aren¡¯t mine, really. They¡¯re not even tailored to my size! And you should know I¡¯d wear a different uniform as a Psychic. No.. I just had to make due with this because all their spare uniforms were in the old camp.¡± She gestured with a nod in the direction of the monster graveyard. Cas didn¡¯t ask for clarification as to what happened to the clothes. She doubted any were in a condition to be worn¡­ or to want to be worn by anyone. ¡°So where did you get that, then?¡± Cas asked, gesturing to the foot-soldier¡¯s outfit she was now sporting. ¡°I just got it from one of the bodies,¡± Sara answered, pointing to the graveyard at the bottom of the hill. ¡°What!¡± Cas exclaimed with an intense amount of shock. ¡°Yeah!¡± Sara answered with equal enthusiasm, ¡°You just missed out. They were distributing uniforms and spare accessories from last night. That¡¯s actually what I called to tell you about, but you seemed busy.¡± Cas, blubbering, cringed away from her friend as she clarified: ¡°That¡¯s not what I mean!¡± ¡°Oh! Well! That¡¯s fine. I think your clothes are serviceable enough, anyway. I doubt we¡¯ll be seeing any combat. The Lieutenant just ordered a march directly back to base this morning, and that¡¯s all tamed territory.¡± she said, pointing towards the sunrise. Sara seemed in high spirits, although they became more guarded as she noticed Cas continually staring at her. ¡°Is something the matter?" Cas, shaking away her preconceptions about wearing dead people¡¯s clothing, decided to leave the matter for now. ¡°It¡¯s nothing,¡± she answered. ¡°It just seems a good night¡¯s rest has done you a lot of good. Not that I¡¯d know anything about that,¡± letting a bit of jealous dejection come into her voice. Sleep sounded like a welcome break from reality, right about now. Sara brought a hand to cover her lips. ¡°Oh, dear. I forgot you don¡¯t sleep. Did you spend the last night ok?¡± ¡°I took watch,¡± Cas shrugged. ¡°Barka seemed happy enough to get a volunteer.¡± Sara nodded genially. ¡°Yes, and how was that?¡± in a prompting manner. Again, Cas could only muster a shrug. That seemed to be the only emotion she was capable of nowadays. ¡°Dunno. Just kind of stared out onto the field, I guess.¡± ¡°Heyyyy! Are you the new-¡± A loud voice called out, waving from the head of a group of figures heading their way. A psychic tingle that was felt all over suddenly silenced them, however. Sara sent a hard glare at a set of approaching figures until they changed trajectories with hesitation. ¡°Maybe we can talk later!¡± The figures turned away, continuing their casual conversation and only sending occasional glances back at them. ¡°Come inside,¡± Sara said after a bit, holding the flap of her tent open. Inside, Sara smoothed out a patterned rug and sat down on it. ¡°Here,¡± she pointed to an open space opposite her, directing Cas to take a seat while she rummaged through a bag at her side. Cas sat down, sitting up to look curiously over Sara¡¯s shoulder as she looked intensely through her satchell. Cas could tell when someone was preparing to have a serious conversation, and swallowing her own feelings of trepidation, decided she¡¯d go along with it. ¡°Is there something wrong?¡± she asked. ¡°Ahh, here it is!¡± Sara sounded a bit annoyed at the object for having hidden itself so successfully. The interior of the tent was lit diffusely by shaded sunlight, more than enough for Cas¡¯s eyes to see every detail of the thing. Which made it all the more surprising when she couldn¡¯t even muster a guess as to what it was. It was a small, square plate, about the size of Sara¡¯s palm, with a brilliant surface that scattered light and a frame of what appeared to be intricately carved ivory running along the borders. ¡°What is it?¡± Cas pointed at the widget, raising an eyebrow in concern. ¡°Pattern square,¡± Sara answered, waving further questions away as she ran her aura into it. Cas saw the woman¡¯s aura extend over the square, flashing over it like a flame as she equipped the object and¡­ presumably did something with it as she held it up and stared into the hypnotizing pattern that formed in the center of it. After just a moment, Sara lowered the square and sent a concerned glare over the edge of it. ¡°Ok, so, just to be clear,¡± Sara prefaced, ¡°when you said you didn¡¯t have any combat training, you did also say you¡¯d never been in a fight. Is that right?¡± Cas shook her head. ¡°Not until I woke up on this-¡± she paused, looking over her shoulder. ¡°Not until I woke up on this continent,¡± she corrected herself. She was so used to being able to see through solid objects, it was difficult to remember that anyone might be eavesdropping on the other side of a tent-flap. ¡°Then,¡± Sara continued, an increasing note of horror in her voice, ¡°I take it that means you¡¯ve never seen a person die?¡± ¡°No!¡± Cas said, almost insulted. ¡°What kind of place do you think I lived in? And I told you numerous times, I was a scholar!¡± Sara didn¡¯t seem to understand it, or believe it if she did. ¡°Well, surely, even scholars have seen some death, where you¡¯re from. I mean, you¡¯ve never picnicked over a battlefield? Even from a distance, you must¡¯ve been able to see some people dying!¡± ¡°Who picnics over a battlefield?¡± Cas said, sounding worried. ¡°A murder on the street?¡± Sara suggested. ¡°No!¡± ¡°A public execution?¡± Sara, increasingly desperate to draw a positive answer from the woman. ¡°We don¡¯t even have those anymore!¡± ¡°An assasination?¡± ¡°No¨C well, actually, there was Reagan-¡± ¡°Yes!¡± Sara cheered. ¡°-but he survived.¡± ¡°Ugh!¡± Sara ugh-ed with all the disappointment her independent heart could mustre. ¡°What is wrong with you?¡± Cas said. ¡°What does it matter anyway?¡± Sara paused, palms together and took a deep breath, now in full retreat of her expectations as she exhaled and pointed her hands over at the woman. ¡°You¡¯ve at least seen animals die, right?¡± Surprisingly proud not to have disappointed Sara on this topic, Cas answered happily: ¡°yeah, by the thousands.¡± ¡°What animals?¡± Sara asked, Abashed, Cas answered. ¡°Mainly wasps¡­ and mice.¡± Obviously, to tell by Sara¡¯s expression, that had not been good enough. ¡°Well, surely you¡¯ve seen large animals getting killed. You know, the kind that make a fit and scream and wrestle with their killers.¡± ¡°No,¡± Cas answered, deciding to tear this bandage off quickly, and sounding even disappointed in herself. ¡°How?¡± Sara said incredulously. ¡°I distinctly recall you mentioned eating cows at some point!¡± ¡°Well, yeah,¡± Cas admitted, ¡°but I never actually saw them being killed,¡± Cas said, waving her fingertips in a sweeping posture. ¡°That all happened out of sight somewhere! Again, why does any of this matter?¡± Sara let out a deep sigh, dropping her head to collect herself as she stared down at the patterned rug between her legs. ¡°It¡¯s nothing,¡± she said at last, bringing her head up. ¡°No,¡± Cas interrupted her, sterner now. ¡°You don¡¯t get to grill me for twenty questions and say it¡¯s nothing. It¡¯s obviously something, so why don¡¯t you just tell me what it is so we can deal with it?¡± Again, Sara deflected a bit. ¡°It¡¯s nothing that¡¯s your fault,¡± she said at last. ¡°I guess it¡¯s just something that I didn¡¯t want to be.¡± ¡°What?¡± Sara stared directly into Cas¡¯s eyes, light eyes looking directly ¡°I¡­ can tell you¡¯re in shock, Cas,¡± sounding genuinely sad. ¡°I¡¯ve never seen a case this bad.¡± Cas resorted to sardonicism. ¡°Yeah¡­ obviously. I just saw a hundred people getting brutally murdered yesterday, and I sat by and watched, thinking I might be next in line. Why the hell wouldn¡¯t I be in shock?¡± A sudden bout of anger came from Cas knew not where, and it had turned her voice into a growl by the time she ended her sentence. It surprised Cas to find that nugget of emotion buried inside of her. After all, what could she possibly be angry about? Scared made sense, or maybe sadf, but anger? Her musings were then broken by a surprisingly soft sensation. Sara¡¯s hand slipped around her own, and the grip it maintained was soft despite Sara¡¯s hard look. It was a hold that was easy to escape, and therefore comfortable to remain in. ¡°I know,¡± Sara said, speaking without any particular emotion. ¡°I¡­ I felt bad the first time I saw somebody die too, Cas, but¡­¡± here Sara stopped for a long time, and Cas waited for her to muster the courage to say the difficult words. ¡°You shouldn¡¯t be cold hearted, Cas, but you can¡¯t be weak, either. ¡°Those people that died yesterday. Would you have blamed any one of them, if they didn¡¯t risk their life to save yours?¡± ¡°Of course I wouldn¡¯t,¡± Cas answered automatically, the question sounding ridiculous on the face. ¡°Well, you have to understand that they¡¯re humans like you. They had the same feelings, and hopes, and the same sense of ego that made them think everything was their responsibility. And none of them would think of blaming you for not saving them.¡± ¡°Well, yeah,¡± Cas¡¯s voice shook before she got it under control, unable to discern why such an obvious statement made her want to cry. ¡°Why would they blame me? I¡¯m sure they had better things to be thinking about.¡± ¡°That¡¯s not the point. Whether they had better things to do or not, they refused to blame you because it¡¯s not your fault. You¡¯re not responsible for their deaths, and you should respect the dead enough not to place the burden of your own self criticism on their souls¡­ ¡°You understand that?¡± Sara repeated. ¡°I do,¡± Cas¡¯s voice was shaking even more now. ¡°Good,¡± Sara answered. ¡°...¡± Sara continued after an interlude of silence; ¡°Cas?¡± ¡°...¡± ¡°You know how the prince taught you to percolate your aura?¡± Cas nodded, not trusting her voice. ¡°If you do the same thing with me, I can show you my mind..¡± Cas obliged, and Sara spoke. Although, she needn¡¯t have. Cas could tell what she was thinking before the words made themselves apparent. Sara¡¯s emotions were well guarded, and nothing came through except that exact statement, as well as the confirmation that it wasn¡¯t a lie. Cas just nodded again, having to settle for short, repeating nods in between shaky breaths. The flash of anger burned out, and she started remembering now, the intense worry and fear she¡¯d felt back then¡­ when Sara would live. She began to feel those emotions, more intensely than her dread deadened nerves had been able to muster at the time. Sara, feeling that, withdrew her hand. ¡°I think I¡¯ve said everything I can about the matter, but¡­ I have one last thing¡­ if you¡¯ll hear me.¡± Cas assented with her silence. ¡°Do you remember, when you told me my traveling party had died, and I said I didn¡¯t care because they were bad people?¡± Cas nodded. ¡°Well, the people here aren¡¯t bad people at all¡­ most of them, anyway. But they are of a certain type, and you absolutely must not be seen looking too affected by something like this. That¡¯ll be taken as weakness. However, I will be casting silence around this tent for the next few hours. I¡¯ll make sure no one disturbs you,¡± Sara¡¯s voice whispered like a ghost through the closing flap of the tent, and suddenly Cas was left alone with her thoughts. She felt her body collapsing, face curling into her hands and tears slipping between her fingertips as she sucked in a deep breath and remembered the young man getting his face split open, and the dead look in the girl¡¯s eyes as she fell, all the brave and sad faces ¨C all the human faces that had been cut apart. She remembered that young Unari in the village she couldn''t save, the one who¡¯d gone into the desert to die. Why had she forgotten him? She also remembered the feigned smiles of the one she¡¯d saved too late. And she also remembered Kari, the one she¡¯d left behind. It didn¡¯t make sense. They were strangers to her. But Cas cried for them anyway. Chapter 52: Fame Emotions were fickle things, and they went up and down like a roller coaster. Still, a good cry could turn around almost any dive, and Cas was flying high as she stepped out of Sara¡¯s tent; The sun seemed a little brighter, somehow. Two steps took her beyond the bubble of silence Sara had cast over her tent, and the whole world of crisp sound focused into existence. The new army camp was an amateur construction. With the exception of the Lieutenant''s office, small, personal tents made up the rest of the structures on site. In the end, the new hill ended up looking more like the lower-class section of Coachella than a military fortification. Fifty camping tents and ten carts hardly made for an imposing site, after all. And even the camping tents were in short order. There were over a thousand people, after all, and only fifty tents to go around. Looking around, the area around Sara¡¯s tent was populated by higher ranking officials. Unit commanders, medics, Sergeants, that sort of crowd. Walking down to the base of the hill, the rest of the army had segregated themselves into two informal camps. The regular soldiers ¨C who made up about half of the body ¨C were on one side, and on the other the Auxiliaries had gathered. It was easy to distinguish Auxiliaries from regulars by their identification badges, which refracted their auras in a distinct manner. Even without such conveniences, however, it would have been easy to differentiate the two camps with her eyes closed; for the atmosphere of the two camps was of a completely different nature, and Cas noticed this as she stepped across the informal border that had been created between the regulars and auxiliaries. The regulars, in the brief time Cas had spent in their camp before realizing she was in the wrong place were¡­ well, what you might expect of medieval foot soldiers. Cas had heard more distinct swears than she even knew existed in the five minutes she¡¯d spent their midst, and three fights had broken out, each surrounded by a circle of spectators who were either trying to goad the fighters or taking bets. The auxiliaries, Cas noticed immediately as she stepped into their territory, were not much more civilized, but relations seemed cooler between everyone involved. They were also a much more diverse group. Unlike the regulars, who were mainly all amber colored, dark haired types ¨C much like the prince had been, the auxiliaries were a comparative rainbow of different ethnic features, and everyone seemed to have an accent of some sort, or at least some unique marker of foreign pronunciation on their tongue. Cas walked by a tree, where three tentless men were nodding off on the branches. Another woman was taking a nap on the floor. Cas recognized the woman¡¯s aura from the night shift. The woman had been in charge of watching the sector directly adjacent to Cas¡¯. Apparently, the lack of sleep had caught up with her. Careful not to disturb the sleepers, Cas broke past the copse of trees which marked the informal boundary between the regular and auxiliary camps, and entered fully into the menagerie. Auxiliary badges shone all round, and even Sara was here, engaging the Chief Auxiliary in what appeared to be a private conversation. All the surrounding auxiliaries were standing about, engaged in some productive task, or partaking in idle chatter. And Cas stood out in the open, and kept standing there¡­ and kept standing. No longer burdened by her melancholy, Cas now felt her awkward self-awareness in full force as she stood on the periphery of camp. She felt an intense desire to fit in, and looked around for any easy opportunities to introduce herself. Because of Aura, everyone was in view, even if they werent, so Cas didn¡¯t bother walking around to try and find someone she could fit in with¡­ as always appeared to be the case with her, everyone was taken. The auxiliaries were clustered into little cliques that dotted throughout the landscape, each one circling around a dying fire or lively conversation. The pretty girls were all in one group, the tough guys in another, and even the smoking club had managed to get a can-sized ash-tray for their convenience, as they lounged about in a self-created atmosphere of tobacco smoke. Everyone already seemed to know each other, and Cas didn¡¯t know anybody. It was like the first day of school again. Cas cursed herself. What kind of person was she? Die, reincarnate into a world of magical adventure, and she still couldn¡¯t clear the hurdle called ¡®socializing¡¯. Wasn¡¯t she supposed to be over this by now? Wasn¡¯t highschool enough punishment? Thankfully, for her, a glance out of the corner of her eye revealed another poor, lonely bastard. They were on the other side of a nearby tree, and only visible by the outline of their Aura. They had a female figure under their armor, and their posture indicated that they had nothing going on in their life. Cas walked a wide arc around the tree, and the figure came into view. It was a dark haired woman wearing dark armor, and in fact it was a familiar face, as well. The girl! Cas remembered her from when Sable had been killing Dalmatian¡¯s unit. She¡¯d been the one who¡¯d transferred out of the unit that morning, and had sat along side her and Sara in the ¡®grey area¡¯ of Sable¡¯s death wish. Apparently, transferring out of a unit had saved her from the Black Flag¡¯s inscrutable criteria. Safe or not, however, she had been a member of that unit for a long time, and probably had made friends there¡­ no wonder she looked so dejected. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Unfortunately for Cas, the girl had already noticed her approaching, and changing trajectories at this point would be far too obvious. After all, Cas hadn¡¯t known who she was walking up to! What was she supposed to say to someone who¡¯d just watched their entire unit get massacred? ¡®I¡¯m sorry your entire unit was horribly butchered,¡¯ came to mind, but that was too forward even by Cas¡¯s standards. ¡®My condolences,¡¯ had been popular back on Earth, but that was overly formal and rote. ¡°So¡­. how about last night?¡± was the third option, but ¨C in porridge terms ¨C that would¡¯ve been overcorrecting enough to blow up the hut. Drawing into greeting range now, and running out of clever ideas, Cas hurriedly settled on the classic: ¡°Hi. My name is Cassandria.¡± A credulous expression met her, as the woman leaned back against the tree trunk to look at her. ¡°Anne,¡± she answered, not moving to take Cas¡¯s hand. Cas retracted the handshake. ¡°Would you like to be left alone?¡± she asked gently. ¡°No,¡± the answer came quickly, though with an annoyed tenor. ¡°I could honestly use the company. Distractions sound nice right about now.¡± The woman spoke with a hard, stacatto accent. Cas would¡¯ve called it German except for the fact that it just wasn¡¯t. ¡°Well, It¡¯s nice to meet you. I¡¯m new around here and trying to make friends.¡± The words had barely left Cas¡¯s smiling lips when the the whole world of murmured conversations fell suddenly silent. And every head in view ¨C and even some that were only visible by dint of their auras ¨C turned immediately to look in her direction. Some were even more shameless than that. ¡°You¡¯re looking to make friends, you say?¡± A man¡¯s head poked past the end of a nearby cart. The outline of his aura hinted at broad-shoulders and a muscular figure, and the sight of him confirmed it as he hopped out of the cart, letting the body of the steel contraption spring up as the suspension decompressed. ¡°Lady Cassandria!¡± be boomed. ¡°My name is Dakula!¡± he announced with a flourish of an imaginary coat, falling down into a performative parody of a royal bow, which ¨C to tell by his demeanor and the dirt coating his outfit ¨C he was obviously unfamiliar with. He had long, dark hair tied back into a ponytail, and features that exaggerated the hyena smile engraved on his face. It wasn¡¯t that he seemed like a happy person, but rather that he was simply refusing to hide how happy he was to meet her. ¡°...nice to meet you,¡± Cas said, offering another handshake which was similarly rejected. This surprised Cas. No one had ever been this happy to see her, and that was counting family members. What surprised her more was how the rest of the crowd was acting. They were subtler than Dakula, but they seemed to show just as much interest if not more. They still kept a distance away, keeping up murmuring conversations, but they¡¯d shifted locations to come closer, and managed always to create a pause in their conversations whenever Cas spoke. Looking back, even some of the people from the regular unit had caught onto the event, gathering around their side of the copse as they tried to peek between the branches for a better look at her. Cas, apparently, had misjudged her popularity, Again, withdrawing her handshake, Cas continued. ¡°I¡¯m surprised you know me.¡± Dacula burst into chuckles at this, one that was shared by his two compatriots, and even some of the less subtler listener¡¯s in. ¡°Right,¡± he attempted sardonically, ¡°the moon elf princess that appears out of nowhere and single-handedly rushes in to save the prince! And she asks if I know her!¡± His composure failed him at this, and he burst into laughs, ¡°Ahahahahahaha! If humble had a name!¡± Cas recognized a tinge of an accent in his words, different from Anne¡¯s. His e¡¯s always managing to roll themselves into r¡¯s. ¡°Princess?¡± Cas said, responding honestly to the barrage of assumptions she¡¯d been thrown. ¡°Oh I¡¯m not really a nobl-¡± A sudden, intense ringing slammed against her aura, and Cas picked up the familiar call. Sara¡¯s mental voice screamed. Whatever mental language Sara used to communicate, it moved much faster than words, and Cas had enough time to course-correct her claims. ¡°Oh, I¡¯m not really nobl- uhhh, part of the main noble family, like that. I was just the third daughter of a¡­¡± she reached for the unfamiliar term, ¡°Nebuchado,¡± she plucked the Nemorian term for ¡®Village Elder¡¯ out of her itinerary. Dacula blinked rapidly. ¡°Oh! Your language. I¡¯m sorry, I wasn¡¯t aware Moon Elves had more than one language. You see my land is quite far from the Elf kingdoms, and we only get the occasional trader. They all spoke your celestial tongue.¡± ¡°Moon elves?¡± Cas asked. Dacula appeared equally confused. ¡°Well, it¡¯s what you are, isn¡¯t it?¡± shortly before Anne ¨C apparently tired of being ignored ¨C answered roughly from beneath them. ¡°Idiot!¡± she hissed up, the insult coming hard through her rough accent ¡°she¡¯s obviously not a moon elf! Look at her ears! Besides, she¡¯s the wrong color anyway!¡± Cas wondered how the woman could see her ears through her hair before she remembered her aura. Dacula, for his part, seemed to be going through a restart as he stared at her ears and rapidly blinked at the new realization. ¡°You¡¯re a human!¡± he yelled suddenly. Immediately, that declaration set off a bomb through the local community, as even the most subdued cliques abandoned all attempts at subtlety and rushed in closer to look at her directly. Cas almost tripped back at this reaction. Apparently, she was even more interesting than an elf would have been. The crowd, now close enough to get a proper look, degenerated into a speculation. ¡°She does have round ears!¡± ¡°Look at her ears!¡± ¡°I¡¯ve never seen a human like her!¡± ¡°Maybe she¡¯s been working on her tan?¡± ¡°How old is she?¡± These were all individual conversations, but eventually someone managed to brave a statement directly at Cas. ¡°You said you held the title of Nebuchado?¡± A distinguished looking smoker asked in between tokes. Raising a skeptical brow over the rim of his pipe. ¡°What manner of rank would that be? And from what sort of far off country are you? I¡¯ve certainly never heard of a Nebuchado anywhere in Human lands. And I¡¯ve been to all the lands anyone here could name.¡± Happy to get a question she was prepared for, Cas went into her spiel. ¡°I¡¯m an adventurer from a continent on the other side of the world. As to my rank, my family would have been¡­ two levels below what you call a King.¡± If the fact that she was human had been shaking, the word ¡®continent¡¯ set off an avalanche as the previously subdued questioning quickly transformed into an auction-house of desperate attention seeking. ¡°How many languages do you speak?¡± an excitable short woman raised her hand, hopping up and down to be seen from her clique of robed figures.. ¡°Do you have a Regalia?¡± An officer from the regular army asked. ¡°What is the name of your kingdom?¡± ¡°Why are you so bl-¡± ¡°Where is this continent?¡± ¡°How did you survive the bay of monsters?¡± ¡°Did you-¡± A sharp, stinging whistle cut across the air and through every conversation. ¡°Listen up!¡± An assertive voice drew all eyes. She was a short woman in her mid twenties, and with a level so high that Cas couldn¡¯t see anything except question marks when sizing her up. She was all mid-tones, and had the same features as the regular soldiers, though she wore a gleaming pendant that identified her as the Chief of Auxiliarys. No one looked happy to see her. Unlike her Sergeant, the Chief spoke in a gentle tone that skated across the sudden silence, trotting out measured statements in a no-nonsense manner. ¡°I have been informed that the Lieutenant is preparing orders. I suggest you make yourselves ready for action.¡± Immediately, the crowd dispersed, as all the various soldiers scattered to their work units. Soon, Cas was left alone, feeling confused as to where to go. Looking back, she was surprised to see Anne still sitting at the base of her tree. ¡°Should¡­ we be running somewhere?¡± Cas asked her. ¡°If you want to,¡± Anne shrugged, seeming unable to muster a fuck to give. ¡°Everyone is just running because they don¡¯t want the Foreman to see them?¡± ¡°What happens if the foreman sees you?¡± Cas asked. ¡°Well you¡¯re about to find out,¡± a third voice turned Cas¡¯s head. It belonged to the foreman, a surprisingly stealthy two hundred and fifty pound man who ¨C having seen them ¨C had an almost cruel smile garnishing his face. Interlude 2: Summary. Cas flies over the mountains into civilized territory, where she meets a human mage named Sara. Sara takes her to an army camp, where she works as a mercinary. There, they arrived in the midst of a battle between two Regalia. Cas intervenes in this, briefly speaking with Prince Haowi the Trinket Ember. Prince Haowi entrusts Cas with his younger brother, who he shrinks down into a magical, red jewel. Cas escapes the monster cloud. The unit she and Sara first met are massacred by the victorious Trinket Sable. An angelic girl intervenes, preventing Sable from noticing the red jewel in Cas''s possession, and saving Cas from the massacre. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Cas is inducted into the former Prince''s army as an Auxillary. Cas cries. Cas later goes to mingle with the rest of the army. She meets Dacula -- an eccentric man -- and runs into a woman named Anne: the sole survivor of the massacred unit. She is introduced to the army, and fails to run away in time when the Chief of Auxillaries calls for a work detail. The Foreman sees her and Anne, and volunteers them for a work detail. Chapter 53: Lost Jewlery By noon, the Lieutenant''s orders had trickled down, and every disparate part of the army moved like clockwork to execute her will. Everyone had their part to play: Sara was in charge of communications, the foot-soldiers ran patrols, the overseers oversaw ¨C usually while drinking coffee ¨C and the medics medicked. And, amidst all this lollygagging, who was responsible for doing all the hard work? Why, the auxiliaries of course. And who among the auxiliaries would be responsible for doing the most grueling of tasks? The answer to that was ''who ever the foreman could get his hands on.'' As it happened, today¡¯s lucky winners had been Cas, the sole survivor Anne, Dacula, and Reg ¨C the smoker who had questioned Cas last time. ¡°Watch it!¡± The foreman, to his credit, was never willing to ask others to do what he himself wouldn¡¯t and he always managed to put himself at the head of whatever bullshit was the central issue in his work camp. ¡°Hey, hey. I said watch it!¡± The foreman yelled through a strained voice, heaving a keg of explosive powder onto his thigh before hopping it up into a press. Cas leant over the twelve-foot high loading bay of the steel carriage, trying to keep a blas¨¦ expression as she and Anne caught the keg from either side, heaving it up onto the steel bed. It was a simple job, and not too difficult with the help of another person. Doing it for six hours in a row was a bit much, however, and Cas could feel her arms turning to noodles as she and Anne dragged this latest load into the bed.. The Steel Carriage caught Cas''s imagination from the first moment she saw it. In Cas¡¯s mind, the word Carriage had always evoked a sense of elegance and piano lacquer, and, you know, wood. These steel monstrosities, on the other hand, had the frame of a covered wagon, and the sensibilities of a fast-food corporation. In that they were two sizes too large to be healthy. The wheels alone were ten feet tall and constructed entirely out of a steel hoop with fence spikes sticking out of the rim. The bed of the carriage was two feet higher above that, and massive, metal springs could be seen supporting it in the clear space between. The carriage top itself rose several stories above all this. A high-arched convex of sheet metal covered over the wagon like a barrel vault. It was utilitiarian in design, and the inside was ten times the brutalist. The interior of the carriage was a warehouse, with walls that rose twenty feet up into an arcing ceiling made out ¨C surprise surprise ¨C steel. The three story interior was separated into six separate floors, with stairs and pulley-elevators that wound up the front of the entire structure. Cas and Anne ¨C being the only ones small enough to move comfortably within the confines of the carriage floors ¨C had spent the past four hours dragging powder-kegs across metal floors, winching them up pulley elevators, and stuffing them into the back corners of every level in this mobile warehouse. Of course, the magic was in the details. The way they had ordered the loading so that the top floor of the carriage was filled first, the way they had decided to stack barrels in alternating configurations, so that vertical barrels could act as retaining walls for the more space efficient horizontal stacks, and of course, there was the tiny detail that they were doing all of this at noon. Fun fact about metal left out in direct sunlight, it got hot, and the monstrosity of a carriage -- too large to fit under any of the surrounding trees, had been heating up for hours at this point. Cas could see waves of heat swimming through the air, refracting the warm light of the magic glow-bulbs that floated by the corners. By the second hour, sweat was trickling down her chin like a loose faucet, hissing off the bare metal floor whenever it made contact. Gripping the edge of the keg, she worked in tandem with Anne to walk it across the metal surface, sending a thunderous sound rumbling through the cart like foley work Her aura kept the heat from being deadly, but it was still uncomfortable, and Cas worked to keep her contact with the bare metal to a minimum. The pulley-elevator, thankfully, had a rope made from fiber, rather than chains. Small victories. Another small victory was the harshness of the work itself. If hard, borderline murderous work was good for anything, it was building comradery, and Cas had found it easy to maintain a conversation with Anne. The nature of their drudgery somehow made it easy to move past the whole "I''m sorry your entire unit was murdered by a Regalia" phase. At first their conversation consisted almost entirely of complaints and grousing, their conditions, that stupidly short third floor which forced them to crouch just to fit in it. Eventually, however, they ran out of complaints and new topics of conversation were opening up. Cas told more lies about her origins. At first, she¡¯d done so quite easily, but soon guilt stabbed at her heart when she noticed how earnestly Anne seemed to be accepting the information, with pure amazement and wonder on her face as she asked eager questions. ¡°So!¡± Anne said, forgetting her earlier gloom and starting a new topic in the usual way for her, with a ¡®so!¡¯ that sounded like it started with a z. ¡°You said you were the third daughter? I know not how it goes in your land, but here most third daughters end up going to the military ya?¡± ¡°Really?¡± Cas said, surprised. ¡°Mandatory service?¡± Anne let out a chortle. ¡°Far from it! Their parents would love for nothing more than for them to marry, but¡­ being third daughters, they can hardly find the husband of their dreams. Usually, most parents prepare two dowries, so¡­ you can see where this is going, ya?¡± ¡°The third daughter doesn''t come with a land deal,¡± Cas answered. ¡°Ya!¡± Anne laughed again, gripping onto the next keg with Cas and heaving it up with hardly a strain. The girl was stronger than she looked, Cas noted, feeling how much weight her partner was bearing. Truth be told, she was probably doing seventy percent of the work, and she wasn¡¯t even sweating. ¡°Third daughters have no money, so usually the parents have to¡­ settle. You know, find a man that has money but no women willing to take him. The kind with a bland personality or a bad one, ya?¡± ¡°That sounds terrible,¡± Cas admitted. ¡°Back where I come from, people marry who they want.¡± ¡°Here too!¡± the woman answered. ¡°Well, it¡¯s really only the nobles that care so much, or families that have a lot of land,¡± she corrected. ¡°But the High King made a law long ago. It said any person would be free if they joined the army. And people joined! Millions of them! This was when the demon queen was at the borders, so that tells how desperate people were for that freedom, ya?¡± ¡°Really?¡± Cas said, even more surprised now. ¡°And all the lower kings allowed it? Wouldn¡¯t it be a problem if some prince decided to marry into an enemy nation or something?¡± ¡°Well¡­¡± Anne¡¯s face twisted into a curl. ¡°Sometimes really powerful families can have a say, if it¡¯s important enough. The Army doesn¡¯t have to accept you, and some families can make sure it doesn¡¯t. But..¡± ¡°But?¡± ¡°Well¡­ if you¡¯re really desperate, in that case, you can still becoming an adventurer. The high king¡¯s declaration goes for anyone who can fight the demons, and adventuring guilds. There are so many of them all over, very few families can make them all say no.¡± Cas was invested in this gossip now, and she craved for more details. ¡°And what happens if adventuring doesn¡¯t work out?¡± This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Anne¡¯s expression took on a pitiable expression. ¡°Oh, then those poor girls get a wedding. Though, It¡¯s not always girls. There are almost as many boys taking advantage of it, nowadays.¡± ¡°So they have no choice, then?¡± Cas said, sounding a bit saddened. Anne thought, answering¡­ ¡°No. Even if adventuring doesn¡¯t work out, well¡­ I shouldn¡¯t say. It doesn¡¯t happen often.¡± Again, they were at the edge of the cart, heaving up another keg. Though, the pain of anticipation made it seem light as a feather to Cas¡¯s hands as she awaited the answer. ¡°What doesn¡¯t happen often?¡± ¡°Well, some still find a way, if adventuring doesn¡¯t work, but it¡¯s scandalous. I¡¯ve never heard of it happening,at least I¡¯ve never met a woman that would admit to it.¡± ¡°Admit to what?¡± Cas said, ready to throttle the answer out of the girl. ¡°Being a mercenary, ya?¡± Anne answered easily, too lost in her own thoughts to notice the shocked expression on Cas¡¯s face. ¡°It¡¯s not good work, to have no allegiances. Really, only the most selfish, black hearted people take it up. I wouldn¡¯t dine with someone like that, even if I met them.¡± Sara immediately came to mind, and Cas rose quick to defend her. ¡°But.. not all of them, right? I mean, you just said they mainly do it to get away from their families.¡± ¡°Hmpf,¡± Anne snubbed her nose at the idea. ¡°''Needing to¡¯ doesn''t excuse everything. There should be other ways. My friend in the Dalmatian unit had run away for the same reason. She wasn¡¯t a noble, but her family owned a distillery, she¡­¡± A blank look hazed out Anne¡¯s eyes as the rest of the story came into full view. ¡®But she died yesterday, because Sable had demanded it for reasons no one could understand.¡¯ Cas knew that was how the story would end, and she worked quickly to dodge the subject. ¡°So¡­¡± she said, matching Anne¡¯s usual preface to new topics, ¡°about these carts. I hate to say it, but I haven¡¯t noticed any draft animals in this army. I hope we won¡¯t be expected to pull it ourselves.¡± This got a laugh out of Anne. ¡°Oh, nooo!¡± she denied. ¡°That would be silly. They¡¯re magical carts! They move themselves.¡± Cas immediately dropped her end of the keg, setting it in place and letting loose a tinny, loud clang through the interior. The load of kegs was stacked just ten feet from the end of the cart bed, now. Looking outside revealed five more crates left to load. Seeing that the foreman was taking a breather below, Cas and Ann decided to have a stand up conversation by the entrance slot, basking in the relatively chill of the outside air. ¡°Huh,¡± Cas poked her head out of the slot to look up at the rising back wall of the cart. ¡°If they can make a cart that can move itself, why the hell can¡¯t they make a cart that loads itself?¡± ¡°Wait¡­¡± the forman called from beneath them. ¡°This cart can move itself?¡± ¡°Ya! Anne answered back. "It¡¯s an old one from the spotted unit. I saw it moving when we were traveling a few days ago!¡± ¡°Why!¡± the forman was near hysterics. ¡°Why didn¡¯t you say so! Don¡¯t you know moving carts can load themselves!?¡± ¡°What!?¡± Cas screamed, her voice harmonizing with the chorus of complaints from everyone on board and off.
As it turned out, the foreman was right. The cart could load itself, and it did so very neatly, reaching out with a magical grasp to levitate the remaining twelve barrels into the lower slot before a ten foot gate slammed up to close the thing. None were in a mood to appreciate the marvel, stuck as they were pointing fingers. The foreman, to his credit, looked abashed. ¡°Why didn¡¯t you tell me it was a moving cart?¡± ¡°How did you think it moved!?¡± ¡°The old fashioned way, of course. We¡¯d pull it!¡± ¡°It¡¯s a moving cart!¡± ¡°Then why does it have a pulling yoke at the front?¡± ¡°It¡¯s an old model! The prince cast the spell on it before we deployed!¡± ¡°Then you should have told me!¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t know moving carts could load themselves!¡± Anne said, refusing to take an ounce of blame for herself. ¡°Everyone!¡± Reg, the smoker ¨C who throughout the entire process had been the most irritable of them all ¨C displayed an almost serene sense of calm, now that he¡¯d regained access to his pipe. ¡°Frankly, I¡¯d say it¡¯s no use arguing about the issue. We can at least say we got some good exercise out of it¡­ best to leave it at that, for the sake of all our sanities.¡± ¡°Agreed!¡± Dacula said, raising a hand which had lost most of its usual cheerfulness. Both of the men had removed their shirts for course of the work. Dacula was the stockier of the two, with a solid stature that filled out his form, and seemed to drag him into an exhausted hunch. Reg, the smoker, had a more wiry figure, with corded muscles that stretched over reaching limbs. And the ends of those limbs moved very dexterously as he repacked the end of his pipe, lighting the bowl before taking a few test puffs of his latest creation. ¡°So, then, Anne. I¡¯d hate to be so forward about it, but you have had more than your fair share of time with the local celebrity,¡± he said, gesturing to Cas. ¡°I suspect the rest of the camp will be wanting her attention by dinner time.¡± ¡°What?¡± Dacula teased with a fox¡¯s smile. ¡°Are you jealous?¡± ¡°No,¡± Reg answered boredly, ¡°I¡¯m tired, and I¡¯m hungry. And I suspect ¨C if Cas is willing to play along ¨C that we can use promises of a conversation with her to get us ahead in the dinner line. Supper starts in thirty minutes. From my experience with this unit, I expect the line will already be full by this hour.¡± Cas had compunctions about using her status to get perks. Past tense. Cas had compunctions. That was before she spent four hours toiling needlessly in a metal hot-box without the actual drugs. ¡°Absolutely,¡± Cas nodded wihout a moment of hesitation. A sigh of relief came from everyone. ¡°Thank goodness you¡¯re not a goody goody girl,¡± Anne almost moaned with relief. "I¡¯m too hungry to follow the line.¡± ¡°Honestly,¡± Dacula cheered, ¡°It¡¯s not even that bad. I mean, we have been working the hardest out of everyone. I say we deserve the pass.¡± Cas noticed among this lively conversation that the foreman was quietly making his way out. He had gained Cas¡¯s respect for taking the hardest jobs in their list of thankless work. And it seemed he was quite used to receiving little appreciation, especially by those he had conscripted. ¡°Uh, foreman,¡± Cas called out, stopping everyone. ¡°You¡¯re invited too, by the way!¡± The foreman looked at her confused and only laughed. ¡°Oh, nooo,¡± he denied severely. ¡°I have more work to do. Besides, I¡¯m in a leadership rank. We¡¯re not allowed to eat until the last foot soldier has received a meal.¡± ¡°Really?¡± Well, that was awfully progressive, Cas thought. ¡°Yes, really,¡± the foreman laughed with his scandinavian-ish santa claus jolly laugh that shook his bushy mustache. ¡°It makes sure to make our soldiers eat. I end up having to chase down every stray that doesn¡¯t make it to mealtime. Hahaha! The head doctor is the worst, always holed away in his tent working on something or other. He forgets to eat-¡± Cas didn¡¯t hear any of the rest of the man¡¯s admonishments as the head doctor¡¯s name rang out in her memory. The head doctor¡­ the same one she was supposed to take the prince¡¯s brother to. The prince¡¯s brother! The one who was royalty! The one which had been shrunk down into a gem and given to Cas!
Cas made it to the medical tent in record time. The white hide tarp gleamed in the sun and the interior was almost clinically cool despite the flapping entrance. Cas managed to get inside it, somehow. The details of everything had been lost amidst horrid memories of panicked ¡®oh craps¡¯ and ¡®how could I forget¡¯s¡¯ as she ran over here. In fact, the majority of her thoughts were still constructed out of that one sentence: ¡®How could I forget¡¯!?¡¯ usually capped by a trio of ¡®stupid!¡¯s. And, to tell by their expressions, everyone else seemed to be thinking the same thing as Cas meekly presented the red gem to the audience. Sara, having maintained a communications channel with her since that morning, had beaten her there and managed to kick out all non-critical personnel in preparation for her arrival. As a result, by the time she¡¯d arrived, only the head doctor, Sara, and Cas were present inside the medical tent. Well, all of them and the prince¡¯s brother, that was. ¡°Is he going to be ok?¡± Cas said, feeling an imaginary slipknot tie around her throat. ¡°He¡¯ll be fine,¡± the doctor consoled. Reaching forward, he took the gem into both hands and placed it onto a pristine, white cloth, with invisible sigils patterned onto its surface, only visible by dint of the aura outlining them. He had the demeanor of a man who¡¯d seen much worse things, and apparently un-shrinking royalty was all in a day¡¯s work for him. ¡°It¡¯s quite an advanced spell, but it¡¯s designed to be quite breakable, I assure you. Just¡­¡± he raised a hand, aura flaming in the space between his fingertips as he focused on the sigil and the gem. ¡°Why didn¡¯t you tell me!¡± Sara whisper-hissed at Cas. ¡°I thought you knew!¡± Cas whispered back. ¡°Besides, I forgot!¡± ¡°How do you forget a prince is in your pocket?¡± ¡°I went through a lot yesterday.¡± Frrruuum! It was a¡­ magical noise. It didn¡¯t correspond to anything in the physical world. But the noise was only a side-effect, for in the brief second that passed, a new entrant had appeared in the midst of their tent. Cas leaned over. The doctor and Sara did the same on either side of her, as they crowded around the small pedestal which had once held a gem, and which now supported a tiny boy. The boy looked much like the prince, except much younger. Midnight amber skin and dark, flowing hair which tufted over his round features. A soft breath raised his chest in a quiet snore, and Cas, making the effort to focus, managed to make out a dimly lit aura rising up around the figure of the boy. And it was quite a strange one, too. Banner Two Score? Well, ¡®score¡¯ was just an archaic way of saying twenty. Doing the mental math, Cas figured the number fourty as the answer, and the character sheet updated accordingly. As with all things aura, the translation was remained mercurial. Banner 40? What could that possibly mean? Banner¡­ where had she heard that term before. Cas then remembered the other name for Trinket Ember. Sara had called it the ¡®First Banner¡¯ of the Ember Regalia. The First Banner. First implied a second, and that implied the Regalia had other banners, too. It was all standard, just another small puzzle piece in the mystery of this world. But the boy was a human, too, and Cas resolved to see him that way. Still, it was hard not to notice the mystery inherent in everything, especially when the angel girl made her second appearance. She was standing over the boy, now, covering his closed eyes with her translucent hand. Cas tried not to stare at what, apparently, only she could see. The girl only smiled again, however, letting out a giggle that shook her shoulders but made no sound as she raised a silencing finger to her lips. Chapter 54: Dinner Talks The prince¡¯s brother woke up confused but otherwise unharmed, and he was big news for all of ten minutes before being shipped out to the Lieutenant''s tent and was promptly forgotten. Cas was by turns relieved and confused. By all accounts, she¡¯d just forgotten and put into danger actual royalty. In the movies, pulling something like that usually ended up with the perpetrator wearing a rope necklace. But, in reality, no one really seemed to care; after the boy had been resuscitated, the prince¡¯s brother had been placed in the Commander¡¯s tent, a rookie officer had been charged with baby-sitting him, and everyone just kind of went on with their day. Even Dacula, Anne and Reg, when they¡¯d caught up with her, and she¡¯d told them about it, merely offered a shrug before directing her to the all important dinner line. Those with an empty stomach only had one problem, but Cas sensed there was more to this than that, and she complained about it to Sara. Unhelpfully, Sara only seemed confused about the question. ¡°I don¡¯t understand what you mean? Why would anyone care?¡± she asked in return. ¡°Uhm, because the boy is a prince?¡± Cas said obviously. ¡°I don¡¯t know, shouldn¡¯t we all be bowing or something? I kind of assumed saving him would be a bigger deal.¡± Again, more confusion. ¡°He¡¯s¡­ not a prince, darling. Where did you gather something like that?¡± ¡°What do you mean? He¡¯s Prince Haowi¡¯s brother, isn¡¯t he?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Sara nodded obviously. ¡°He¡¯s the prince¡¯s brother. That doesn¡¯t make him a prince.¡± That¡­ was technically a fair point. Cas was still unsure how titles were passed around here. ¡°Well¡­ he¡¯s still the king¡¯s son, isn¡¯t he?¡± ¡°The king has many sons,¡± Sara retorted. Cas, growing frustrated, and wanting to justify her earlier emotions, exploded. ¡°Well, he has a banner, doesn¡¯t he? He¡¯s the forty second banner of the EMBER REGALIA!¡± she boomed the name out in a dramatic and scary fashion. ¡°Shouldn¡¯t that mean something?¡± Sara was unperturbed, and merely raised finger in an educational fashion. ¡°He has a banner darling, not the banner. Basically every noble house has a Banner, most of them are simple Magic Tools or Great Weapons or other such nonsense. ¡°Trinket Ember is called the first banner for a reason. It is the heir to Regalia Ember, and essentially the only executor of its will. The other Banners are¡­¡± ¡°Useless?¡± Cas guessed. ¡°Not useless,¡± Sara corrected. ¡°They¡¯re formidable in their own rights, but they were created more for diplomatic purposes, as a show of friendship between the high-king and the lesser noble houses. But don¡¯t let the names mistake you. The Trinkets are powers unto themselves, and far different from the mere Banners or Magic weapons every noble house carts around like they¡¯re something special.¡± Sara ended her tirade with a thoughtful pause, adding. ¡°Incidentally, don¡¯t repeat any of what I¡¯ve said. Some noble houses take their Banners quite seriously, and they wouldn¡¯t be fans, to put it simply.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll try not to,¡± Cas said, trying to get it all straight in her head. ¡°I take it the only really important things are the Regalias and their Trinkets, then?¡± ¡°Yes!¡± Sara nodded approvingly. ¡°And each Regalia has one Trinket?¡± Again, Sara nodded. ¡°No Regalia has ever produced more than one Trinket.¡± ¡°How many Regalias are there, anyway?¡± ¡°Oh, just f- Company-¡± Sara interrupted her answer with a stretched whisper. Their conversations were often done with an air of privacy, not wanting to arouse suspicion should Cas be heard asking about elementary topics. Naturally, their question-answer sessions often came to abrupt ends when company was near, as happened to be the case now, as they approached the lunch-line. Reg, Dacula and Anne stood at the back of it, looking impatiently over at them. ¡°Hurrry now, Lady Cassandria!¡± Reg spoke in a refined voice with only a tinge of hurry in it. ¡°We¡¯ll lose our bargaining position if you dally!¡± ¡°Bargaining position?¡± Sara asked, strolling up beside Cas.¡°What¡¯s this bargaining position he¡¯s talking about?¡± She turned to Cas for explanation, hair springing about with the sudden motion. ¡°Oh, well¡­¡± Cas tried to put it politely. ¡°So, everyone wants to talk to the foreign princess, ya?¡± Anne leapt in with resolve, speaking very seriously about the issue. ¡°Reg says: we can cut in line if we promise to let people talk to her. And I¡¯m hungry!¡± ¡°Cas!¡± Sara said, aghast, turning to look up at the girl with a mortified expression. ¡°You never told me about this?¡± ¡°You don¡¯t approve, madame?¡± Dacula asked. ¡°Of course not!¡± Sara said, sounding almost offended at the question. ¡°Bargaining Cas¡¯s time just to cut a few places in line? A lady would never!¡± she huffed, turning her very nose up at the idea. ¡°And, why is that, exactly, Lady Sara,¡± Reg spoke slowly, managing deftly to hide the sarcasm in his address. ¡°Because,¡± Sara answered simply, turning back to face them all with a wicked smile. ¡°A proper lady is trained in the fine art of negotiation. And, with such an interesting woman on our hands,¡± she gestured to Cas, ¡°I can get us to the very front of this line in no time at all.¡±
In the fine art of negotiation, as she had termed it, Sara was apparently a force to be reckoned. Within seconds, she had announced her plans to the queuers, and before a minute had passed the entire lunch-line had the air of an auction house as all manner of people: soldiers, auxiliaries, medics and scribes screamed at the tops of their lungs for a bit of attention. Of course, it wasn¡¯t a universal reaction. It had been a long day, breakfast had been skipped, and the Lieutenant ¨C hoping to increase morale ¨C had ordered for an extra fine supper to be prepared. Given this, not all present were so interested in giving up their spot for a chance meeting with an interesting stranger. Sara quickly managed a solution to that, too, however. ¡°Everyone pull out your pattern squares!¡± she announced, holding up her glimmering ¨C ivory framed ¨C pattern square in demonstration. ¡°We¡¯re going to do a ticket system. Everyone starts off with a number of points equal to their place in line¡­¡± Cas didn¡¯t quite understand the whole of it. In fact, she doubted anyone understood the whole of it besides Sara herself, but ¨C having gotten everyone to pull their pattern squares out, or to share with a neighbor if they didn¡¯t have theirs on hand ¨C the woman deftly organized a horrifying amalgamation of fractional favor chains and social credits that quickly started to remind Cas of international banking. As far as she understood it, it involved someone getting goat milk in exchange for some wool and then trading that for a spot in line, which they could then exchange for a certain number of questions to be redeemed from Cas during dinner time. All of this was kept seamlessly tracked, somehow, and it was amazing how little sense it made. Still, the end of ten minutes bargaining ended with everyone happy, and, more importantly, with Cas at the front of the line. The provisions master looked almost impressed as he scooped a double helping of stew meat and black bread onto Cas''s plate. Cas wasn¡¯t in the mood to enjoy it. She was experiencing whiplash from how quickly she found herself at the front of the line, walking out on shaky legs like she¡¯d just stepped off a rollercoaster. ¡°So, uhhh, wow,¡± Anne said, stepping out behind her, wide-eyes looking shell shocked. Cas could almost swear that her hair had a windblown look to it. ¡°Indeed,¡± Reg agreed, not quite able to understand what to do with himself. ¡°You have quite an impressive friend there, Cas.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve never had a meal this hot!¡± Dacula was almost crying as he sniffed at the steam rising from the bowl on his plate. ¡°Yeah!¡± Cas bragged with a superior look, almost bursting with pride at her friends accomplishment.. ¡°She¡¯s kind of a boss¡­ She¡¯s a psychic, you know!¡± ¡°Ohhhh!¡± Anne suddenly yelled, turning a painful look of recognition onto the Psychic. ¡°You were the one talking in everyone¡¯s heads during the battle!¡± ¡°Yes, yes,¡± Sara acknowledged it all with a graceful curtsey and a bow of the head, somehow managing the gesture while holding a tray in one hand. ¡°It is I.¡± ¡°Where did you meet her?¡± Anne asked, turning the question to Cas. ¡°Oh, we ran into each other in the forest when she was traveling with some mercina-¡± Cas heard the Psychic shout. She wondered for a moment what the point of pig-latin was in a private psychic line, but adjusted anyway. ¡°When some merci-less monsters were attacking her!¡± ¡°Yes!¡± Sara leapt in, quick to take control of the conversation. ¡°Cas here really saved me. My hero. Anyway, I think those seats there would be fine.¡± Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
The first part of dinner was a quiet affair. Everyone was hungry, and mouths were too busy chewing to engage in speech. Cas, for her part, didn¡¯t really feel her hunger, so she had the spare attention to look around. Almost everyone else was scarfing their soup down with lowered heads, chugging scalding bowls of hot porridge like it was water. A surprising sight to Cas, who took a moment to remember that auras were a thing before quitting her habit of blowing on her spoonful''s. Other than that little discrepancy, however, everything looked surprisingly normal. People sat in small circles around numerous camp-fires that littered the field grounds. In the distance, she could see the auras of the unlucky saps who¡¯d been ordered onto guard duty. And all around her, everyone just ate. It was an oddly human experience, just stuffing your face around a camp fire. Some of the soldiers were even holding onto their pattern squares as they ate, staring at the hypnotizing lights their auras created in the glimmering surface of the square plates. From a distance they almost looked like bored teens staring at their phones during meal-time. Eventually, bellies were filled and bowls were empties, and people began to look up from their distractions. Normally, this would be the time for pleasant conversations all around, but tonight was not a normal night, and Cas began to feel the expectations of a thousand minds turn in her direction. ¡­ As happened every night, the officers were the last to eat. This was tradition, but they did have perks of their own. For instance, the command staff had their meals prepared separately, so cold food was never an issue. In addition, whereas the regulars made do with sitting on the ground, the command staff got an actual table. This night, however, despite their table and rank, the most interesting seat in the camp was on the ground, around one of the fires, where all the soldiers, auxiliary and regular, had gathered to attend the interview of Cas ¨C the princess from another land. The seating arrangements around Cas were complicated, determined mainly by who had the better bargaining position during Cas''s ascent to the front of the lunch line. Officers, eating last by tradition, didn¡¯t have the opportunity to bargain for a seat, and it was generally frowned upon for them to enter upon trading negotiations with the soldiers, but few missed the fact that ¨C unusually for a commander ¨C the Lieutenant had her table moved uncharacteristically close to rabble, and to the gathering of soldiers that had formed around Cas. Even the Lieutenant could get bored of the same conversations after four months of campaigning, and she wasn¡¯t immune to the excitement of meeting a strange person from the other end of the world. As it turned out, Cas''s sham status of being this world''s first inter-continental explorer was the highlight of people''s interest in her, and much of the early discussion centered around that. People asked about her land, her people, her wealth, and generally all the ¡®so how is it over there¡¯ questions you would ask a foreigner. Cas answered directly, constructing most of the answers from her experiences on Earth, helped along every once in a while by Sara, who would whisper in her mind hints such as: And Thankfully, no one seemed eager to cross examine her noble status. Her mannerisms and generally unrefined demeanor were easily explained away by the fact that she was supposedly speaking in a second language, and her lack of ¡®elegance¡¯ as Sara had put it, was explained by the fact that she was from a foreign society with different customs. Really, though. Cas somewhat suspected that they just wanted to believe that she was a noble. It made for a more romantic story. Then came the questions about the details of her journey. This went smoothly enough, with Cas playing the convincing part of an ignorant noble ¨C one who knew nothing of sailing except the payroll for her crew. At least, it went smoothly until a man who''d been third in line asked his question. "How did you get past the leviathans?" Sara whispered in her mind. "I''m not sure; they just let me through," Cas answered confidently. ¡°Really?¡± the man asked. ¡°You didn''t negotiate with them?¡± He sent that question out like a fishing line, and Cas could sense a bait in it. Cas repeated the sentence word for word, which drew a laugh from the assorted crowd. "Isn''t that the truth," the man agreed. Sara instructed sending with the urgency of someone eager to paste over a hole in their story. Cas took control and moved the subject to safer topics, answering plainly everything that could be explained by analogy. She was just getting into the details of the university system ¨C drawing from her experiences on Earth ¨C when Sara interrupted. Taking that to heart, Cas lightened her answers, focusing more on entertaining stories than accuracy. It was a good experience, to be so cross-examined. It helped get the story straight in her mind for whenever she¡¯d need it in the future, not that there was much to get straight. It was a simple story, in the end. Cas was the third daughter of a powerful family. She was given a ship and a crew as her independence present and tried her hand as an explorer. It was a good try, until her ship hit the bay of monsters and exploded. The man that was third in line stood in the way of this simple story, complicating it with his earnest questions and genuine interest¡­ disgusting. ¡°You said your family was¡­ how do you say¡­ two ranks below the king of your land?¡± He spoke in the same accent as Anne, and Cas tried not to sound hesitant as she answered the minefield of a question. ¡°Yes,¡± she nodded. ¡°Then, do you have a Banner?¡± Cas made a sad expression, remembering Kari to help sell the effect. ¡°Unfortunately, I was unable to retrieve it from my ship before it capsized. I barely survived the event myself.¡± Supportive faces were all around, and a few of the more noble personages made cringing, sympathetic expressions from the officer¡¯s table. Cas kept her sad face up, and soon questions about such personal matters were abandoned entirely. The conversation shifted in favor of more interesting things like: ¡°Makeup?¡± Cas asked, staring into the wide eyed innocence of the preppy girls as they crowded into her inner circle. ¡°Ya,¡± a pale girl with black hair and Anne¡¯s accent asked. ¡°Tara says you would wear white, but I say darker color would suit you best. We want to know.¡± Cas hurried remembered the basics. ¡°Uhh, purple and gold, generally,¡± she nodded, surprised at the awed squeals that came from the trio. ¡°You must show us!¡± the girl begged. ¡°Maybe another time!¡± Cas answered. ¡°Unfortunately, my makeup also capsized.¡± She made a mental note to avoid the girls in the future. Nothing against them, but she was afraid they¡¯d keep asking about her makeup, and ¨C while Cas wore makeup ¨C she¡¯d never really developed the skill beyond what it took to get her through the day, and it frankly would have looked amateurish compared to the three girl¡¯s masks¡­ and that¡¯s if she wasn¡¯t colorblind. This naturally led to the next obvious question, which drew much sustained interest. ¡°Yes, but why,¡± a younger woman asked, sitting forward in a thinking posture as if it pondering the greatest conundrum. ¡°Hmm¡­ well, the southern lands here host darker people,¡± Reg supposed, gesturing to a regular soldier, ¡°and everyone can get naturally darker from sun exposure,¡± he gestured to a tanned Slyxian. ¡°It follows then ¨C¡± he continued, tapping the last bits of ash out of his pipe ¡° ¨C that wherever Lady Cassandria is from must have more intense sunlight than any land hitherto ascertained by human eyes, uhmm¡­ excluding the people of your kingdom of course," he gestured to Cas directly. ¡°I think that sounds about right,¡± Cas nodded, thankful to have someone else explain the obvious for a change. Of course, even this topic wasn¡¯t enough for the short scholar, who suddenly jumped in. ¡°Are you married?¡± ¡°Ooooohhh!¡± A chorus of spicy interest rose through the crowd. ¡°No,¡± Cas answered shortly, drawing a disappointed ¡®awwww¡¯ from the section of the crowd who had been hoping for a tragic romance. ¡°Although,¡± Cas hastened to backpedal, sensing the disappointment. ¡°I have dated.¡± ¡°Dated?¡± Anne asked, looking as if she were speaking a foreign language. ¡°Uhm,¡± Cas struggled for the appropriate term. ¡°It¡¯s like courting.¡± The word had barely left her lips before a new, renewed, ¡°Oooooooooooohhhhhhhhhh!¡± spread through the crowd, louder than ever. Of such interest was the topic, that people for a moment abandoned their earlier agreements to yield questions in favor of shouting them. ¡°Did your family choose them?¡± ¡°Was there a fight?¡± ¡°Is that why you left?¡± ¡°Did they die on the ship?¡± ¡°What!?¡± That last one was Sara, who looked at her with a heartbroken expression. ¡®How could you keep something so important from me!?'' the look on her face seemed to ask. Cas, sensing she¡¯d set up a land-mine she didn¡¯t know how to diffuse, tried to walk back her claim. ¡°Well¡­ it¡¯s not as serious as you¡¯re all thinking, I¡¯m sure.¡± ¡°Yeah!¡± Sara pouted, crossing her arms with an annoyed huff. ¡°It¡¯s not important at all, is it? Anyway, go ahead. Tell us,¡± she beckoned. ¡°Well¡­¡± Cas continued, seeing Sara had abandoned her and looking around for help. Anne came to the rescue. ¡°All of you are so nosy!" she chastised. "Of course she¡¯s not married; look at how young the girly is!?¡± Cas was surprised to be hearing that from a girl in her early twenties, but a look down revealed that her outfit was worn loosely over her figure. A look at her status sheet confirmed the same. She was 16 again! Hadn¡¯t she been twenty two just days ago? Was that why she¡¯d been so awkward and emotional the past two days? How, though? Cas distinctly remembered eating just enough mass to turn twenty two the morning of the battle¡­ right before she ran into the screaming cloud and lost several pounds of mass... It was a strange thing to remember: having to to check your age, of all things. She¡¯d have to keep a better eye on that, in the future. All further musings were interrupted, however, as a bonfire of exclamations roared through the crowd at Anne¡¯s next, gasoline statement: ¡°Besides,¡± Anne continued, growing unusually heated about the matter. ¡°Cas had no need to run away. She told me herself. Nobles from her land can choose who they marry, whether they join the army or not!¡± Anne said this with a raised chest, as if proud of her exclusive sources. The reaction from the crowd was immediate, and far less subdued. ¡°What!¡± they all seemed to roar in unison. ¡°You chose your courting partner entirely by yourself?¡± Reg asked, amazed, pipe nearly slipping from his lips as he stared at her. ¡°How romantic~¡± one of the preps nearly fainted. ¡°How scary!¡± A scholar woman replied, rolling her fingers together. ¡°My,¡± Sara said through gritted teeth. ¡°You certainly seem to be telling everyone everything.¡± ¡°Where did you meet them?¡± a voice in the crowd asked, all pretensions of favors and question trading forgotten as the whole crowd silenced themselves and gathered about her for story time. Several of them held up pattern squares to their vision, letting them glow with psychedelic patterns as they ran their auras over them. ¡°Well¡­¡± Cas, deciding she¡¯d stepped into it deep enough, already, decided to go for the truth. ¡°I just met them at my university. I thought we got along, and they agreed, so¡­ we started dating.¡± ¡°Ohmahgaw!¡± one of the preps, a regular soldier squealed. ¡°It¡¯s just like the stories!¡± ¡°Hmpf! Well, maybe it needs to stay in the stories. How scandalous to court someone without even the good advice and proper attention of your family! This person could have already been married for all you know, or been who knows what sort of scoundrel!¡± Several other murmurings of disapproval were apparent in the crowd. Anne rose up to her defense with the wrath and singe-minded focus of a bulldog, face growing pink from emotion. "Who are any of you to speak such things?" she challanged. "I¡¯ll have you reminded: it is not your station. Simple, free-people like us have no right to speak of nobles in such a way. Most of your families have no lands to weigh over your happiness; it is not the same with noble girls, at all. My dear friend in the spotted unit was a third daughter I¡¯ll have you all know, and she was a very kind girl, a very sensible girl, and if she had been allowed the freedom, the world would be a better place, I say. It¡¯s absolutely scandalous that we allow fine ladies to trudge in the dirt and even do mercenary work just to have a say in their lives!¡± Anne was exanuating, growing emotional at the memory of her passed friend, and heated over her political opinions, and angry at how everyone was dismissing the evidence Cas had presented for a better way. And her passion was apparent, in the way it silenced all. Sara was silent, too, though for a different reason, Cas knew. Sara showed nothing. At least, there was nothing in her expression or body language to hint to it, but Cas knew mercenary talk was a sore spot for her. She stood up with a sigh and brushed her dress: Some people near her begged her to stay. Sara had a perfectly serene expression as she denied their requests. A person in command of fewer facts might have believed the facade. ¡°No, no,¡± she said politely, embarking on a departure. ¡°I must be going. Besides, I¡¯ve spoken to Cas for so long. I¡¯ve already heard all her stories. My presence here is just taking the place of someone I¡¯m sure she¡¯d much rather tell her stories to.¡± Cas continued her stories, with just as much cheer, but her heart had fallen out of it. The reaction from Sara had been¡­ not great, and somehow she felt that she had something to do with it. Chapter 55: Excel Cas continued the conversation, running on autopilot until the night grew dark and people¡¯s weariness overcame their curiosity. Eventually, to many disappointed groans, Cas excused herself. Dinner ended after that, having lasted much longer due to her presence. Quickly, all the fires were smothered with dust, and the people were scattering away to their various tents, and tree branches, and particularly soft patches of dirt. Sara, being the only Psychic, had her own tent in the officer camp. ¡°Come in!¡± she said simply after Cas knocked. ¡°Oh!¡± her manufactured smile disappeared after Cas poked her head in. ¡°It¡¯s you.¡± ¡°Ok, look,¡± Cas immediately launched into apologies as she entered into the tent. ¡°I know why you¡¯re mad, and I just want to say: I didn¡¯t think it was that big of a deal.¡± ¡°What?¡± Sara said, pulling a confused face. ¡°Dating,¡± Cas said. ¡°I know you call it courting here, but I noticed you seemed mad when I told Anne first. I didn¡¯t think it was that important! I mean-¡± ¡°Cas, Cas,¡± Sara calmed. ¡°I¡¯m not mad at you. Ok, well, I was a bit annoyed when you told Anne first, but that was a professional annoyance. I was just insulted that I¡¯d been beaten to the gossip game, is all! I¡¯m not a little girl, Cas. I wouldn¡¯t get mad because you told another person your secrets before me. We literally met two days ago, now if that¡¯s all you had to say¡­¡± Sara rolled back over into her sleeping bag, with the tired voice of someone who¡¯d been woken up in the middle of the night to hear nonsense. Cas almost believed it. ¡°Is that why you stormed off in the middle of the conversation?¡± Sara was not one to be caught in a lie, however. ¡°I said I wasn¡¯t mad at you darling, not that I wasn¡¯t mad. I have a right to be angry, don¡¯t I?¡± Cas was relieved, though curiosity got the better of her. ¡°Wanna tell me what you¡¯re mad about?¡± ¡°No,¡± a simple answer. ¡°Is it because of the stuff Anne said about mercenaries?¡± Sara let out a long sigh. ¡°Of course not. General opinions are my forte, and I know what people think of me ¨C what they would think of me if they knew, and something as lukewarm as that isn¡¯t going to bother me. Now, if you would please, I must get back to bed,¡± Sara drew her sleeping back over her shoulder with a yawn. ¡°Beauty sleep is a demanding mistress.¡± Cas left the tent convinced that Sara was telling the truth. Although, in the back of her mind, she retained enough self awareness to question if that was because the woman¡¯s words made sense, or simply because Sara had such a talent for convincing others. A charisma stat of seventy five was quite the pendant to wear, after all, and it showed in the woman''s uncanny ability to so navigate conversations. It was hard to tell, with Sara. Cas left the tent and took a moment to appreciate the night sky. Light Pollution had robbed her of the privilege on Earth, but ¨C whenever she remembered to ¨C Cas liked to look at the sprawl of starlight which decorated the roof of this world. She wondered how far away those alien stars were, and how large they had to be even as they floated weightlessly above her like pinprick points of light. Cas then remembered her unusual capacity to measure distances. She could look at a mountain and discern it was ten miles away ¨C give or take ¨C and when flying she could tell her altitude down to the foot. It was an unnatural ability. After all, what did thousand feet look like to the human eye, and how was it different from five thousand, or nine thousand, or thirty thousand? Cas wasn¡¯t sure, but she was able to tell the difference instinctually. So, why not try the same trick on the stars? Cas thought. She stared hard at the miniscule points of light, squinting her eyes and straining her senses. Her aura picked up. Cas realized she was swaying side to side. And then, a moment to late, Cas figured the distance and her hackles raised as she felt herself suddenly engulfed by infinite distance. It was... terrifying. Even the moon seemed impossibly far away. The starts were even further than that? Cas, of course knew that the stars were distant points of light, but she''d never felt it like this, before. The knowledge alone had never made her want to throw up. She couldn''t even measure the distance, really. She just understood it was further away than she could ever concieve. Those little stars, how bright were they, reallty? How large did they have to be? Cas, of course, already knew this. She¡¯d read the facts in her science textbooks. She knew the sun was so many yottatons, that it could fit a million earths inside of it, that space was so vast it would take light thousands of years to reach them. But now she could feel those implications, and the universe just didn¡¯t seem to make sense. How could all of that just be hanging up there? Why all of that just for a light-show? ¡°So, are you ok, Cas?¡± Anne¡¯s manner of speech was always so down to earth, and it dragged Cas down to the same level, letting her take a refreshing breath amidst the coil of her hyperventilation. ¡°Yeah,¡± Cas answered immediately without thinking. ¡°I was just¡­ appreciating the night sky,¡± she smiled, trying to keep the inflecting sarcasm out of her voice. ¡°Beautiful, isn¡¯t it? ¡°Ya,¡± Anne said, with a bit of hesitation. ¡°It can be scary to watch it when you have a pattern square, though. I remember I cried the first time I accidentally looked up with my pattern square,¡± she laughed. ¡°Mama, came running over. She thought I was crying because I stared into the sun too long, but when she found out I stole her square, haha! She spanked me red after that, ya!¡± Cas, in a mind to look around while avoiding a view of the horizon, focused her attention on the pin-points of aura that dotted the lower face of the hill. Most of them were sleeping figures lying out in the open, or hiding within a treetop or ditch. Some were awake, however, either on patrol or in a pleasant conversation or¡­ using their pattern squares. It was shocking how she¡¯d missed it, but about five percent of everybody seemed to be using their pattern squares at any spare moment. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Cas still had no idea what pattern squares were, and she was too afraid to ask. Sara hadn¡¯t answered her when she first asked, so Cas considered waiting until morning to bring the subject up again. At least, that was until she returned her attention back to Anne and realized that what she¡¯d previously mistaken to be a white sigil on the black shoulder of her armor was, in fact, the bright face of a patten square sewn into her clothes. That was it, patience be damned, Cas was getting answers, now. She refused to partake in a three-shells situation. ¡°What is that, by the way,¡± she asked, pointing to the square sewn into Anne¡¯s armor. ¡°Oh, a pattern square,¡± Anne answered. ¡°Yes, but what does it do?¡± Anne looked confused second. ¡°Oh, do you not have these in your country?¡± ¡°No,¡± Cas kept her answer curt, trying to hurry to the point. ¡°Oh dear,¡± Anne raised a hand to her cheek. ¡°How unlucky. I couldn¡¯t imagine life without my pattern square.¡± ¡°Yes, yes, but what does it do?¡± ¡°In fact there¡¯s actually a joke that goes around Drussland,¡± Anne laughed. ¡°It goes like this: ¡®if tomorrow all our swords broke, the army would fight with its shovels. However, if tomorrow the pattern squares stopped working: society would collapse!¡± Anne¡¯s laugh was interrupted by the savage shaking Cas induced on the woman¡¯s shoulders. ¡°Yes, yes, yes. Pattern squares are amazing, they¡¯re fantastic, they¡¯re worth their weight in ten tons of silver, but please can you just tell me what they actually do!¡± Cas was beginning to grow desperate. Anne, seeing the seriousness, paused to think of it. ¡°Well. It¡¯s complicated to explain. They can do many things, ya?¡± ¡°Give me some examples,¡± Cas begged. ¡°Well, it depends on how good you use them, but¡­¡± Anne searched for some offhand examples, flaring her aura around the pattern square at her shoulder, as if to taunt Cas further with its mystery. ¡°Oh ya!¡± she said at last, ¡°At least they can do the basic stuff. Everyone can use them for that!¡± ¡°What is the basic stuff!¡± Cas said, drawing an annoyed groan from one of the nearby sleeping tents. Cas couldn¡¯t have cared less about other people¡¯s sleep in the moment, though, as she grilled Anne for answers. ¡°Well, like I said, they can do lots of things. Retrieve memories, help with calculations, store knowledge, measure distances, keep track of time uhmm¡­ they just help your thinking, really.¡± ¡°Really?¡± Cas tried to sound more curious than doubtful. ¡°They help your thinking?¡± ¡°Ya! My calculations teachers said they become an extension of your mind. Well¡­ he said they help expand your mind.¡± ¡°That seems rather impossible for a blank plate,¡± Cas said, pointing at the glowing square on her shoulder. Anne, seeming to take Cas¡¯s skeptical note as a challenge, redoubled her effort in the conversation. ¡°Well, it¡¯s like this,¡± she said, ¡°what is 20,221 multiplied by 864?¡± Cas resisted the urge to simply plug the numbers into her excel sheet and answered. ¡°Well, I wouldn¡¯t be able to do it my head easily, but if I had some paper-¡± ¡°Ah ha!¡± the woman said, elated at Cas finally getting the point. ¡°If you had paper, you could be able to find the answer, or remember the things that happened a long time ago, or to look over your ideas multiple times. A piece of paper is a simple thing, but it can act as an addition to your mind, is it not so?¡± Anne grew excited at this victory in the conversation, losing her finer grasp of the language and resorting to the more idiosyncratic phraseology carried over ¨C presumably ¨C from her native language. Even her accent seemed to grow thicker. ¡°I suppose that¡¯s true¡­¡± Cas admitted. ¡°Well, pattern squares are like that, but you use them with your aura. Here, try it,¡± the woman said, leaning over so that her shoulder was within reach. Cas reached out and touched the square, feeling the midnight anger of her aura as it burst up and engulfed the pattern square in blue fire. [Item Equipped: Pattern Square] [Advanced Excel Functions unlocked!] [Excel Graph (Unaffected)] [Notes (Unaffected)] [Distance finder (Unaffected)] [Time keeper (Unaffected)] Cas overplayed the look of amazement. ¡°Wow, it certainly can do a lot.¡± Meanwhile, she was stuck on the subject of¡­ why could she already do what the pattern square did for others. Looking off to a distant hill, Cas could tell it was exactly 1421 feet away. That¡­ certainly was more accurate than her usual ability, but the fact that she was able to tell distances and do calculations at all was something to be looked into. Why did she have the ability to do naturally what it took others specialized tools to manage? Cas looked over the pattern square. Up close and in the light, it had a certain ceramic sheen to it, and the surface of it glimmered with an iridescent light whenever Anne¡¯s shifting movement swung it through the moonlight. ¡°How do you guys make this thing, anyway?¡± Cas asked, deciding to leave the mystery of her abilities for another time. ¡°Oh!¡± Anne perked up again, excited to be asked an obscure question she knew the answer to. ¡°They can be made of many things now, but traditionally they were made from the eye of a water prince.¡± ¡°A water prince?¡± Here Anne hit a stumbling block, mouth twisting in a curious expression as she looked up through the corner of her eye for ideas. ¡°Water prince, water prince¡± she repeated again, shaking her leg in thought. ¡°You know, those small monsters,¡± she brought her hands together into a small shape. ¡°They¡¯re found in caves. They eat anything!¡± That¡­ basically described every low level monster in Siablo, and unfortunately for Cas, she had played the English version with English labels, and it seemed obvious that ¡®water prince¡¯ was a direct translation from Anne¡¯s native language. Seeing that her description had failed to bring anything up in Cas¡¯s mind, Anne went insead for an action scene. ¡°The way you make it, is that you first find the water princes, and if you get a big enough one, you can pluck out its eye and carve it into a pattern square.¡± Cas cringed a bit at that. ¡°That seems¡­ painful.¡± ¡°They grow back!¡± the woman said, allied. ¡°Ugh!¡± letting out a frustrated shout, she suddenly twisted about to look at the two auxiliaries who had made her acquaintance. ¡°Reg! Dacula!¡± she signaled them with a waving hand. They arrived in short order, and with good intentions, but five minutes of conversation proved unfruitful, as far as results were concerned. Dacula hemmed loudly, as if puzzling over the greatest puzzle. ¡°Well, in my language we call them Bambalinas.¡± ¡°What does that mean?¡± ¡°Soft,¡± he answered smilingly. ¡°What about you, Reg? Shouldn¡¯t you know this? You speak this language good, don¡¯t you?¡± ¡°I speak it well enough,¡± Reg spoke in accent-less English, raising a hand to smooth a black mustache. ¡°My parents had good tutors, but my lessons were¡­ rather unconcerned with trivialities such as the names of minor monsters. Besides, I¡¯m sure most people in this region would recognize what you meant by ¡®Water prince¡¯. It just borders Drussland, doesn¡¯t it?¡± he looked over to Anne for confirmation. ¡°Oh? Tutors?¡± Dacula expressed his surprise loudly. ¡°I thought for sure you must have been half-Sonarian! You certainly look like the regulars.¡± Reg sighed. ¡°I am from Rania, and I¡¯ll ask you not to confuse the matter further,¡± he said sternly, though calmly as he tapped out his pipe, idly wiping the bowl with a white cloth. ¡°Oh! Aren¡¯t you the ones who get annoyed when people call you Sonarian?¡± Anne¡¯s eyes lit up in a display of mischievous intention. ¡°We do, because we¡¯re not,¡± Reg kept his cool, sliding the stem of his pipe into the holster of his pouch. ¡°But you have the same king,¡± Dacula teased. Reg looked aside, indignant. ¡°His majesty the high king rules over all men.¡± ¡°Sure,¡± Dacula admitted, ¡°but the high king is the Emperor. Wouldn¡¯t you have a different king if you were a different country?¡± Reg looked aside. ¡°I believe we¡¯re straying off topic. We should just ask one of the regular soldiers. I¡¯m sure they ought to know. Hey! You!¡± Reg yelled suddenly, picking out a blue aura with a low-ranking pendant glowing on his chest. ¡°Yeah, what is it?¡± the regular asked, walking forward. ¡°We want to know,¡± Dacula engaged with his usual flourish. ¡°What do you call a water prince in your language.¡± ¡°The man only raised a dark eyebrow. The hell¡¯s a water prince?¡± The same problem, now in reverse. Cas resisted valiantly the ten-thousand pound force which attracted palm to face. Dacula accused, turning to Reg. ¡°You said the people around here would know what that meant!¡± ¡°Do I look like I¡¯m from around here?¡± the regular interrupted. ¡°I¡¯m from down south, came with the prince¡¯s division, rest his soul. Anyway, I repeat, what the hell is a water prince?¡± All at once, the party tried to answer. ¡°-those small things, that live in caves and eat¡± ¡°¡®-soft, we call them Bambalinas-¡±, ¡°-a completely different culture to you Sonorians-¡± Cas cut through it with the impatience of someone who wanted to flip the game board. ¡°They¡¯re the things you make pattern squares out of!¡± she said bluntly. ¡°Drusslanders call them Water Princes, but we want to know what you call them!¡± ¡°Oh!¡± The soldier¡¯s lit up in recognition. ¡°Those little jerks! Ha! I¡¯d say water prince is too good a name for them. I swear, if it wasn¡¯t for¨C¡± ¡°Just tell us what the hell they¡¯re called!¡± Cas screamed, staring at him with the withering end of her patience. ¡°Alright, alright,¡± the man calmed. ¡°I happen to know they¡¯re called different things depending on where you go. Up here, I¡¯ve heard people calling them Mires, or Squides, and apparently Water Princes, I guess. Further east, they call em¡­ uhh, Quorin, the pretentious fucks.¡± None of those names rang a bell for Cas, so she went to the final resort. ¡°And, down south. What do they call them there?¡± The man shrugged. ¡°We just call them slimes.¡± Chapter 56: Sand Angler Reincarnation had its challenges. Cas knew that. Among these challenges was ignorance. You just didn''t know anything about your new world, and had to constantly fake your way through every conversation. If you were lucky, some kind person might subject you to a lore dump, and Cas hated lore dumps. Cas knew this, and she''d braced herself for it, but... it just never seemed to end. She¡¯d been in this army for two days, and already her life was unbalanced by more questions than a Lost episode. What are Regalias? What are Trinkets? Why did no one care about the prince¡¯s brother? Why did her eyes function as magical protractors? What was Sara so mad about? And, most immediately: what was that guy¡¯s name again? ¡°Good evening, Lady Cassandria,¡± a regular soldier greeted in passing. One of the pitfalls of fame: everyone knew your name, and you had to constantly pretend that you hadn¡¯t forgotten theirs. ¡°Good evening to you, too, my good sir!¡± Cas returned the casual salute and shifted her course to avoid any more awkward interactions. Heading south, Cas went to the dinner field. ¡®Why couldn¡¯t life be simple for once?¡¯ Cas sat next to an abandoned fireplace. The embers were black, but still radiated a comforting warmth. Cas took a deep breath. The temperature was nice, thanks to the ash, so¡­ why couldn¡¯t she just sit and enjoy that? She sank further into the log, attempting to feign a casual posture. There, that wasn¡¯t so bad, was it? Then Cas remembered the little Angel Girl, who had saved her from Sable, and a thousand worrying implications demanded her attention. Who was the mysterious girl? Why could only Cas see her? Was she really a friend? Did Cas need to be worried? What were Regalias again? Why did the Angel Girl care so much about the prince''s brother when no one else did? Seriously, what was that guys name again? It was torture! Cas was beginning to miss village life. It had been troublesome, but at least the troubles were straightforward. Here, Cas couldn¡¯t even be sure if she should be worried, which was the most worrying thing of all. Hell, Cas was starting to miss being in the screaming cloud! Running for her life amidst thousands of monsters had felt¡­ quite reassuring, in a way. It was a situation with clear answers. Sure, the answers were invariably something like ¡®don¡¯t die¡¯, but at least there had been answers. Now, sitting peacefully in the safety of a camp, Cas was more flighty and nervous than ever. Funny¡­ hadn¡¯t she been a bit too calm and collected in the screaming cloud? Cas remembered the racing speed of her thoughts at the time. Her running theory had been that Aura augmented her intelligence but ¨C if that was the case ¨C why did she feel so normal, now? Maybe her aura had to be more active? Would she get that boost again if she activated her aura in the right way? It couldn¡¯t hurt. Goodness knows she could use an intelligence boost right about now. So, Cas tried to ¡®utilize her aura more actively¡¯, whatever that meant. Leaning forward in her seat and shutting her eyes, Cas focused, trying to grasp at that blue glow which flamed around her. Several hours passed like this, and eventually Cas ran out of gas. The lack of results was frustrating, to say the least. Her aura was right there. She¡¯d used it before. She was using it now, so why, why, why wasn¡¯t it just giving her that intelligence boost she was so nicely asking for? The entire camp was asleep around her. Only a few blips of aura in the distance ¨C the regulars running night patrols ¨C showed any signs of life. Certainly, now would be a rude time to throw a fit and curse the universe, so Cas managed a quiet reprimand in her thoughts: ¡®darn¡¯. In truth, Cas couldn''t sustain any anger. Hours of mental effort had exhausted that part of her. She remembered how nice it had felt when her aura boosted her, how easily all the answers came to mind, and the experience only highlighted how terrible she felt now, straining under the weight of a thousand unanswerable questions. Vainly, she tried one last time. She tried to call forth memories of anger, and frustration mixed in with the comforting nostalgia of a warm house in the middle of winter. Nothing. Another complete failure of an attempt. Cas, too tired to even think of humoring her frustration, simply let go¡­ and stopped trying. And that¡¯s when it happened. Aura XP Cap Reached! Aura Level modification: Aura LVL 5 -> 5. Aura Proficiency Improvement: Untrained -:> Novice Additionally, for the first time, there was a description tied to the changes:
Aura is a speckled vision of what lies beyond reality. Unconstrained by natural laws, it is the host of infinite power. Be careful.
That was new. Usually, her updates were the circular sort, stating something that was either obvious or damn obvious. The kind of thing you¡¯d find in a book of tautologies or videogame loading screens¡­ Fair enough, Cas decided. But, this. Cas brought up her status sheet to look over the changes. This was new. Obviously, there was more to aura than the level number. Proficiency was probably a hidden stat. It made sense, a beginner wouldn¡¯t know how good they were until they started learning, after all. The description was very new, however, and it surprised Cas how easily she found herself able to ignore it. That was just the thing with the Aura boost. It didn¡¯t necessarily improve the quality of her thoughts, but it was helpful for ignoring distractions. This ''Aura'' stuff, the Angel-Girl, Regalias, Trinkets, socializing: these were all incomprehensibly complicated subjects Cas couldn¡¯t possibly expect to understand right now, and so ¨C with the decisive confidence of her Aura-Boost guiding her ¨C it was easy to move onto things she could do something about. For instance, there was the fact of her status screen. It was a familiar sight. Cas had seen it hundreds of times, at this point. But looking at the same same thing over and over again¡­ if familiarity bred contempt, then surely over-exposure did just the opposite. Looking at it with a fresh mind, Cas was able to see just how¡­ wrong it was. The color choices were jarring, the spacers were unnecessary, she¡¯d wasted space up top stating her name and species, both things she already knew, and this wasn¡¯t even mentioning the fact that her aura modifier went all the way down to magic affinity: a stat which she not only didn¡¯t use, but also wasn¡¯t affected by her aura! Wait¡­ how did she know magic affinity wasn¡¯t affected by her aura? Cas accepted that she just did¡­ probably a result of her new proficiency. With a shrug, she put that mystery on to the ¡®later¡¯ pile and looked upon her new and bedazzled character sheet. But she¡¯d hardly made the changes when something new struck out at her. That was the refreshing thing about the aura boost. Normally, thinking required effort. Now it felt like quite the opposite. It felt like her mind was rolling down-hill, and it was Cas¡¯s job to tap the breaks. But, perversely, Cas wondered what would happen if she neglected that duty. What if she let it go on rolling, gaining speed? For instance, glancing down at the bottom of the status screen brought her age into view. She was 16. She¡¯d been 22 just days ago, hadn¡¯t she? Repressed memories of getting blasted into chunks and being eaten alive by flying piranhas returned themselves. Right, Cas remembered. She¡¯d probably lost about six years worth of mass in the monster cloud. Her teenage body also neatly explained why she¡¯d been so nervous and awkward recently. Honestly, with such stark differences in psychology, it was a wonder Cas hadn¡¯t noticed earlier. She¡¯d have to make a habit of checking her age in the future. Unfortunately, she¡¯d probably have to stay in her teens, now that everyone had seen her at this age. It was nothing a few years worth of false aging couldn¡¯t fix, but she would also have to be careful about taking damage in the future. Taking damage caused her to grow younger, and growing younger would probably cause some unwanted questions. Cas¡¯s mind was in free-fall, now, and thoughts passed by like telephone poles on the highway ¨C flashing briefly into view before another insight took their place. Given this speed of thought, it was quite a painful experience, when her mind suddenly made a squealing u-turn onto just that last topic. Because, after all, wasn¡¯t there something really strange about the way she¡¯d been taking damage? The fact was, Cas couldn¡¯t remember ever actually taking any damage. At most, her status sheet would say things like: HP Updated, but that didn¡¯t sound like taking damage, and in fact it never felt like it either. Honestly, it seemed like her HP stat was just tracking how much material she was carrying at the moment. Did that mean her ¡°HP¡± stat was just some arbitrary multiplication of her current mass? Status Sheet updated: ¡°HP¡± replaced with ¡°Current Mass¡± Apparently so. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! Cas looked up at the new status sheet. Her current weight was 136 out of 250. Cas had never weighed even close to 250 as a human, so that was probably referencing the maximum amount of weight her absorption level would let her carry. She wondered what would happen if she tried to exceed that weight. Would parts of her just start falling off? That certainly sounded plausible. Slimes were hardly ¡®solid¡¯ after all. Back in the village, Cas had been stuck as a sixty pound 12 year old because of her Absorption level. Further back in time, in the cave, when Absorption had been at level 5, her weight limit had been 6 pounds. Opening a second screen to her notes section, Cas hurriedly began making a chart as she delved into her memories. When Absorption had been level 6, the weight limit was 8 pounds. Level 9 was 20 pounds. Level 13: 70 pounds. And, now, it was level 17 at 250. That¡­ sounded exponential. In fact... Pulling out her excel chart¡­ or, pattern square, rather. Cas backtraced a plausible equation. She¡¯d had to do some janky work with throwing her current level into the exponent, but: 250*2.72^(0.3163*((Current Level)-17)) There! The result of her hard work, and it had some interesting stories to tell. According to it, Cas would have a max weight of four thousand pounds if she leveled Absorption to 26. Fourteen Thousand, if she went all the way to thirty seven. Skills in Siablo three had a cap at level 40. Plugging that number into the equation, if Cas could level Absorption to the same level, she would have a maximum weight limit of¡­ Cas blinked, feeling her racing brain pause. She ran the calculation again, just to be sure. And the same answer came back. At Absorption 40, she¡¯d have a weight limit of 400,000 pounds. Exponentials were a hell of a drug, it seemed. Of course, levels were an in-game abstraction for Siablo. Real life had no need to humor Cas¡¯s simplified equations. Besides which, the equation itself was only a guess, but¡­ even, say, ten thousand pounds of mass was a lot, all things considered, and Cas would be able to gather it from things as simple as river water and dead-wood. The things Cas could do¡­ Cas was a creative person. And, normally, even without an aura boost, such an exciting prospect would have her simmering with ideas late into the night. She could have spent days, weeks considering the implications. The heat dissipation requirements alone would have oh so many juicy consequences for her to consider, not to mention the square cube law. Even with aura, 400,000 pounds was quite a lot to lug around, an aquatic form might be the best, or maybe something like a low-lying carpet creature. A sedentary clone. Implications and limitations and opportunities jumped up like pageant starts seeking for her attention. But Cas wasn¡¯t normal at the moment. Her aura boost had only continually intensified its effects. Cas brought her hand up into view. It was shaking in time with the butterflies in her stomach. Everything around her felt more alive than ever. She was noticing details she¡¯d never even seen before. It felt as if she¡¯d just taken a gallon shot of espresso. Given this, it was impossible for Cas to figure why she was so¡­ bored wasn¡¯t the right answer, no. Cas was just calm. She found it easy to ignore the mass limit. Instead, a far more interesting problem gripped Cas¡¯s mind. In the midst of all her fantastic speculating, a memory recalled itself to her. It was an important memory, Cas could feel that by how intensely it stuck out. Cas remembered, back when she¡¯d given Sara a blood transfusion, that she had done so in a ruined town. Afterwards, they had walked through a ruined countryside. Destroyed houses and burnt fields stood out as the markers of battle. Even the forests had been subject to general devastation. The cause of this was obvious¡­ enemy units along with runaway monster clouds were bound to cause mayhem. The question remained, however: why was this memory important? What could cause Cas¡¯s mind brand it with such an intense halo of significance? It felt important, certainly. And then Cas remembered the other thing she had done while staying in the village. Namely, she¡¯d looted the place, finding clothes, training dolls, and other miscellaneous accouterments of daily life. Her investigations had revealed that all recent inhabitants had been women and children, and that they had evacuated recently. That village couldn¡¯t have been the only one subject to such disruption. The way battles usually worked, probably this entire region was the subject of a sudden refugee crisis. Given that ¨C at last Cas¡¯s mind pounced backwards onto the original conclusion: where were all the refugees? It was an important question. Without her boost Cas might have been content to ignore it as a background sort of thing, but¡­ potentially thousands of moving humans was an important thing. They could hardly be expected to move as quickly as an army unit. Recalling the road networks she¡¯d seen while in the air, the borders of this region extended a hundred miles back to the west so¡­ there should be refugees that hadn¡¯t caught up to them yet. As is often the case with investigations, the right question can set everything into place. Cas remembered that morning, when the lieutenant had ordered them to prepare for movement. Her team had been asked to pack away all the explosives into one cart. Meanwhile, the rest of the army unloaded provisions. At the time, Cas thought that was to dump dead weight ¨C what with the expedition being cut short due to the prince¡¯s death ¨C but that didn¡¯t make sense. The carts could move themselves, and unloading the food and water would only take them more time. Such discrepancies could be well explained if you, for some reason, needed to unload those provisions. Say, perhaps, if you needed to give it away to a load of refugees. But, if that was the case, then why hadn¡¯t the luitenant told them about the refugees in advance? Maybe there was someone important traveling with the refugees? Someone whose identity you wouldn¡¯t want the enemy to know about, so you had to keep things like this under wraps? Loose lips sink ships and all that. In fact, it would have to be someone who you¡¯d expect to travel with refugees, and who you¡¯d expect to be greeted with honor by an Army unit. Why else hide the seemingly mundane facts of the case: that you were meeting with a group of refugees? Perhaps the governor of a distant province? Cas blinked, standing up. She had a long night ahead of her.
In the end, a night full of intense speculating had done little to move the needle forward on the progress of her assumptions. There was only so much one could do with limited information. Cas still maintained the aura boost of course, and only ran it faster in the excitement of the morning, when Sara¡¯s mental voice spread over the camp like an early morning radio announcement.
Cas had been planning to skip the ceremony. She wasn¡¯t much for organized religion, and was happy to bask in the knowledge of her superior intellect for a few hours more. As the Chief Auxiliary had rudely informed her, however, ¡®encouraged to attend¡¯, in this case, ended up meaning ¡®required¡¯. Naturally, not all soldiers could attend. Someone had to stand guard and run patrolls, after all. Cas had volunteered, but only regulars were granted the privilege of such vital tasks. And so, Cas had the privilege of experiencing her first involuntary volunteering effort. In truth, despite her cremudgeonism, it was a genuinely moving sight. The caravan of Refugees, battered, wearing worn clothes and tired faces, trudged despondently over the beautiful field. As they drew closer, some of them ¨C those in the front, carrying swords and make-shift shields ¨C looked at the first line of soldiers and raised hands in salute. The whole of the army formation ¨C numbering a thousand ¨C stood vigil over the harrowing scene, giving a united front of stoic and brave faces. Looking at them, one couldn¡¯t have guessed the magnitude of the defeat they¡¯d suffered just two mornings ago. The scene had it¡¯s intended effect. The refugees delighted like children, growing especially excited as they noticed the fluttering unit standard with the symbol of Trinket Ember emblazoned onto the front. It was grey to Cas¡¯s eyes, but the people¡¯s eyes moved immediately to the eye-catching crimson banner. The invincible jewel in the empire''s crown. To tell by the reverence shown, it had a storied history that belied the recent horrors it had suffered. Cas ¨C by dint of her connection to Sara ¨C had been given a front row seat to the whole affair. Wearing a white shawl to cover her tattered and blood-stained coat. She stood directly beside Sara and only a few rows behind the lieutenant. Given this, Cas had expected cheers, or singing, or some sort of celebration, but nothing so spectacular happened. Rather, a big, exhausted sigh of relief seemed to go through the whole group. Cas could almost feel the hundreds of miles they had marched in that expression. Some of them were in tears, and most looked ready to collapse. They all remained standing, however, not a single person so much as dropping a pack. In fact, some of the older people, who had to be supported or otherwise carried by their grand-children, took it upon themselves to stand up straight, under their own power, for a moment at least, as the palanquin passed. The palanquin was a massive thing. Thick, timber logs were its frame, and it had the impossible look of a floating house, as twelve men ¨C dressed in obscuring robes ¨C carried the litter on steel rods and tired shoulders. Sara¡¯s voice was a whisper in Cas¡¯s mind, as the psychic leant aside and pointed a knowing look at the scene. , Cas replied on the same line, not a little smugly. Sara reprimanded. Sara replied. some reverence!> Cas ended it there. With her new speed of thought, it was easy for her to pick out when she¡¯d messed up. Medieval era religiosity was a thing she¡¯d have to get used to. And it wasn¡¯t just Sara either. Looking forward and glancing back, Cas saw that even the steel faces of the soldiers and officers had softened, and turned reverential, as the palanquin was placed with a thud and the white curtains in it¡¯s face parted. A woman dressed in glimmering robes stepped gently out. The lieutenant bowed and moved a hand to greet her. ¡°It¡¯s an honor.¡± The woman was older in age, crows feet at the edges of her eyes giving her face a rather pained and long-suffering expression. It was a fitting face for the look of mourning that shrouded her features. ¡°Oh,¡± she said sadly, at seeing the lieutenant in front of her. ¡°lieutenant, or should I say Commander. I take it this means the prince is¡­¡± ¡°Yes. I have temporary command ,¡± the lieutenant supplied. It was an honest answer. The lieutenant''s command was temporary, until a new commander was appointed. But, it was also just vague enough to hide the ugly fact which lay beneath it. The Priestess raised her hand. A blessing, perhaps, and the lieutenant rose back up. ¡°Carry your responsibilities diligently. Be certain the Trinket Ember has not failed you. What is human expectation, after all, to a power given by God?¡± ¡°And to you!¡± The priestess now raised her voice to address the larger crowd of the army, ¡°I-¡± Cas probed. Sara chastised, losing her patience. It was quite an involved sermon. Cas found that she was able to appreciate it more than usual under the influence of her powers. There was a layering to the composition she usually wouldn¡¯t have appreciated, or tried to appreciate, for that matter. Of course, it was a sermon for the general audience, so the basic message was a simple, if cryptically transmitted, eulogy for the lost prince. It was masterfully woven together, in a way that would be meaningful in different ways for the soldiers ¨C who knew the truth ¨C and the refugees, who wouldn¡¯t be helped by knowing of the prince¡¯s death. It was also a brief sermon. Afterwards, the Priestess called for a brief, public meeting with the lieutenant. Cas didn¡¯t know why she stayed. More likely, though, it was because ¨C despite her premonitions and biases ¨C Cas was fascinated by the figure of the priestess. The old woman lines of worry etched into her face, like one used to bearing the weight of terrible secrets. That was the thing about the clergy. They were the ones people turned to in their darkest hours. Divorce, death, tragedy, whenever something happened that a person just couldn¡¯t handle, religion was what they turned to. The clergy were who they called.. Except, of course, in a large enough population, there was something terrible happening every day. Naturally, a holy person with a large enough parish would live a life dedicated to confronting darkness. So, it was natural that a holy person might have dead eyes, but¡­ Cas had met with priests back on Earth, and none of the ones she liked ever looked like the priestess. It was an impossible suspicion. To all appearances, the priestess was just another uptight holy woman with a humorless expression. But¡­ Cas noticed small discrepancies in her expression, which confirmed to her the weirdness of it all. It felt like her Aura-Boost was highlighting them for her eyes. So Cas stuck around. What followed was a private-public conversation between the Priestess and lieutenant, full of many blessings and discreetly worded phrases that hinted at, but never directly addressed, the late prince¡¯s death. It was in the midst of all this that the priestess finally asked a direct question. ¡°And,¡± she spoke, waffling a bit on the matter before finally committing. ¡°What has happened to the prince¡¯s younger brother in all this? I understand, he was travelling with the prince on this expedition.¡± ¡°He¡¯s under my care. In fact¨C¡± The Lieutanant, as was her manner, began explaining the facts of the case, but Cas couldn¡¯t hear her over the loud sight which took over much of her vision. Angel Girl was back, and she had crossed arms and a cross expression, as she sent a glare of hatred over at the Priestess. Cas didn¡¯t understand why, despite her earlier premonitions. At least, she had no clue until the Priestess snapped her fingers, and one of the robed figures stepped forward, carrying a large vase, taller than they were. It was a clay jar, fired with an intricate pattern. It landed with a solid, heavy thud as it was placed before the lieutenant. Cas could hear that it had been filled with sand¡­ a strange choice to harbor a flower, but¨C ¡°It¡¯s a desert plant,¡± the priestess explained, pointing to the drooping, nectar filled cups and vine-like leaves of the Sand Angler. ¡°It was meant to be a gift for the prince''s brother. My men crossed the mountain at great expense to retrieve it for him. Of course, recent emergencies have gotten in the way of its delivery, but, if you feel the boy is up to it, I would be honored to present him with his late birthday present.¡± It was a perfectly natural thing, apparently, to tell by the ease with which the lieutenant accepted the gift. However, to a discerning and suspicious eye. There were things off about the whole scene. The Priestess had explained herself too much. Cas remembered Sara''s advice on this matter: that it was the sign of a liar. The second oddity was the vase, which stood at the height of a man and carried a flower barely larger than a bouquet. Of course, none of this was confusing to Cas, because she recognized that flower. It looked like moss grass, but it had a characteristic spout along the rim edge of the nectar cups. It also had a man-sized monster buried underneath it in the sand, using the false plant as a lure to kill unsuspecting things. One of its kind had nearly bitten Cas in half, with a jaw like a bear trap. And, now, it had ¨C according to the priestess ¨C been procured at great expense, so as to be placed in a young boy¡¯s room, for the sake of birthday present. Cas was beginning to understand why Angel-girl was glaring at the woman. Chapter 57: Cas Learns About Satan Sara¡¯s signal came attached with a mental note of chastisement. not to be made lightly, especially against a priestess.> By now the sermon had finished, and Cas was feigning interest in a card game the auxiliaries were gambling on. Surprisingly, she was able to follow the game, and had even started discerning its rules, even while most of her mind was occupied in conversation with Sara. Cas looked inquisitively at the status of the card game. Dacula drew a card. The wrong card, to tell by the pained expressions of the spectators that had placed bets on him. Another part of her mind marveled at her new multi-tasking ability. Aura-boost was a hell of a drug, and it was almost a comfort to tire her hyperactive mind out with multiple tasks. Cas threw the words out with a neutral tone, hoping that would bolster her credibility. making any accusations if I wasn¡¯t worried. But I know what I saw, Sara. That thing she¡¯s giving the boy¡­ it¡¯s a plant.> <...yes?> Sara¡¯s reply came back confused. she hurriedly fixed. pretends to be a plant and rips things in half!> Cas tried desperately to sound credible, but the effort apparently failed her as Sara replied back: Cas had spent the past twenty minutes feeling like a conspiracy theorist. The hyper-caffeinated jitters of her aura boost contributed to this perception. It was only now that she started sounding like a loon, however, even to herself. change its aura!> she claimed boldly. look like a harmless plant, but trust me, it¡¯s actually a lizard creature underneath.> Cas¡¯s foot tapped restlessly, growing bored with the lack of activity. Dracula''s opponent ¨C a regular soldier from the other camp ¨C placed a Siren card onto the table. Cas didn''t know exactly what that meant, but she¡¯d worked out enough of the game to empathize with the dejected look of frustration that came over her fellow auxiliary. It was an expression she could well imagine Sara carrying as she replied: can¡¯t be changed like that, darling. It can be suppressed or camouflaged, but not changed. If what you¡¯re saying is true, it would mean that an animal would have to not only change into a plant, but do so while not camouflaging its aura in the slightest. That, as I¡¯ve already said, is logically impossible.> And Cas believed her. In fact, she¡¯d anticipated this crux, and still had no answers to it. Whatever ¡®Aura Proficiency¡¯ was, it had brought Cas into intimate contact with the nature of Aura, and Cas knew, just knew Aura couldn¡¯t be changed. That was just a plain fact. In fact, the truth of it was so plain that Cas began doubting her own story. Still¡­ Cas replied at last. Sara chastised. Dacula skipped his turn. The regular soldier placed a second card. An intricate woodcut of a demon laughed from the face of the card, the number three written onto opposite corners. Sara asked. Again, Dacula skipped his turn. The regular soldier placed a third card: another monster. At this point, the regular had two monsters and a demon, with numbers adding to eighteen. It seemed an impossible set to beat. Cas could almost feel Sara¡¯s mental sigh of dejection. Dacula skipped his third turn in a row, and the regular placed down his final card with a triumphant expression. It was a Slime card, with a number zero at the corners. Cas mused suspiciously. would distance her from the fireworks when the prince¡¯s brother is attacked.> <If he¡¯s attacked,> Sara corrected. With that, Sara hung up. Cas¡¯s attention returned to the card game in full, now. Last she¡¯d checked, the regular soldier had a four card and eighteen point lead, and a Slime card to boot. So, it was surprising when Dacula pulled off a miraculous victory anyway. With the trained flourish of a performance artist, Dacula lifted his final remaining card in the air before lightly dropping it. The heavy card fluttered a little as it landed softly on the hardwood, revealing itself to be the all powerful ¡®priestess¡¯ card, and laying low everything his opponent had brought. Despite the good fortune it had brought to her friend ¨C who laughed as he raked in his petty winnings ¨C Cas couldn¡¯t help the ominous feeling the sight of the card aroused. The ¡®priestess¡¯ card was the centerpiece of any deck; it was a rare feat for anyone to keep it in hand until the end of a game. It was a face card, displaying an intricate painting of a woman with light eyes and priestly garb. She held a sharp sword in one hand. In her opposite hand, a bloody rosary dangled ¨C strung through with the bodies of demonic figures and monster skulls. Again, the rules of the game were intricate, but the message was clear: Priestesses killed monsters, and demons, and all unnatural things.
The aftermath of the card game was an atmosphere of highs and lows. Dacula laughed with practiced boisterousness, letting the clinking copper rain through his fingers. ¡°You know the nicest thing in the world is to win money at cards.¡± He daggered his eyes over to Anne. Upset and embarrassed, Anne huffed. ¡°So, I didn¡¯t expect you to win, Ya? You looked bad at the game.¡± Dacula let out another loud laugh. ¡°Still, it¡¯s a bit rude to bet against your friend, don¡¯t you think?¡± Anne pouted. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t let it get to you,¡± Reginald said from the sidelines. ¡°Dacula has been seeming bad at cards all deployment. I think he¡¯s more than made his money back on that impression.¡± Anne looked sternly at Dacula who only grinned in confirmation. ¡°You¡­ you liar!¡± she accused. ¡°You fooled me!¡± Dacula only laughed harder. ¡°Well, technically, he fooled everyone,¡± Reginald commented from the side line, dejectedly cleaning out the lint from his coin purse. ¡°I want my money back!¡± Anne demanded, no nonsense. Dacula wrapped his arms around the copper pile protectively. ¡°Hey. Fair¡¯s fair. If I start giving refunds, everyone''s going to expect their money back. Besides, it¡¯s your fault for not trusting in your friend. I told you I was going to win, didn¡¯t I? I mean, Reginald trusted me.¡± ¡°I did not trust you,¡± Reginald quickly corrected. ¡°In fact, I only bet against you because I suspected you¡¯d continue hustling until the last day of deployment. People gamble larger sums on the last day, after all..¡± ¡°Oh?¡± Dacula grew intrigued. ¡°You think I could have made more money if I¡¯d waited?¡± Dacula grew thoughtful for a second before a happy smirk erased all that. ¡°Oh, well! Guess I¡¯ll try again on my next deployment!¡± ¡°You, you!¡± Anne was fritzing with anger, her accent redoubling itself. ¡°Why did you not let me know this!¡± she stamped her foot, turning to Reginald this time. Reginald shrugged. ¡°It¡¯s bad business to spread news like that.¡± ¡°I want my money back!¡± Anne whirled quickly back onto Dacula. ¡°Never!¡± Dacula laughed with an innate superiority. ¡°Cas!¡± Anne turned to her, looking for backup. ¡°Who did you bet on?¡± Seeing the impending gravity of the argument drawing her in, Cas quickly distanced herself. ¡°Oh, I don¡¯t gamble.¡± For a moment, everyone forgot their emotions as the answer struck home. ¡°What?¡± ¡°Why not?¡± Reginald asked curiously. ¡°Like, never?¡± Anne pressed. ¡°Never,¡± Cas shook her head Another long silence, broken by a laugh.. ¡°Oh, ho! A holy woman!¡± Dacula cheered, raising a flask up in congratulations before shotgunning the thing. ¡°Now that¡¯s a reason to drink. Are you planning to go to the clergy? Was that betrothed of yours so bad as to make you give up on marriage?¡± Anne turned. ¡°Leave her alone, Dacula!¡± ¡°What?¡± Dacula shrugged his shoulders. ¡°It was an honest question.¡± Eager to avert another argument, Cas interrupted Anne¡¯s forecasted explosion. ¡°Well, I don¡¯t gamble for personal reasons, but to answer your question, Dacula, I¡¯m not planning to go into any clergy. I¡¯m not religious.¡± The air froze suddenly, and all the casual chatter stopped. Cas, sensing the change and realizing it was too late to backtrack, simply waited. She felt an itch to start tapping her foot. Her mind wanted to over react, to start listing through all the worst possible implications. It didn¡¯t get a chance to before Anne, voice croaking like a crying puppy, looked at her with heartbroken eyes and asked: ¡°You¡­ you¡¯re a demon worshiper?¡± Cas, mid-foot tap, nearly tripped. ¡°What!¡± she yelled, looking astounded enough to cow Anne¡¯s unexpected boldness. ¡°Of course I¡¯m not! What does that have to do with anything?¡± Anne, cheeks flushed with embarrassment, attempted a composed cough. ¡°Well, It¡¯s just that you said¡­ well, the demon queen hates God, so I thought-¡± ¡°I think Cas just meant that she¡¯s not a follower of the Faith.¡± Reginald, who¡¯d regained his composure quicker than most, worked to smooth out the conversation. ¡°You have to remember she¡¯s from a different continent, and even on this land we have nature worshippers and knowledge bearers and the like. I¡¯m sure Cas¡¯s homeland has a different way of relating to God.¡± ¡°Oh¡­¡± Anne looked abashed. ¡°Sorry Cas.¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine. To be honest, I didn¡¯t even know demons were a thing until I got to this continent.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t have any demons where you¡¯re from!¡± Anne looked at her amazed. ¡°I don¡¯t see why she would,¡± Reginald shrugged. ¡°The demon queen¡¯s territory is in the center of our continent, and it¡¯s bordered on either side by free kingdoms. Demons wouldn¡¯t be able to get to the oceans, much less cross the leviathan¡¯s waters.¡± Anne ran straight up to Cas¡¯s nose, looking at her with clasped hands and sparkling eyes. ¡°So, you¡¯ve never heard of a demon, ya?¡± ¡°Only in stories.¡± Cas, always uncomfortable with lies, smiled shyly. ¡°Wooowwww!¡± Anne danced in a magical circle, drunk on her own imaginations. ¡°Every girl chooses her sweetheart, and no demons. Your land must be a paradise, Cas.¡± ¡°Oh, we have our own issues,¡± Cas answered calmly, trying to temper the girl¡¯s excitement. ¡°Oh? ¡®Where does trouble come from without demons?¡± Dacula asked, looking up from his coin pile mid-count. It was an interesting question. Cas could only shrug sadly. ¡°I suppose we only have human folly to blame.¡± ¡°The foolishness of people?¡± Anne asked, translating the statement twice before repeating it. ¡°Well¡­ it¡¯s that¡­ sometimes people do evil things,¡± Cas explained, ¡°and nobody stops them.¡±
¡°Well, we¡¯re here,¡± Sara whispered, careful not to disturb the somber atmosphere. It was nearly dusk, and twenty long shadows stretched behind the group of soldiers as they approached the refugee camp. In ¡®the Faith¡¯, as Reginald had called it, religious services were generally held during the evening. Many soldiers planned to attend and Cas, despite her impatience, agreed with Sara that visiting with a crowd would be less suspicious. And so they arrived in the midst of a small group, fashionably late to the party, and it was a party. A dozen drums, each playing a different, discordant beat, dotted the border of the camp, struggling to be heard over the laughter and general jubilation of the dancing people around. A forest of cooking pits large enough to be mistaken for bonfires stood outside every major tent. Each fire had ¨C strung over it ¨C several dozen pots filled with boiling water and military rations. Steam billowed off from these, mugging the air with a savory smell. The party circled the entire border of the camp. Dancing ladies and men created a vivid tapestry of cheerful expressions, as a hundred separate celebrations melted together at the borders to create a continuous circle of cheer. ¡°Heyyyyyyyyy!¡± The noise intensified for a second, as the villagers saw their approach and raised their hands in a welcoming posture. Sara looked surprised at the proceedings. ¡°My, they certainly are¡­ surprisingly happy.¡± ¡°It¡¯s because of the food,¡± Cas answered mechanically, remembering her time in the village, and the simple happiness bare necessities could evoke when people had been deprived of them for long enough. Cas almost surprised herself with how easily the answer came. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. She didn¡¯t even have to think about it. The whole world seemed full of answers. They popped out the moment her eyes glazed over even the most innocuous sights. And what a sight the refugees were. Their clothes were all in good condition. They weren¡¯t starving, either, but they were hungry, to tell by the universal impatience they showed as their meals cooked, as well as how close they kept to their cooking fires, not allowing even the presence of soldiers to draw them away from their appointed places. Walking further into the interior. Cas and Sara separated themselves from the rest of the soldiers and detoured to the right. Cas looked back at the soldiers. They headed towards the center of the camp, where the Priestess¡¯s white palanquin stood like a miniature temple, surrounded on all sides by the white tents of the mobile monastery. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about them,¡± Sara said. ¡°Service doesn¡¯t start until after supper, and I doubt they¡¯ll be ready to ring the dinner bell for another hour.¡± She pointed to the boiling pots. Cas barely heard. Her anxious, perpetually bored mind soaked in the surroundings. For instance, there was the fact the refugees were from different places. Three distinct groups made up the camp. Wait¡­ how did she know that? Pausing a moment, Cas tried to remember the racing thoughts which had led to that conclusion. The main way to tell them apart was that people kept to their own group, creating artificial boundaries amidst the continuous party. Another tell was the hair styles. Young girls had loose hair, but girls over the age of twelve invariably had braids, and each group had a unique style of braid. Probably, it was a coming-of-age thing. Although, one of the groups waited until they turned 16 to start braiding hair. That implied a later coming of age ceremony, which implied a totally different culture, rather than some local variance. She decided to look closer at this group. There was so much about them that was different. For instance, their beads. In every group, some people wore beads, rosaries, the like. But, in the other two ¡®tribes¡¯, men and women carried different shapes on their rosaries. A ten pointed star for men, and a crescent moon for the women. Here in this third tribe ¨C the sixteens as Cas had named them ¨C men and women both wore the star. Different religions, perhaps? That bit of info inspired Cas to start looking around for a different priestess. When that failed, approached a member of the sixteens and asked. ¡°Our priest stays in a tent on the outskirts,¡± the woman answered impatiently, turning back to focus on the cooking fire she tended. Following the woman¡¯s point, Cas noticed a small tent in the distance. There was a singular aura signature near it. ¡­ After a minute of walking, they left the camp entirely, and Cas¡¯s overclocked mind ran out of things to notice. So she paid a bit more attention to Sara, who seemed annoyed by the sudden chore which had been thrown onto her after a day full of meetings. ¡°You don¡¯t believe me, do you?¡± Cas sighed, trying to guilt the woman into a cheerier mood. Sara sighed. ¡°I don''t,¡± she admitted. ¡°But I promised to help introduce you to society. I¡¯d feel at least a little responsible if you went and got executed for murdering a priestess.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not going to murder her,¡± Cas rolled her eyes. ¡°I¡¯m just¡­ suspicious as to why she¡¯d bring something so dangerous to the prince¡¯s brother.¡± ¡°Ugh, are you even sure this is the same thing?¡± ¡°Positive,¡± Cas nodded. ¡°I was flying through the desert when I saw the plant. It would¡¯ve bit me in half if Fox hadn¡¯t warned me.¡± ¡°Excuse me, Fox?¡± ¡°QUIET!¡± a powerful voice barked. The source of the voice was an aged man wearing a dark, wool coat that seemed to engulf his skeletal frame. There was a hardness to his sunken cheeks and bony fingers which implied the starvation he underwent was intentional. A long, scraggly beard ¨C black despite his apparently advanced age ¨C ran down to his lap. He cut a strange and wild figure. For all that, his closed eyes were peaceful as he roughly manipulated the beads of a rosary along his left hand. Out of respect, Cas and Sara did remain quiet, and they continued this show for ten minutes until Cas had enough. ¡°Sir?¡± she said at last, standing up. No response. ¡°My friend Sara and I have come seeking your advice.¡± Again, nothing, and Cas was just about to turn around. Sara¡¯s voice came on annoyed wings. Cas, having spent the past ten minutes trying to contain a hyperactive mind, replied in equal measure. Sara retorted. Cas didn¡¯t hide the doubt on her face. Cas looked back at the man, who was still roughly handling his rosary beads in a wild motion. Cas raised an eyebrow. Sara, with a knowing grin, said: ¡­ ¡°Monk,¡± Cas said, a new confidence in her voice. ¡°We¡¯ve come seeking your advice about an important matter. We believe the priestess is planning something unbecoming of someone in her position.¡± Immediately, the monk''s eyes lashed open, revealing fiery black eyes. ¡°What of it?¡± he asked bluntly. Cas hesitated. ¡°We wanted to gather more information about her-¡± ¡°Hah!¡± he laughed, somehow sounding angry by the act. ¡°That¡¯s just the problem with worldly persons these days!¡± He stood up straighter, speaking with an assertive, over-enunciated shout. ¡°¡®More information¡¯ she says,¡± he quoted mockingly. ¡°You people of the world are drunk on information. You¡¯ve hobbled your minds with it. Here, even, when you catch a glimpse of the truth you run around seeking more, more, more! ¡°Can¡¯t you see?¡± He looked at them, desperate to be understood. ¡°The whole of it. The whole monastery of hers is crawling with devils. It¡¯s turned into a palace for Satan!¡± Cas, holding back her surprise, ignored the mirthful ¡®I told you so¡¯ looks coming from Sara on the sidelines. Carefully, she tried to bring some sense into the conversation. ¡°She¡¯s working with demons, you mean?¡± Cas asked, more out of politeness than genuine curiosity. ¡°No!¡± the man insisted. ¡°I said Satan himself! Demons are angels compared to the light of Satan¡¯s malice.¡± ¡°Satan?¡± Cas nodded considering. And then she stopped considering. ¡°Well, anyway, we actually wanted to ask about a plant-¡± ¡°Hahhh!¡± The man yelled suddenly, leaping up with surprising energy and swinging his rosary like a weapon. ¡°Back!¡± he yelled. ¡°Back! I do not welcome you here! You are welcome nowhere!¡± Cas stood still. It was easy to tell the man wasn¡¯t addressing the words to her. Rosary beads beads whooshed through the air around her. The man drew the beads into hand, stepping back, apparently satisfied with his work. He spat with disgust, looking at Cas with a wartorn expression. ¡±You should be more careful. Satan hangs like a cloud about you. He strikes when you¡¯re most vulnerable.¡± ¡°You¡­ can see Satan?¡± Cas asked. ¡°Of course not!¡± the man spat, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. ¡°Satan can¡¯t be seen. He reveals himself to taunt me. I said go away!¡± he screamed, turning his head to the side, swinging his rosary with a reflexive action. Sara looked annoyed. As interested as Cas was about Satan, she decided to skip the theology for now. ¡°We came here to ask about a plant the Priestess bought. Do you know anything about that?¡± The man looked confused by the question. ¡°Why would I know about her plants?¡± he asked. ¡°She spends mountains of gold on gifts for herself. If I were to keep in mind every flower and trinket she bought, I¡¯d have to give up my robe and start keeping ledgers. Her extravagance, the sheer avarice of her heart. Can¡¯t you see that?¡± ¡°Well, thank you for your time, then!¡± Sara projected loudly from the edge of the camp.She looked impatiently over at Cas. Cas ignored her for the moment. ¡°Has she ever stolen food?¡± ¡°Huh?¡± the man asked. Sara wondered. Cas clarified. ¡°I mean. Has she ever hidden food, or stolen it. Do you think she¡¯s been sneaking rations during this journey of yours?¡± Hesitant, the man admitted: ¡°Moderation¡­ is one virtue she holds. A self aggrandizing and conceited virtue, but a virtue nonetheless. She has not stolen food,¡± he guaranteed easily. Just then, the dinner bell rang back in the camp, accompanied by the grateful shouts of a thousand hungry souls. Cas turned to Sara. ¡°We have to hurry¡±.
Cas didn¡¯t sprint, but her pace forced the slightly shorter Sara to race-walk. ¡°What now?¡± Sara asked, voice shuddering with her footsteps. The interior of the camp was nearly abandoned, now that the dinner lines had started forming. The white monastery tents were just up ahead. ¡°The priestess doesn¡¯t steal food,¡± Cas said. It was a terrible explanation, but it was honestly the best Cas was capable of giving; her mind was skimmed with an Aura-boost. Under the conditions, it seemed like the most obvious answer. ¡°Ok. She doesn¡¯t steal food.¡± Sara agreed. ¡°So what?¡± ¡°Did you notice how close the refugees were to their fires? They probably haven¡¯t had a real meal until the Lieutenant gave them our rations.¡± Cas¡¯s eyes flickered about, tracing a path that avoided any interruptions, paying attention to everything and nothing at the same time. Sara decided to play nice and guide her along. ¡°Ok¡­ they¡¯re hungry. And¡­¡± ¡°If they¡¯re hungry, and the priestess doesn¡¯t steal food, that means the clergy must be just as hungry. They¡¯re not going to be at the monastery. And the priestess isn¡¯t going to be in her tent.¡± ¡­ The Priestess¡¯s palanquin was a massive thing. Large, iron bars ran underneath it like skiffs, and the whole rest of the structure hovered several feet above them, seeming almost to float in the center of the camp like a miniature temple. Despite the wooden frame of the structure, the walls were made of cloth. The cloth blocked aura signatures like the tents, and it introduced a moment of anxiety as Cas entered ¨C letting out a sigh of relief as she stepped into the interior and saw it was empty. The interior was a large, single, room. Cas felt a hardwood floor beneath the dark carpet. ¡°Uh, hum?¡± A short cough drew her attention back to the entrance, where Sara was removing her shoes. Abashed, Cas did the same, a strange lack as the articles slipped past her flaring aura. Item: Boots Unequipped. -6 Armor +2 Balance The inside was lit up by a powerful ball of light that floated in the empty air near the ceiling. The lumber frame was completely visible from the inside. Every inch of it was carved with intricate swirls and geometric patterns. A few tapestries hung at the corners, but otherwise the entire room was unfurnished and undecorated. Unfurnished, that was, except for the seven foot tall vase which stood innocuously near the back wall. Peering over the rim of it, the heavy, sap laden cups of the Sand Angler greeted them. ¡°See!¡± Cas pointed triumphantly at the thing, moving close enough to touch it. ¡°Tell me this isn¡¯t suspicious,¡± she challenged. ¡°It¡¯s not suspicious,¡± Sara deadpanned, walking closer with crossed arms and a bored expression. ¡°What? Look at it! The vase is seven feet tall!¡± She raised her hand to measure the rim of it, and it¡¯s so wide I can¡¯t even put my arms around it. What do you think she¡¯s hiding in there, huh? This plant is hardly a shrub. It shouldn''t require a container this large. ¡°It¡¯s a decorative vase,¡± Sara replied simply. ¡°It¡¯s the standard when you¡¯re giving flowers to an important person.¡± ¡°Ok,¡± Cas said, unperturbed. ¡°Mind telling me why she decided to make this vase out of an aura-concealing material, then?¡± Cas put her hand behind the vase, pointing at how the outline of her aura disappeared whenever she did so. ¡°Obviously to hide the body of the sand angler.¡± ¡°All vases do that,¡± Sara explained boredly. ¡°Nobody wants to see the roots of a decorative plant.¡± ¡°Hmm¡­¡± Cas twitched her hand back and turned away in thought. ¡°It appears she¡¯s thought of everything.¡± Sara elected to save the face-palm. ¡°Ok!" Cas turned back. ¡°The tent.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°Do you remember yesterday, in your tent, when I needed some privacy?¡± Cas got the words out in the midst of a dozen other thoughts, and thankfully Sara seemed to be getting her new, more indirect means of communication. Raising her hand, Sara spread her fingers, casting the spell. The silence of the room disappeared, replaced by an utterly empty lack-of-noise as the bubble of silence formed around them. It was a silence as Cas had never experienced before. It made everything seem¡­ still, somehow. She paused a moment to appreciate the utter serenity. She could even hear her own heart beating. It was beating quite fast, actually. Thundering along like she was sprinting. Her mind was quick to race over that detail, as she turned back to Sara and inquired. ¡°This bubble of silence. It works both ways?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Sara answered, ¡°why-¡± The vase broke with a porcelain cry as Cas stabbed her half-molten dagger through it. Sand flooded up to their ankles in a deluge, sliding out to the borders of the silent bubble, where an invisible wall stopped the flood in its tracks.. That detail went ignored, however, as Cas struggled with the ten foot long sand angler that wiggled viciously in her grip. Flexing panicked muscles, the angler slammed a tail into the sand, shooting upward and slamming Cas painfully against the immovable bubble of silence. The ceiling of the bubble was harder than anything natural could have been, and it drew an unnatural cough from Cas as the beast whipped aside and slammed her hard against the side of the bubble. ¡°Good, Cas! Keep your Aura percolated!¡± Sara encouraged with a frantic yell. ¡°You¡¯ll destroy the bubble if you touch it with a regular Aura!¡± ¡°Thanks for the advice!¡± Cas screamed, locking both arms around the head of the creature and bearing her weight upon it. She wrapped a leg around its tail and forced herself back onto the ground, twisting it around to keep the angler¡¯s flaring aura from contacting the bubble. The sand angler had a long, Eel like body with powerful muscles and jaws large enough to smash a microwave. It had a fully flared, panic stricken aura, and Cas could see it had a higher strength score than her. She felt that same stat as it wrapped its tail around her leg and squeezed hard enough to snap her knee in the wrong direction. ¡°Ghaa!¡± Cas restrained her scream, angling her fall so that she slammed back-first against the interior wall of the immovable bubble, keeping the angler ¨C and it¡¯s unpercolated aura ¨C far away from the borders of the spell. The creature took this advantage to squeeze its tail tighter, wrapping several more times around the mashing noises which were once her leg. Sara lifted her hands, spreading them apart in a familiar gesture. ¡°Cas! Get that creature¡¯s head away from you!¡± In truth ¨C despite expecting it ¨C the creature had surprised even Cas with its sudden appearance. The advantage of surprise was one thing. But, Cas had started the fight with a dagger in the creature¡¯s throat, and she used that dagger like a bike handle as she dropped her shoulder and twisted the creature¡¯s head away from her, throwing it away. Just then, an accelerated light and ethereal sound filled the space, and a blast of hot flame appeared, warming Cas¡¯s face for a hot instant, exploding the Creature¡¯s head in the next. Cas closed her eyes just in time to be coated with blood. Bits of bone dinked against her skin like pellets. She opened her eyes very slowly. Releasing a hard breath through her nostrils, she splattered more giblets of material onto her tightly pressed lips. Her dagger, which had previously been stabbed deeply into flesh, now merely smoked in the open air above the creature¡¯s headless throat. The body twitched and wriggled a few times against her before slackening, unwinding from around her knee as the leg healed and the joint popped back into place with an almost morphenic sensation. Basking in the afterglow of her victory, as well as the pleasure of no-pain, Cas almost didn¡¯t mind the blood. In a small triumph to her annoyance: Sara, too, was coated in gore, though not in enough of it to hide the displeased expression she wore under the mask of blood. Cas stood up straighter, hugging the headless body to her chest as she panted. ¡°Accusations like that are not to be made lightly,¡± Cas mimed, twisting her voice into an annoying parody of Sara¡¯s. ¡°Very funny,¡± Sara said, accepting the rebuke with calm measure. ¡°I suppose you won¡¯t be letting this go anytime soon.¡± ¡°Let me have one day of gloating,¡± Cas offered. Feeling the creature¡¯s body beginning to slip, she hopped it up into a higher grip. ¡°Do I still need to keep this thing from touching the bubble?¡± She looked down at the cylinder of sand which marked the border of the silence. ¡°No,¡± Sara sighed. ¡°It only would¡¯ve popped if that thing touched it with a hostile aura. Good job on percolating yours when you smashed into it, by the way. The spell would have broken if you didn''t.¡± Checking again that the creature no longer had an aura, Cas dropped it. It slammed into the wall, slowly streaking down before thudding into the sand. It was quite a large catch, and it took up most of the walking space as it unfurled. Despite Sara¡¯s earlier skepticism, Cas found it hard to blame her. After all, changing one¡¯s aura was logically impossible, so¡­ how did this thing manage? Looking across, the answer became clear. The plant¡¯s Aura glowed through the pile of sand that covered it. Reaching into the mound, Cas pulled the still living flower out, shaking the sand off the thing as she looked closer. It was a medium sized plant, which flared out at both ends, one side spreading out into cup flowers, and the other into jagged roots. Moreover, the plant was still alive and had an active aura, even though the creature was dead. Not to mention the plant was completely disconnected, nothing like an angler¡¯s lure. Looking closer at the roots. Cas noticed several large, root-bulbs, a mirror of the ones on the flowers, though uglier and more heavily armored. Bringing it up to her mouth, she tasted the dew dribbling out of them. ¡°It¡¯s sweet,¡± Cas noted. Sara, busy ruining her last remaining kerchief as she wiped the blood off her face, barely gave the proclamation any thought. ¡°That¡¯s nice, darling.¡± ¡°No,¡± Cas said. ¡°I think these are specifically evolved to pump nectar underground. It¡¯s not a shapeshifting angler. It¡¯s a mutualistic relationship! The plant feeds the creature, don¡¯t you see?¡± Cas held the roots at Sara so she could appreciate their beauty. Sara looked at them like they were just a bunch of roots. ¡°Ugh! But, no, that doesn¡¯t make sense. What would the plant get out of it?¡± Cas thought back. ¡°Wait¡­.¡± Cas paused, halting everything. ¡°Wait, I remember learning about this in my botany class. Pollinator syndrome! Of course! ¡°Don¡¯t you see? If a plant lets any insect pollinate, then that insect might go to a different species of plant right after, wasting the plant¡¯s pollen. On the other hand, if it only lets one species pollinate it, that species specializes! ¡°... uhm. Basically, it becomes like an exclusive mail carrying service for the plant.¡± Cas used more accessible language in an attempt to include Sara who, for the life of her, still did not care. Lost in her own world, Cas mused. ¡°Most plants use restrictive flower shapes or scents, but using an animal to kill unwanted pollinators would also work! Not to mention animal waste is a natural fertilizer. Haha! It was two different creatures all along! The animal hides its aura, and the plant transmits above it. Can you believe it? I wonder how they reproduce?¡± Cas peered into the surface bulbs, looking for eggs. ¡°Cas!¡± Sara blurted, bringing the woman back to reality. ¡°Maybe we can talk about all this after solving the murderous conspiracy, hmm?¡± ¡°Oh¡­¡± Cas could have sworn the plant wilted in her hand. ¡°I suppose you¡¯re right.¡± She dropped the flower with a sandy thud. In all honesty, she wasn¡¯t too worried. Unlike the soldiers ¨C who usually kept their auras restrained ¨C everyone in the refugee camp transmitted freely, and no one had stats worth worrying over, even the priestess. ¡°Honestly,¡± Cas continued, ¡°I doubt this conspiracy will take anything more than a simple conversation to unravel. I mean, I¡¯m pretty dangerous myself, you-¡± It was surprising how quickly Cas forgot the outside world existed. The effect of the silence was so strong that she was genuinely frightened when she looked aside and saw the priestess in the periphery of her vision. The woman had the same inscrutable face, baggy eyes and tired composure as she looked over at them. Sara dropped the bubble. A strong flash filled the space, and sand hissed out in every direction. The priestess¡¯s eyes turned, flashing to Cas and Sara, and then finally to the headless angler, as if only now noticing them. Another silence followed, a very heavy one. Cas felt helpless. She¡¯d wanted this, hadn¡¯t she? She¡¯d worked hard to get to this very situation, but now that she was here¡­ she just didn¡¯t know what to say. Sara gracefully took on that burden . ¡°Priestess,¡± she said respectfully, though notably excluding a bow from the greeting, keeping her eyes attentively locked onto the woman. ¡°I hope we¡¯re not bothering you too much but¡­¡± she gestured at the bloody scene. ¡°We¡¯ve discovered something disturbing in your quarters. If you¡¯ll come with us to the Lieutenant''s camp, I¡¯m certain we¡¯ll be able to-¡± Cas, even as she heard Sara¡¯s words, felt her eyes drawn to the white satchell the priestess carried at her side. It was an ordinary thing, understated almost. A simple flap ran over it, adorned with an image of a ten pointed star alongside a crescent moon, and it was moving. No, not moving, but bulging. It warped and distorted, like a molting grub or a belly about to retch. Suddenly, the flap opened and it started laughing. It was an uncanny laugh, like a very convincing performance of a human sound. ¡°You¡¯re dead meat priestess,¡± the voice growled out in relish, drawing on chords no human could have hoped to prepare. And it was no human that came out of the bursting satchell. Crescent horns poked through the opening, followed by excited, malevolent eyes and a smile in the same shape at the horns. It had brilliant white teeth, not at all like the obsidian fangs monsters sported. ¡°I told you,¡± it laughed up at the horrified woman. ¡°I told you that you should¡¯ve let me stab that little brat in the throat but no¡­ you had to do things your way and here we are!¡± The creature hopped out of the satchel. It flared its aura and the shrinking spell reversed itself. At its full height, it towered over every other figure in the room. It had a lithe figure one could have called human if the joints and articulations weren¡¯t just so subtly off. Suddenly, the demon stood up. It seemed to enjoy the attention. Rising up on tiptoes, it reached both hands up, arching back into a tall stretch. ¡°No matter! I, your savior, have arrived!¡± it let out a genuinely child-like smile, like an excited kid about to play its favorite game. ¡°It¡¯s honestly been so long since I¡¯ve been out of that stuffy bag. No matter. I doubt this will last long.¡± The demon snapped a finger, and the world outside fell silent. ¡°Oh, don¡¯t bother trying to hide it now,¡± it turned hard eyes onto the priestess, who senslessly kept trying to shut the flap of her bag. ¡°It¡¯s obvious they''re onto us. So what¡¯s the point in keeping secrets? We¡¯re going to have to kill them.¡± The demon was still audible. It had its tail in a question-mark gesture and gestured invitingly over at them. ¡°Now¡­ which one of you shall I kill first? Oh, no matter, both will do.¡± Another snap, and a torrent of flame sprang into existence, engulfing everything as it converged onto their present location. Chapter 58: Matrix Snap! Went the demon¡¯s fingers, and Cas felt time slow. A firestorm exploded into existence, shot forward from the demon¡¯s fingers, slamming into the atmosphere. Flame, compressed and hot, speared forward. Air, sluggish and inertia-ridden, stood in its way, and the two elements mixed together in a chaotic pattern, spreading out into a screaming cone of deadly heat. It was an object of intricate complexity, an incandescent balance of several forces. And all of those forces ¨C heat, force, ambient pressure ¨C were minutely controlled, tuned so the cone would expand just enough to engulf both Cas and Sara¡¯s bodies when it reached them. Currently only half-way to their location, and only half the size it would need to be, the flame crawled through the air at a snail¡¯s pace. It was slow. Cas realized. No, she quickly updated, noticing the demon¡¯s still snapping fingers bouncing against the base of its thumb. The whole world had frozen in time. The cloth walls of the palanquin warped against the shockwave, which was only now reaching them. The priestess was beginning to flinch back from the explosive stream. Even sound seemed to move at half-speed; the screeching firestorm had modulated itself into an earthy rumble. Wait a minute¡­ Cas realized. She was having a Matrix moment. Cas pulled vividly at her mental archive of 90¡¯s action sequences ¨C remembering vividly when Neo did the limbo underneath the stream of bullets, and all the assorted slow-motion action shots of the Matrix series. Obviously, her Aura boost must be responsible for this, she concluded. Strangely, it didn¡¯t feel any different than usual. Cas¡¯s new mind ¨C normally quick and currently speeding ¨C wasn¡¯t distracted for long by the novelty; soon, a dozen, more serious, thoughts were competing for her attention. For instance, Cas remembered the demon had flared its Aura shortly before attacking. The outside world had gone quiet when it did that. Probably a silence spell over the entire tent. So, help was unlikely. Her very next thought was about Sara, and it was full of worry. Sara was a higher level than Cas. In fact, she was a higher level than the demon. But that was little comfort. Levels were just an abstracted number her status sheet assigned to people. To this day, Cas wasn¡¯t sure what they represented, but it obviously wasn''t strength. And Sara was more support oriented, as far as Cas had seen. She had telepathy, a silence spell, a flame blast, and very little in the form of defences if her showing against the hyenas was anything to go by. All the facts ran together at once for Cas. And, in a split second, she made up her mind: she would shield Sara with her body. It was an easy decision to make. No matter her level, Sara was only human, and humans generally didn¡¯t survive firestorms. Cas, on the other hand¡­ Cas looked at the approaching flame with some discomfort. She''d survived worse. Forcing every ounce of effort out of her body, Cas drove her leg down, expecting her body to move in Matrix time, surprised when she instead shot off to the side at blinding speeds. The invisible wall stood in her way like a brick building. Cas felt her body ringing as she crashed back from her impact. Cas had given everything to that lunge, and she was paying for it now. She heard the grind of shifting bones as her skull set itself back into place, she felt a thick dribble of blood running over the pristinely healed skin of her forehead, running down the side of her nose. ¡°Cas!¡± Sara¡¯s horrified voice came. ¡°What has gotten into you!¡± Shaking her head, Cas looked over at Sara, who gave her a series of confused expressions in real time. She then looked back over her shoulder at the firestorm, which was still moving in slow motion. ¡°Its, its,¡± Cas pointed at the sluggish blast. ¡°It¡¯s still moving slowly,¡± holding desperately to the obvious. ¡°Obviously?¡± Sara explained. ¡°That is the point of the spell.¡± ¡°I thought I was having a Matrix moment!¡± Cas fritzed, gesturing angrily at the outside world. ¡°What¡¯s the heck!¡± ¡°Matrix? What do mathematical functions have to do with this?¡± ¡°You can slow down time!?¡± Cas demanded, trying very hard to sound more confused than Sara looked, and consequently winning the competition. ¡°I can slow down time,¡± Sara nodded. ¡°I can speed it up, too, which is what I¡¯m doing inside this bubble.¡± The shockwave from the explosion washed over their position like a water wave, and it kicked up a burst of sand on the outside. From it, Cas was able to deduce the tall figure of an invisible bubble that capped over them. ¡°How much?¡± Cas asked, immediately feeling stupid for the question. Judging by the apparent speed of sound outside, they were obviously being sped up by- ¡°A couple thousand times,¡± Sara answered. ¨C way too fast, Cas concluded, turning back to look at the flame front, which seemed almost frozen in place. ¡°But,¡± Cas said, pointing back at her previous thoughts somehow, ¡°but, the hyenas. How could you-¡± ¡°Look, I understand this is a lot to take in, but can we address your questions after we survive this demon attack?¡± Sara presented the option gently. Cas shook her head. ¡°Ok, fine. So, this bubble we¡¯re in is running several thousand times faster than the outside, right?¡± ¡°It is.¡± Sara answered the question with the back of her mind. Currently, her attention was grabbed by the Pattern Square in her hand. Her eyes ran back and forth in a calculating manner as she ran Aura through the object. ¡°Also,¡± Sara added, ¡°keep your Aura percolated. This bubble affects the space inside of it, so it¡¯ll break if you show a hostile Aura. It doesn''t matter if you¡¯re not touching the walls.¡± Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. ¡°Noted.¡± Cas said, looking dangerously at the corpse of the sand angler which lay curled across the sand. It twitched slightly, and Cas pulled her dagger: ¡°Don¡¯t bother,¡± Sara interrupted her. ¡°It¡¯s dead.¡± ¡°How can you be sure?¡± Cas demanded. ¡°I mean,¡± she gestured back at the approaching flame front, ¡°stakes are kind of high right now.¡± ¡°Does it have an Aura?¡± Sara asked rhetorically. ¡°No.¡± Cas didn¡¯t even need to look. ¡°Then it¡¯s dead.¡± Sara¡¯s answer was short, most of her attention devoted to the Pattern Square in her hand. Several minutes passed in silence before Cas¡¯s Aura-boost paged new ideas into her mind. Valiantly, Cas managed to keep these thoughts to herself, but the longer she did this the more nervous she felt. Eventually, she abandoned her vow of silence and turned to Sara. ¡°If we¡¯re running so much faster than the outside, couldn¡¯t we just throw stuff at them?¡± she asked, feeling her throat dry as she suggested the solution. ¡°Whatever we throw is going to be travelling faster than sound by the time it reaches the outside world, and we could throw hundreds of things in the time it would take them to blink.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not that kind of time-bubble, Cas,¡± Sara rapped a spare set of knuckles against the invisible wall. She hardly looked away from her Pattern Square as she answered. ¡°Oh,¡± Cas said, dejected before a new idea sparked in place of the last. ¡°Wait, if the bubble is solid, wouldn¡¯t it protect us from the fire?¡± ¡°Normally, yes.¡± Sara paused, tripping over an unrelated thought as her Pattern Square told her something. ¡°Yes, but¡­?¡± Cas goaded, sensing the caveat.. ¡°... just¡­ just look closer at the spell,¡± Sara advised, too invested in the Pattern Square to bother with a better explanation. Cas complied. It was a little closer, now, and a little bigger. The demon¡¯s torso was completely hidden behind it. Cas had grown used to seeing Aura through solid objects. So she found it strange when the flame obscured her ability. ¡°She¡¯s running her Aura through the flames,¡± Cas noted. "That''s why it''s blocking her outline." ¡°That¡¯s right,¡± Sara put away her Pattern Square. ¡°And do you remember how we had to keep the Sand Angler from touching the silence spell?¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± Cas nodded. ¡°It would''ve destroyed the silence spell with its Aura.¡± ¡°Exactly,¡± Sara smiled proudly. ¡°No spell survives a hostile Aura.¡± ¡°I take it the demon¡¯s Aura is hostile, too?¡± Sara scoffed. ¡°It certainly isn¡¯t friendly. Trust me, the moment even the tip of that flame touches this spell, our bubble is going to pop, and when that happens-¡± ¡°We¡¯re cooked,¡± Cas finished for her, gripping her spearhead tighter. ¡°Couldn¡¯t you have made this bubble a little wider?¡± she complained, feeling suddenly trapped. ¡°We could¡¯ve dodged to the side if you had.¡± Cas could feel her emotions intensely. The warping lens of her Aura-boost turned everything up a thousand fold. It also provided her with bravado enough to pretend otherwise. Despite this, Cas found herself unable to replicate the sheer disinterest Sara showed. ¡°You don¡¯t seem too worried,¡± Cas noticed. Sara let out a polite laugh. ¡°I¡¯m a lady that can control time, darling; there are very few things in the world that worry me, much less a novice demon magician.¡± Cas chewed at her lip, idly noting the new habit. ¡°The world went quiet earlier, I think she cast a silence spell over the tent.¡± Sara nodded. ¡°It¡¯s jamming my psychic links, too. Clever little bug.¡± ¡°What if I go outside and touch the silence spell with my Aura?¡± Cas offered. ¡°That would break the spell,¡± Sara considered, ¡°but this is a refugee camp, remember? The army camp is a mile away. I¡¯m certain someone will die before they notice and send anyone.¡± Outside, the demon¡¯s eyes were rounding up into a surprised expression. Apparently, it had just noticed their time bubble. ¡°What if¡­¡± Cas wracked her brains, looking for an easy way out ¡°-- what if you created overlapping time bubbles and we used them to run away?¡± ¡°Again, not that kind of time bubble,¡± Sara knocked again at the solid walls. ¡°I can¡¯t overlap them.¡± ¡°Can you move them?¡± Cas hopped on her toes, trying anything to burn off the flurry of energy that came with her aura boost. She¡¯d been standing still for far too long. ¡°No.¡± ¡°What if you just made a really long one from here to camp?¡± ¡°It wouldn¡¯t last.¡± Sara cut down. ¡°Besides, we¡¯d have to leave one bubble before creating a new one. The demon would attack us when we tried.¡± Cas cursed. ¡°Then what¡¯s the point of this stupid spell? To watch our death in high definition?¡± ¡°We¡¯re not going to die,¡± Sara said with a stern reproval. ¡°And the point of this spell is to give us time ¨C a valuable commodity, you know. It¡¯s obvious this ambush was preplanned. It¡¯s only fair that we get time to plan our counterarguments.¡± Sara smiled a sporting smile filled with malice. ¡°Do you have any spells that could let us escape?¡± Cas asked, grasping. The word ¡®escape¡¯ drew a look of surprise from Sara¡¯s eyes. ¡°My, you certainly seem shy about this fight.¡± Indignant, Cas let out a huff, crossing her arms. ¡°I¡¯m not looking to get into avoidable fights.¡± Sara smiled, poking Cas with the expression. ¡°Ohhhhh? And this from the girl that ran straight at a Regalia surrounded by a monster cloud?¡± Cas tightened the cross of her arms and looked aside. She spoke with stiff formality: ¡°My experiences in the monster cloud have given me a new outlook on life.¡± She shivered a bit at the horrid memory. ¡°Besides. I don¡¯t see the point of fighting this thing by ourselves when there¡¯s an entire army out there. Don¡¯t you have any spell that could-¡± Sara laughed in her face. Cas blinked at the gesture. It was an honest laugh, one which belied the mean-spirited timing of the thing. ¡°What¡¯s so funny?¡± Sara, pocketing her Pattern Square, rose up from her hunched posture. ¡°Oh, nothing; you just reminded me of my first magic lesson.¡± Cas raised an eyebrow. ¡°And what was that?¡± Still trailing a laugh, Sara morphed her posture into a parody of her rough-necked fencing tutor. ¡°Sara,¡± she began, morphing her brows into a serious expression and speaking with a deeper voice. ¡°You¡¯ll learn to believe this one day, but magic can¡¯t solve any of your problems. If you want a demon killed, you¡¯ll have to hack it in the face repeatedly with a sword.¡± ¡°Uh, huh¡­¡± Cas rolled her tongue in a questioning manner. ¡°And what¡¯s that supposed to mean?¡± ¡°It means leave the magic to me,¡± Sara explained. ¡°You focus on the ¡®stabbing it in the face¡¯ part of the equation,, or Matrix as you seem to prefer. Do you still have your blade?¡± Sighing, Cas pulled into view the warped and half-melted body of her spear-head, which seemed wholly inadequate in the face of the magical fire-storms abound. ¡°You really don¡¯t have any spells?¡± Cas asked, tired. Sara shrugged apologetically. ¡°It¡¯s Aura would destroy all my spells, I¡¯m afraid. Like my tutor said, magic doesn¡¯t solve problems.¡± Cas made a disgusted noise. ¡°Really? It seems to be solving every problem our demon friend has. If magic is so useless, why can¡¯t we just destroy her fire spell with our Auras, huh? Or would that just be too convenient?¡± Sara looked at Cas with the horrified face of someone trying to teach their parents how to send an email. ¡°Oh my God, you really don''t know how magic works,¡± she said, face paling. Equally frustrated, Cas knocked a bored hand against the wall of the time bubble. ¡°Well, we have all the time In the world for you to explain, don¡¯t we?¡± Sara was quick to retort. ¡°Not all the time. We have an hour, at most, but, to answer your question briefly: we can''t dispel the ¡®fire spell¡¯ because it''s not a fire spell. Look.¡± Sara pointed at the flame blast, and Cas followed her hand. There, at the back of the parade, waves of heat ¨C like those Cas had so often seen rising in the desert, flowed in concentric circles into the source of the explosion. And looking aside, Cas saw, at the edges of the palanquin, where dew, fog, and even flakes of ice were forming. In fact, the whole interior of the palanquin was freezing, as ice crawled along every surface. ¡°A heat pump,¡± Cas realized. ¡°She¡¯s concentrating all the heat in- oh,¡± she stopped her narration with a horrible realization: ¡°It''s a natural fire.¡± ¡°Exactly,¡± Sara confirmed. ¡°Even if we destroy the spell, all that would do is stop the ¡®heat pump¡¯ as you called it. The fire ¨C being natural ¨C would remain, and when that happens ¨C.¡± ¡°We¡¯re still cooked,¡± Cas finished, again, gravely. ¡°Exactly,¡± Sara nodded proudly at her impromptu students'' understanding. ¡°Anything we can do?¡± Sara shrugged. ¡°I can cast ¡®unmake¡¯. That should dissipate the flame.¡± ¡°Great!¡± Cas cheered. ¡°But¡­¡± Sara continued. ¡°But?¡± Cas followed, a sinking feeling in her gut. ¡°Let¡¯s save that as a backup option,¡± Sara decided. Cas blinked twice. ¡°You can¡¯t be serious.¡± Spoiled on stolen time, Sara turned to Cas with a flourish. ¡°I mean, we still have an hour, at least, until this bubble is destroyed. The whole point of this spell is to give us time to think, and I think we can come up with at least one plan that¡¯s better and less reactive than that, don¡¯t you?¡± Cas, fighting her instinct for immediate action, accepted the strange reality where she could have a full conversation in the middle of enemy attack, and caught Sara¡¯s point. She noticed, also, that Sara¡¯s smile had turned devious. ¡°What did you have in mind?¡± Cas, at last, ventured to ask. Chapter 59: Jury Boore-Saa was a demon like any other, except she was a little better than most; at least, she liked to think that was the case. Why else would she have been entrusted with such an important mission? And by the Queen herself, of all demons? Well... not directly by the Demon Queen, the order had come through a long hierarchy, but it was the thought that counted. Either way, now wasn¡¯t the time to preen. She was in the middle of a fight, and combat was to be taken seriously, even against such stupid, smelly, hairy, barbaric animals. Again, like any other demon, Boore-Saa had a dim view of humans. So she ignored her pride and took this fight seriously, feeling the familiar tizz as Aura threw her body into overdrive. Heart-beats thundered together into a painful roar in her chest, and every sensation flared into overexposure, until even the air developed a sharp scent. Sights especially were painful, as visions seared through her optic nerves. The demon restrained a wince. Strange colors aberrated her vision. A needle headache spiked through her skull. Boore-Saa was quite adept with Aura, and ¨C unlike Cas ¨C was having a Matrix moment genuinely. Visions clouded her head and ¨C in the brief flicker of an instant, as her flame blast sparked through the air¨C she noticed that the humans were moving faster than even she could discern, every stray motion of theirs blurring through her perception. Time Bubble! Accelleration! Solid walls. Probably planning something. Faster than you! Your Aura will destroy it. Boore-Saa¡¯s thoughts rose in unison, running on parallel tracks, vying for her attention as they screamed warnings and solutions. A time bubble? These animals were more formidable than she gave them credit for. The flames soon obscured the spell, however, her aura destroying the bubble like was made of soap. Boore-Saa then felt her driving spell break as it touched an Aura, but the flames only shuddered at the speed-bump before exploding. Flaring her Aura, she compressed the air around her into a natural shield, just in time to greet the explosion. Gfrooom! Contact! Her air shield deflected the shockwave like it was a stiff breeze. Mirroring her, the light haired woman stood on the other end of the room, crouched behind an air-barrier of her own. Boore-Saa was tempted to call her unoriginal, but even she had to admit the human¡¯s shield spell was more advanced. The area behind the woman was completely untouched despite the recent explosion. The cloth walls of the palanquin hung undisturbed, retaining even the delicate covering of frost which chilled over every surface in the room. The woman¡¯s eyes were set in a scowl. She let out a long exhale into the chilly air ¨C breathing out a white cloud through snarled nostrils. The expression made the woman look like a raging bull. But then again, what else could be expected of an animal? Boore-Saa laughed a bit at the funny sight, though her humor was killed in the crib as she noticed something. The other human was nowhere to be seen. Dead. Burnt to a crisp. Killed. Ashes were piled on the ground next to the mage, but¡­ something was off. Humans always tried preserving each other''s lives. It was a senseless instinct of theirs. So why would such a talented mage¡­? Trick. Look in her eyes. She¡¯s laughing at you. The ashes aren¡¯t human. They used the desert-eel corpse to make them. The other human is still alive. The conclusion hit like a ton of bricks. Boore-Saa flared her Aura to ridiculous heights until waves of degenerating static filled her vision, and she felt like she was dying. The consequences of this were well worth it, however: because, for just the briefest moment, time stopped for Boore-Saa and she was given a moment to think. The first thing Boore-Saa noticed was the light. The palanquin interior had a tented ceiling. Hovering in it, near the apex, was the floating glow-bulb. Humans considered light to be a ¡®holy¡¯ thing. Despite the simple stupidity of that sentiment, they sometimes managed to create beautiful things out of it. The ¡®glow-bulb¡¯ was one such artifact. The centerpiece of every monastery, a glow bulb was light incarnate. Made entirely of magic and feeling like sunlight, it shone tastefully with a thousand esoteric colors. The strange light danced beautifully across the glimmering frost. Light only glimmers when you move. You¡¯re standing still Why is the ice glimmering? The ice is melting. The mage is returning the heat where it belongs. The woman¡¯s Aura was flaring subtly with a secondary spell, and the ice was sublimating. More than that, the human was forcing her Aura into the ice. The steam it generated was muggy with Aura, and ¨C the woman¡¯s Aura signature was disappearing into the general fog. It was a standard tactic. Fill the air with Aura and hide your signature. But¡­ it was usually used at night wasn¡¯t it? Kind of pointless to hide your Aura when your opponent could see you. None of it made sense. Why waste so much time? Why obscure Aura when the glow-bulb let them see each other? Boore-Saa raised another air-shield and sent a quizzical eye-brow over at her opponent. Sara, no doubt in the midst of her own matrix moment, caught the flicker of expression and returned an evil smile. Wait¡­ She was forgetting something, Boore-Saa realized. The ash pile. It¡¯s moving. In her accelerated frame of reference, her eyes were heavy stones to be heaved into position, coaxed into focusing on the next point of interest. And the ash pile was interesting indeed, because it was draining away. They cut a hole in the floor. About fist sized. Did they put something underground? No! This is a palanquin. It¡¯s a raised platform. There¡¯s three feet of clear space below us. The human is walking underneath us. Probably running.
Cas raced underneath the palanquin frame on all fours, darting through the impromptu crawlspace, careful not to bump against the wood veneer above her. It was dark down here. A skirt of tent material covered all sides, blocking all light. Worse than that, the palanquin blocked her Aura sense, blinding her to the signatures of everyone inside. Cas stopped suddenly and sat up into a low crouch. She drew her dagger. Having to guess the demon¡¯s location was frustrating, but it was comforting to know that the demon wouldn¡¯t be able to see her, either. Hah! The demon wouldn''t even be able to guess that she was still alive, much less beneath her feet. Admittedly, Cas may have gotten a bit too comfortable, considering how completely off guard she was taken when the wood-veneer above her burst open, and a clawed hand snapped through digging bloody fingers several inches into her chest. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. The demon¡¯s hand racketed down with a brief burst of violence, gripping hard enough to warp the bars of her ribcage, before yanking up hard enough that Cas¡¯s toes flew from the earth.
Boore-Saa was ecstatic, feeling her claws sink true. ¡®Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!¡¯ She¡¯d caught her! First try! Was fishing always this fun? Maybe she could ask her quarry? Brbrbrbkghagh!! The floor exploded into a fountain of wood chips as she hauled the human through, feeling the satisfying crunch of a breaking body reverberate through her grip. The human ¨C broken, covered by a veil of blood ¨C managed a valiant but ultimately pointless strike with her little dagger. Boore-Saa dodged easily, snatching the woman¡¯s wrist with a lazy grab. The ethereal light of the room turned a bit more orange. The air temperature dropped a few degrees. Heat drive. Mage is casting fire. Coming from behind you. Boore-Saa spun, raising the dying human¡¯s body to block the fire storm. Her improvised shield let out a funny scream of pain as flames engulfed her. The priestess retched at the smell of burning flesh, scampering away. Boore-Saa ripped her hand out of the woman, feeling the beating heart squirm in her bloody grip. She squeezed her fingers and the heart mashed into useless ness. No longer supported by the arm digging into her chest, Cas fell but arrested suddenly as Boore-Saa''s free hand caught her face. The grip around her head tightened, pressure rising, until- Gkrlorp! Cas¡¯s head collapsed, falling apart like a clay doll filled with splattering paint. Her body went limp, left arm twitching slightly. ¡°Nhooooooo!¡± Sara nearly collapsed in her despair, letting out a very convincing scream filled with agony and guilt. Hi-larious, Boore-Saa thought. In fact, she found it so funny she could laugh, but she settled on killing instead. She flexed her hand, slipping her claws from the headless body. It fell with a dead thud onto the carpeted floor behind her. The woman screamed again and threw some ineffectual fire blasts which were easily blocked by a pair of air-shields. Ahh, yesss, the mental breakdown followed shortly by death. Bore-Saa¡¯s favorite part. But her jubilation was halted by a nagging doubt. You didn¡¯t confirm the human¡¯s death. Her first voice came. She¡¯s headless! Her second voice retorted. However, her other two voices vetoed the sensible retort. The mage has blocked your Aura sense. A lack of Aura is the only guarantee of death. If you can¡¯t see her aura. You don¡¯t know if she¡¯s dead. Why else would the mage block your aura sense? She has no other reason to with the glow bulb still active. Again! She¡¯s headless! Boore-Saa felt increasingly frustrated at such nagging doubts in the midst of her inevitable victory. But Boore-Saa¡¯s mother had always taught her to trust her gut, so just as she blocked the second fire-blast ¨C she ventured a glance back at where the dead human should have laid. Instead, she found that the headless body had ¨C inexplicably ¨C regrown a head, and was rising up to stab the charred blade in her direction.
Seriously! What was with this demon! Cas stabbed forward, over committing to the blow and stumbling over her own feet. The demon twirled aside at the last second, turning a sure stab into a glancing blow, rearing back with a snarl of pain and eyes full of bright fury. Cas noticed the demon drawing back a hand, and her death was averted for a second as Sara threw a far more serious fire blast which obliged the demon to block. But it only delayed the demon for a second, and that was too short an interval for Cas to dodge. The demon threw a hand forward that stabbed wrist deep into Cas¡¯s chest. Briefly, she felt an intense heat forming just before her body splattered apart into a mixture of flame and fluid. The demon¡¯s snarl turned victorious, but Cas was tougher than that, and she immediately reformed into a bell shape in the Demon¡¯s hand, blasting it with a hot cloud of sulphuric tear-gas. Boore-Saa ate the shot, blinked, and huffed it in before smiling at the thing in her grip. She flared her Aura once more as another, intensely hot feeling fell on Cas¡¯s location. This time, Cas dodged shortly before the explosion hit her. Rather, she didn¡¯t dodge as much as she ¡®abandoned ship¡¯ for lack of better words. Leaving her destroyed body in the demon¡¯s grip, Cas leapt out in flight form, flitting upward and pulling back to fly just along the contour of the ceiling.. As she flew, Cas considered everything she¡¯d learned in her recent, and rather violent, education about demons. She learned very quickly just how different they were from monsters. For instance, there was their teeth. Demons had white enamel, far different from the obsidian black shards characteristic of Monsters. Secondly, Demons could do magic. She wasn¡¯t jealous. Cas twisted her wings and changed course, darting down from the ceiling and flying straight through the magic glow bulb. The glow bulb touched her hostile Aura and winked out, leaving the room in near perfect darkness. And, then... there was the third thing: Demons, unlike monsters, didn¡¯t have night vision. Cas, on the other hand, could clearly see that the demon was growing worried as it glared blindly around. Sara sprung forward in the darkness, charging a dart of compressed air. The demon fell into a low stance, charging her own spell. There was a game of chicken among mutually blinded mages. It was called, ''Who should Cast light?'' Light was useful. It lets you see your target. But, while you were busy casting light, invariably your opponent would be preparing a spell to kill you. So, what was to be done? Why, fire blindly and hope for the best, of course. Both mages knew this best practice. The demon dodged to the left and fired her ray blindly. Sara cheated. Cas¡¯s voice mental voice warned. Sara leapt right, missing the ice trident quite neatly. And Sara aimed true, shooting her compressed dart, which struck the demon¡¯s flesh before expanding. A horrendous noise of popping air and warping flesh screamed through the darkness, and the demon stumbled, carrying on for a moment with the momentum of her dodge, trying to force herself into a stand, before wilting into a collapse.
The demon had lost much of her charm in her death throes. Her breaths came labored. Her sweaty face was barred over with sunlight that filtered through the jagged strips torn out of the palanquin walls. The priestess sat kneeling, almost catatonic to the side. ¡°I¡­¡± she whispered. ¡°¡­ I¡¯m a failure,¡± she admitted with a bowed head. ¡°I should never have become a priestess. I don¡¯t even know why I did. I thought I was doing well, but¡­ when the demon queen gave me a way out¡­ I only became-¡± Sara raised a hand to silence the woman, face drawn down into a stony expression as she turned back to the demoness. Cas, lurking in the shadows, was surprised to see Sara completely abandoning that genial familiarity which was her hallmark. ¡°I-¡± The priestess tried to speak again, but this time the demon raised a hand, and a shot of flame burst the woman¡¯s neck. Blood flowed out, stifling the gurgles as the woman grabbed at her wound and collapsed. The demon chuckled. She reclined painfully against a cloth wall, thin arm resting across her slim stomach, careful not to touch at the crescent hole which had been bitten out of her side. ¡°There,¡± she laughed. ¡°I saved you the trouble of killing her yourself.¡± Sara scowled. ¡°We wouldn¡¯t have killed her.¡± The demon only laughed harder, stopping with a painful cough. ¡°Right... and let her blab about your human-monster. I assume you''re keeping her secret?" She nodded over at Cas. ¡°We weren¡¯t going to kill her,¡± Sara reiterated. "You certainly didn¡¯t try very hard to stop me." Sara remained silent. The demon smiled victoriously at Sara''s hard demeanor. "You can thank me later. Consider it a peace offering,¡± the demon let out another soft chuckle, pausing suddenly. ¡°I take it you¡¯re going to kill me?¡± she asked, serious at last. ¡°Yes," Sara answered. "I take it you''re not planning to answer any of my questions as to what brought you here before I do?" The demon laughed and nodded ''no'', but a fresh wetness appeared in her eyes. The confirmation of her death, it seemed, had disturbed her, and her breaths were becoming more of a gasp. Sara raised her hand, Aura flaring. ¡°Wait-¡± the demon suddenly cried out, raising a hand and immediately regretting the action. She looked nervous in the ensuing silence, as Sara actually held back her attack. ¡°You,¡± the demon said, pointing over to Cas who was on the floor, now, reconstituting the splattered parts of herself. ¡°You¡¯re a Water Prince, aren¡¯t you? You saw me in the dark, I¡¯m guessing?¡± Cas was fully human before the sentence finished, rising up into a crouch. Her face intersected a slant of sunlight, seeming to float in the darkness as a quizzical expression. ¡°Yes?¡± she answered feeling strange to be responding so politely to a demon. ¡°Don¡¯t kill me,¡± the demon begged. Cas surprised herself with how easily the laugh escaped her. ¡°Ahahaha!¡± Maybe it was the adrenaline catching up to her, but she felt suddenly unabashed. ¡°Seriously?¡± Cas asked. The demon only looked at her, speaking more seriously this time: ¡°Please don¡¯t kill me?¡± Cas¡¯s surprised chuckle turned into a full throated laugh. ¡°I promise!¡± The demon shouted. ¡°I promise never to act against you. I promise to aid you however I can. That¡¯s the truth!¡± Cas was nearly doubled over at this point. ¡°Sara!¡± she shouted. ¡°Can you believe this girl? Hahahaha! She tries killing me and now she¡¯s bribing me with nothing! Hahaha! I thought this only happened in dumb movies!¡± But Sara wasn¡¯t laughing, and Cas quickly lost her humor when she noticed that. ¡°Well?¡± Sara said, voice shaking with restrained patience. ¡°What¡¯s your decision?¡± Cas blinked. That¡­ that couldn¡¯t be right. She had to be hearing things wrong. Was¡­ ¡°You¡¯re not taking her seriously?¡± Cas laughed again, trying to draw Sara into her good mood and failing. ¡°Like¡­ what kind of world is this? You can¡¯t just say ¡®please don¡¯t kill me¡¯ and get away with anything.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not that kind of world,¡± Sara confirmed. ¡°But a demon¡¯s promise is a powerful thing.¡± Cas''s face became downcast. ¡°And¡­ what? You¡¯re waiting for me to say yes or no?¡± Sara answered with silence, and that was when it became all too real. Sara was being serious. They were all being serious. And they were waiting for her to make a decision. They were asking her to decide if they should kill someone. The adrenaline crashed out of her system, and Cas felt suddenly on the verge of throwing up. Her jaw started shaking as she looked over at the demon and ¨C before her mind could process it ¨C answered. Chapter 60: Consequences Cas wore the fresh robes of an acolyte, raided from a clothing chest that occupied a hidden corner of the priestess¡¯s palanquin. The clothes were stiff cloth, weighing lightly on her shoulders as she stepped down the palanquin staircase. Under the auspices of her Aura-boost, Cas¡¯s habit of memory was heightened, and she had been expecting a soft breeze to greet her on the outside ¨C as was the habit of this region ¨C but the air outside was as stolid and motionless as a cubicle¡¯s. That was right; the demon had cast a bubble of silence before¡­ Well, that was all in the past. Cas stepped down onto the dirt, waiting for Sara to join her. Sara had yet to appear. She was still inside, reacting with surprising clarity of mind as she arranged the mess inside. Cas expected that she would feel nervous standing outside by herself. Certainly her experience after the unit massacre had shown her the not to be the most composed under pressure, but her Aura-boost turned her emotions to iron, and she was feeling introspective about the whole issue. Back in the bloody atmosphere of the palanquin, with danger in the air, it had been easy to ignore the sudden strength of mind she expressed. Now that she was outside in the artificial tranquility of the silence spell, staring up at the noiseless sky which was just beginning to sport a few dim stars, Cas couldn''t help finding her resilience strange. Maybe it was the aura boost, or the adrenaline crash that explained it, or maybe she was just acclimating to her new environment. Whatever the reason, Cas worked hard to keep away from thoughts of the Priestess¡­ her throat popping in a burst of violence, or of the demon... The bubble of silence which covered the palanquin was completely invisible, but Cas could guess its extent by the acoustics inside, and by the subtle grains of pollen which dotted its surface. Only several pollen grains, though. There hadn¡¯t been enough time for more to collect. It was amazing for her to realize that the combat had lasted less than a minute. She¡¯d spent ten times as long in the time bubble, strategizing, asking desperate questions, psyching herself up. Sara and she had spent so much time running game plans that Cas almost felt prepared when the time came to actually fight. If only she¡¯d gotten the same courtesy before being forced to order the demon¡¯s- ¡°Cas.¡± Sara lifted the veil covering the entrance way. Slipping through, she let the cloth drop before Cas could get a better look inside. ¡°How are you feeling?¡± It was a simple question. Sara managed to ask it without pretension. Cas parroted with what was on her mind. ¡°I feel¡­ very responsible.¡± Sara didn¡¯t say anything. Cas had expected her to. She¡¯d expected a series of ¡®It¡¯s not your faults,¡¯ or ¡®don¡¯t worry about it¡¯s¡¯, but Sara was more honest than that, it seemed. Cas almost wished she would lie. Sara was a master of changing topics, however, and she managed the effect without speaking a single word. Moving in front of Cas, she turned around, directing their mutual attention to the casket-still exterior of the Palanquin. Cas followed her gaze; she couldn¡¯t help imagining the blood and horror that awaited any unlucky intruder into that space. Of course, there would be many unlucky people tonight, to tell by Sara¡¯s expression. ¡°I take it we¡¯ll have to report this?¡± Cas asked miserably. Sara nodded. ¡°Only to the higher ups, for now. I¡¯ve just sent a message to the Lieutenant.¡± ¡°What¡¯s the word?¡± Sara squinted painfully as she tried to translate psychic images to words. ¡°Well¡­. she¡¯s saying a lot of things, but the pertinent orders are to bar the locals from the area until she sends an investigation over.¡± ¡°Investigation?¡± Cas seemed offended. ¡°Yes,¡± Sara sighed. ¡°Even for regular soldiers, killing a priestess is a matter of investigation. And we ¨C ¡° she pointed at their mutual ¡®auxillary¡¯ pins, ¡°aren¡¯t even regular.¡± ¡°So we have to guard this place until they investigate. What then?¡± Sara shrugged, seeming tired for the first time, ¡°Then, we have some explaining to do.¡±
As it turned out, Sara was mistaken. They, in fact, had a lot of explaining to do, but Sara managed easily by using her refined powers of speech. Cas managed even easier by using her power of "letting Sara do the talking." For a talking Sara, expressing all her social charms, was quite a sight to see. Over the hours of interrogation and mutual scene scouring that followed, Sara cut through every suspicion and preempted every question so that, before the commander had even arrived, everyone seemed satisfied that they were in the right. It helped, of course, that they actually were in the right, but that didn''t need to be the case for her to get them off, as Sara attested to Cas in private. Afterwards, a generally dour mood spread through the army encampment, as the news hit of the Priestess''s death. Cas struggled to imagine how much worse the refugee camp would be, given the circumstances. Thankfully, she never had to find out. The army left at the start of next morning, parting ways with the refugees. Cas stuck to herself the next few days. She was hardly in the mood to see happy faces, much less to face the general gloom the army displayed. It was all just so depressing, and Cas was depressed enough as it was. As it turned out, the root cause of the melancholy was the news of the Priestess''s association with demons. This surprised Cas. After all, the army was hardly sad after the prince¡¯s death. So, why the extreme reaction, now? Maybe two notable deaths, along with the unit massacre was just too much. The straw that broke the camel¡¯s back was often the most insidious, after all. Or, perhaps it was the priestess¡¯s position that inspired the dread. Cas overhead some of the regular soldiers gossiping. Something about the Church and demons was the topic of conversation, and the priestess¡¯s¡­ conversion ¨C they used the polite term ¨C had been deemed a terrible omen. Cas snorted plaintively at the analysis. Cas didn¡¯t believe in omens, and she didn¡¯t see what all the hubbub was about. The Priestess dying was sad, sure, but no sadder than the unit massacre, or the prince¡¯s death. In her eyes, they were all human beings. So what if one of them wore fancy robes? Cas had never been all that religious, even as a child, and as an adult had gone full unbeliever. Maybe she just wasn¡¯t equipped with the faculties necessary to understand the feelings of these people she found herself amongst? She remembered the village, and the miscalculations and terrible decisions which had let to ruin there. In hindsight, it was easy for her to understand that she hadn''t fit in there, and she wondered if she would remain e a stranger here, too. Cas admired the night sky, wondering if there even was a place for someone like her in this world, if she hadn¡¯t been placed here by some cosmic mistake. She let her vision swim through the alien constellations. Her aura-boost had accelerated over the past few days, and an accelerated mind was fond of finding patterns, it turned out; and patterns were something the stars could provide in abundance. Lying on her back as she was, the night encapsulated her entire visual field. Wherever she looked, densely packed points of light greeted her, and a vista of images appeared, each more vivid than the last. It was especially pleasing to do this while waxing philosophical. Might as well have some nice scenery to go with her dark thoughts, which had only darkened recently. Cas remembered again, vividly, the death in the Palanquin. She forced herself to remember it, to watch every detail in her mind. She¡¯d never been so near someone as they¡¯d died, before. She wondered why she¡¯d even gotten involved. So what if she was evil? Was she even evil? Maybe Cas had joined the wrong side. What even was good? Cas asked this of herself, just as a pattern of stars took the shape of a winking cat. Suddenly, a bright face that hovered into view. "So, I hope you¡¯re not busy, ya?¡± It was Anne, her dark hair fell down either side of her face in long tresses, brushing against Cas¡¯s cheeks. Cas sat up through the black curtain of hair, looking back at the fellow auxiliary. Anne stood with that ever-winning smile of hers, bordered on either side by Reginald and Dacula. All of them looked at her with earnest and concerned faces. ¡°Hey,¡± Cas said, wanting to be alone but not having the heart to turn them away. ¡°Why are you here?¡± ¡°Because we wanted to look after you, ya?¡± Anne said. She was a woman in her twenties, with round features that looked especially child-like it times like this. ¡°Why?¡± Cas turned back around, resting an arm on her knee. ¡°Because you¡¯re our friend,¡± Anne answered simply. It was a simple statement, said with full confidence, and Cas was jealous when she heard Anne say such a thing. For it was exactly the sort of pure belief that Cas ¨C mired with complicated thoughts and doubtful philosophies ¨C had lost the ability to express. Heck, she¡¯d been stunted in that capacity even on Earth (evolutionary psychology did a lot to destroy one¡¯s belief in the power of love) and things had gotten only worse under the auspices of her aura boost. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. It just didn¡¯t seem fair. After all, Cas was right. She knew that nothing mattered. She knew that they were all basically just self interested creatures confusing themselves with instincts. She knew that they were all just bags of meat that could be killed with a simple stab of the throat¡­ gurgling blood as they collapsed.... So why should she be jealous of someone like Anne, who was so ignorant of everything? Cas sighed darkly, turning a harsh look back onto the woman. ¡°We¡¯ve known each other for literally four days now, Anne. We¡¯ve only spoken to each other what? Three times?¡± Anne scowled, puffing up in that self righteous manner one only ever did in the presence of close friends. ¡°So?" she remarked with great emotion, her accent reasserting itself with full force. ¡°So what?" she asked again, looking pointedly at Cas. "We survived Sable together. We worked hard together. We ate and shared stories together. I haven¡¯t done even that with my brothers.¡± The woman stepped forward with an assertive composition, bending forward at the waist until their noses were barely grazing. ¡°We are friends, Cas. It doesn¡¯t matter if we never meet again, after this, you are welcome in my house. And I will break into yours if you don¡¯t welcome me!¡± Anne then crossed her arms and sat down with a thump, brooking no argument. Cas didn¡¯t know where it came from, but she suddenly laughed, enough that tears almost came to her eyes. Anne scowled again, heating up and nearly rising to a stand. ¡°You know¡­¡± Anne leant forward with a dangerous look in her eye ¡°another duty of a friend is to beat you senseless when you do insulting things.¡± Cas suddenly noticed just how well built the woman was, especially compared to her 16 year old self. But, for the life of her, she just couldn¡¯t stifle her laughs completely enough. Thankfully Reginald, ever the peacemaker, took this moment to interject himself. ¡°Give it a moment, Anne,¡± he placed a calming hand on the woman¡¯s shoulder. ¡°Cas is still young. I think we can allow her a bit of angst. Not to mention¡­¡± he railed off, hinting at some mutual knowledge of theirs. ¡°I don¡¯t care about the Karma,¡± Anne said. ¡°Don¡¯t you see that¡¯s exactly what I¡¯m saying? She doesn¡¯t have to worry, and we¡¯re still her friends regardless of what anyone else says!¡± Cas, choking on the last of her laughs, raised a hand to interrupt them. ¡°I¡¯m not laughing at you, Anne. I¡¯m just laughing because I want to admit defeat. Hahaha!¡± Anne¡¯s anger mellowed into confusion. ¡°Admit defeat? We haven¡¯t started fighting yet, ya?¡± ¡°I think she means she¡¯s acknowledging you as a friend,¡± Reginald translated politely. Cas nodded. ¡°Yeah. I was just a bit dour, and I didn¡¯t expect you¡¯d beat my philosophy so easily.¡± ¡°Ok?¡± Anne tilted her head quizzically, not getting it, but happy to have helped. ¡°Anyway,¡± Cas said, regaining herself. ¡°You said something about Karma, and people talking about me?¡± Immediately, everyone present looked away, guilty expressions abound. ¡°Anne?¡± Cas pressed, knowing that calling someone specifically was a guarantee of cooperation. The by-stander effect, she thought it was called. Another evolutionary psych trick. ¡°Well,¡± Anne drawled. ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter. It¡¯s stupid. We just want to say we¡¯re still with you, ya? Anyone who says you have bad Karma is talking nonsense. The priestess was obviously corrupt." Karma? Cas frowned. ¡°What? Are people saying I have bad Karma because I killed the priestess?¡± ¡°Yes, but she wasn¡¯t a real priestess,¡± Anne hastened to add. ¡°You¡¯re not going to die.¡± ¡°Die?¡± Cas stood up, looking around with a sudden panic. ¡°People want to kill me because of her?¡± ¡°What? No, no, no!¡± Anne consoled, pausing as if trying to translate some very difficult concepts from her native language. ¡°I¡­ hmm,¡± she wondered. Reginald once again stepped in. He took a seat between them, facing the common center as he leant back and started packing his pipe ¨C a sign that he was making himself comfortable for a long conversation. ¡°I believe what Anne is trying to say is: no. No one would try to kill you because of that demon worshipper. I doubt she¡¯ll even be buried on church grounds, come time.¡± ¡°Then what¡¯s with all the death talk?¡± Cas said feeling calmed. ¡°Because of the Karma!¡± Anne answered. ¡°Karma?¡± Cas said. ¡°You don¡¯t know about Karma?¡± Dacula interjected, amazed. ¡°I know about Karma,¡± Cas answered. ¡°It¡¯s when you do good things and good things happen to you.¡± ¡°Yes!¡± Anne snapped her fingers. ¡°And, when you do something bad, bad things happen to you," she completed. ¡°Yes?¡± Cas said, curious where this was going. ¡°Well, as you know,¡± Reginald said, ¡°the consequences of your actions usually happen in the next life, but¡­ for truly heinous acts, the consequences can be more immediate, and killing a holy being is one of the worst things you can do.¡± ¡°But she wasn¡¯t holy!¡± Anne spoke up hotly. ¡°She was working with demons!¡± ¡°And I agree,¡± Reginald replied. ¡°I¡¯m just explaining the situation to Cas in case she hears some of the more ignorant sort talking.¡± ¡°What happens if you kill a holy person?¡± Cas said, withholding another bout of laughter at just how seriously they were all taking this. ¡°Well,¡± Anne started, ¡°people say¡­ that you die in three days if you kill a person who¡¯s truly holy,¡± placing particular emphasis on the word truly, looking over at Cas to make sure her feelings had been sufficiently spared. ¡°You don¡¯t have to worry about that, though.¡± ¡°Oh, I¡¯ll be fine,¡± Cas nodded with a cat¡¯s smirk. It was heartwarming how much they cared, even if about something so particular. Remembering Sara¡¯s reaction to her blasphemies against the Priestess, Cas elected not to argue with them on this front, instead shifting conversation to other pleasant topics, where she and her friends had a long night of pleasant jokes and catching up.
Sara, on the other hand, she did not spare for an instant. ¡°See¡­ I told you the priestess was evil. I told you so. But did you listen to me? Noooo¡­.¡± It seemed that an Aura-boost had the effect of amplifying your emotion, Cas noticed, taking three pages of mental notes on its effects even as she worked diligently to annoy Sara. There was a sixteen year old inside everyone, it seemed, especially Cas when she turned 16. Well, 15 and a half, now, she corrected; she¡¯d lost some mass in the fight. Sara sat atop her sleeping bag, a carrying chest resting on her crossed legs. Leaning forward, Sara looked into the mirrored lid, delicately wiping away her makeup with a damp cloth. ¡°It¡¯s a bit late to gloat, don¡¯t you think?¡± Sara was unperturbed by the teasing. ¡°I mean, the priestess was unmasked three days ago; the news has gone stale by now.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll have you know, I was too depressed to take advantage,¡± Cas neener neenered at the woman as she dabbed away her mascara. By now, Sara was almost wearing a plain face. An extremely beautiful one, which only further made Cas believe in an unjust universe. ¡°Yes, I noticed you were acting a bit strange,¡± Sara said. Done with her night time preparations, she gently placed all the tools of her craft into their respective spaces. ¡°I was planning to intervene if you didn¡¯t get any better by tomorrow, but I''m glad to see you''ve cheered up. What¡¯s got you in such a good mood?¡± ¡°Just conversation with friends,¡± Cas admitted with a wistful smile. ¡°Oh,¡± Sara replied coldly. ¡°Those auxiliaries of yours? I forget their names.¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± Cas nodded. ¡°Anne, Reginald, and Dacula.¡± ¡°Right,¡± Sara said, not feigning her interest well enough ¨C which was her way of expressing disinterest. ¡°What did you talk about?¡± ¡°Oh, lots of stuff,¡± Cas sighed, not noticing the hint. ¡°They said I don¡¯t have to worry about dying from Karmic backlash, though, so that¡¯s nice.¡± ¡°Oh?¡± Sara said, no longer having to feign. ¡°They said what, now?¡± Cas, still on her roll of smugitude, riposted instantly. ¡°You haven''t heard?" She tsked dissapointedly. "I think the unit Psychic is losing her touch. First the priestess, now this? It seems like you¡¯re not keeping your finger on the pulse of information as well as you should be.¡± ¡°My job is to track relevant information," Sara replied, "not idle gossip between lower ranks." Despite this sentiment, she turned in place to give Cas her full attention. "Anyway, tell me about the gossip,¡± she fluttered her hand with a ¡®go on¡¯ motion. ¡°Oh, just some silly stuff about Karma. Apparently I can¡¯t get away from California insanity even in another universe.¡± Sara raised an eyebrow. ¡°Karma isn¡¯t silly,¡± the woman replied. ¡°What could they possibly have said to give you that impression?¡± ¡°It¡¯s not what they said,¡± Cas admitted. ¡°In fact, they actually said I wasn¡¯t going to die.¡± ¡°Again,¡± Sara replied, ¡°why would you be dying?¡± ¡°Because I killed the priestess.¡± ¡°But... you didn¡¯t kill the priestess.¡± Cas shrugged. ¡°I guess it makes for more interesting gossip if I did.¡± ¡°Well,¡± Sara looked up thoughtfully, ¡°I suppose I can see how it would work. The Karmic consequences of killing a holy person and all that. But I wouldn¡¯t worry about that. Karma expresses itself in future lives, anyway.¡± ¡°Come on, don¡¯t tell me you believe in all that Karma stuff?¡± ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t I?¡± Sara replied. ¡°Are you saying that you don¡¯t?¡± ¡°I mean¡­ just because the church says something doesn¡¯t mean it¡¯s true.¡± ¡°Cas!¡± Sara said, warningly. ¡°I mean look at the Priestess. Are you saying no one in a robe is capable of being wrong? Tell me this, have you ever seen Karma in action?¡± ¡°Of course,¡± Sara answered confidently. ¡°When I was a child, for instance. My family''s grounds keeper struck a horse with a rake, and the horse died. Two months later, that same grounds keeper slipped down a hill and broke his leg. Coincidence? I think not.¡± ¡°That¡¯s obviously a coincidence!¡± Cas supplied, revolting from such complete disregard for basic reasoning. Surprised at that response, Sara searched for something else. ¡°Well¡­ what about the power of prayer?¡± ¡°Is that power anything other than making you feel warm inside?¡± ¡°... well, what about the tales of God? I mean-¡± ¡°And, are these tales in the stories written by the church?¡± ¡°No," Sara began triumphantly, "they¡¯re written by God ¨C¡± . ¡°-- according to the Church,¡± Cas finished for her, victorious. Sara paused suddenly, as if reexamining her life with a calculating expression. ¡°Maybe you¡¯ll open your heart one day,¡± she said at last with a ''se la vie'' posture. ¡°Faith can difficult to comprehend for those who lack it.¡± Cas, feeling she¡¯d offended the woman, softened her answer: ¡°I dunno¡­¡± she said at last. ¡°I guess I¡¯ve just never been for this religious stuff. I mean, God? Karma? Consequences in future lives? All that stuff is just a bit too speculative and ¡®woo¡¯ for my taste, is all.¡± Cas said, air quoting the ''woo''. ¡°Really?¡± Sara said, looking chuffed. ¡°Yes, really,¡± Cas said, frustrated and unwilling to hold back her feelings any longer. Sara only sent a hard, expressive look in her direction before pointing out: ¡°Cas¡­ you quite literally reincarnated into this world.¡± Cas blinked. ¡°Oh¡­¡± ¡°Feel like praying yet?¡± Sara joked. ¡°I mean, you did kill that priestess three days ago, now. Your time should be up soon. Midnight strikes in what? Half an hour?¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t kill the priestess." Cas''s feeling wasn''t in the denial, however. Her aura-boosted mind far more concerned with existential matters as it raced to reorganize her fundamental beliefs about the nature of reality. ¡°Yes,¡± Sara admitted, "howeverrrr," stretching the syllable into a teasing note, ¡°you did have a hand in her death, and that¡¯s certainly almost as bad.¡± ¡°So did you!¡± Cas said. ¡°So why are you laughing, huh? You¡¯d get it just as bad as me.¡± Cas grew heated as she realized that her entire life was a lie, and that evolutionary psychology was methodologically untestable. Sara, on the other hand, was floating on clouds. ¡°Oh, I¡¯m too pretty to die young,¡± she explained away. ¡°I¡¯m pretty sure you¡¯ve got the saying backwards.¡± ¡°Maybe,¡± Sara shrugged, slipping her legs into her sleeping bag. ¡°I¡¯m just saying¡­ It has been three days. I¡¯d be worried if I were you.¡± Cas wasn¡¯t at all worried. Beyond the fact that Sara was obviously joking, recent experience of surviving without a head did a lot to take the fear of mortality out of her. Besides, this Karma stuff was obviously silly if the only evidence for it was a childhood story about a horse. What were ineffable Karmic consequences to an unbeliever, after all? ¡°So.. what, then?¡± Cas said, finally. ¡°Is it supposed to happen at midnight, or will it happen tomorrow, at the same time the priestess died?¡± Sara, by now curled up in her sleeping bag, had grown tired of the joke. ¡°Honestly, I wouldn¡¯t worry about it. The priestess was definitely evil.¡± She yawned. ¡°Probably did some good Karma by helping her die. Not that it would matter considering you weren¡¯t trying to kill her. Karma is intention, as they say. No... I wouldn¡¯t be worried in the slightest¡­¡± she said, trailing off into a sleepy voice. Pausing, Sara reached over her head and rummaged through her satchel, pulling out an eye-mask which captured Cas''s attention for the fact that the whole front of it was formed by a single, inch-thick plate of steel. The back of it was something like rabbit fur, however, and Sara certainly seemed to find it comfortable enough, to tell by her sigh as she slipped it on like a pair of goggles and encased it in her aura. ¡°Besides,¡± Sara added after a moment, forcing the words out through a relaxing body. ¡°That whole ¡®die three days¡¯ nonsense isn¡¯t even dogma. Just¡­¡± another yawn, ¡°local superstition by the lower classes. They have such earnest hearts...¡±
The curse of an overactive mind was how many thoughts it could juggle. For while the vast majority of her aura-boosted thoughts wrestled with practical matters, there was still enough capacity left to worry about even superstitions. It was a terrible fact that Sara fell asleep just as the patrols rung the bell for the changing of the guard. They did that every hour, and a small part of Cas¡¯s mind ¨C amidst her chaotic thoughts ¨C was able to recognize what that meant: It was midnight. And midnight was when it was supposed to happen, her death. It was a small worry, hardly even noticeable amidst all the other considerations running through Cas¡¯s mind. In fact, Cas would have been embarrassed to notice it consciously, and she quickly ignored the superstitious nonsense. At least¡­ she tried to ignore it, because no matter how hard she tried, a small part of her persisted in counting the seconds down to the full minute: 60, 59, 58¡­ After all... this was all complete nonsense, but it would become even more nonsensical if she survived the first minute of midnight, right? ...38, 37, 36... Cas wasn''t nervous at all. ..21, 20, 19... Cas, looked at her status sheet, at the ever accurate clock, just to make sure she was counting the hours properly. And yes, there it was, midnight still, with a twelve seconds left until the next minute. It was with nine seconds left in her countdown, that Cas felt suddenly her heart spasming, and her vision going dark, and her nerves turning to acid, as her body collapsed and died. Interlude Recap III. Due to the most recent hiatus, here is your most recently scheduled recap. Cas remembers the prince''s brother is stuck in a jewel and gets the field doctor to release him... no one cares, much to her confusion. She tells the camp about her false origins and makes friends with three auxillaries. Anne, Reginald and Dacula. The priestess arrives bearing a gift for the prince''s brother: which Cas recognizes to be a deadly sand angler. Cas and Sara visit the refugee camp and confront the Priestess. The priestess has a demon accomplice which Cas and Sara battle and defeat. The demoness begs for mercy and offers to make a contract with Cas if they spare her. Sara waits for Cas to make the decision. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Author''s note nonsense. Good news! cI''ve recently completed the entire outline for the story and honed the magic system into a self-consistent sculpture of immaculate perfection, and there''s not a word of exaggeration in that statement. Like, trust me, I am so excited to get into it now. It''s difficult to make a magic system that can do Anything TM work, but I think I''ve managed it, and in such a way that it supports the story beats of every character and faction. I know words can ring hollow at times, but I can guarantee that every hiatus so far will be considered well worth it once you all see what I''ve got planned. Not to mention, now that the outline and ending have been planned, I fully expect that hiatuses will be a thing of the past. Thanks again for your patience and support through this. I look forward to seeing this story through. Chapter 61: Funerals and goodbyes All around, her body shackled like a padlock. And Cas could do nothing but watch, as her body toppled over that critical balance point, falling onto Sara¡¯s position. Sara¡¯s sleeping hands shot out on instinct, deflecting her to the side as she woke with a start, springing up to a seated position. ¡°Cas!?¡± Sara yelled. ¡°What¡¯s gotten into you?¡± she stared directly at the Cas''s body through her steel-plated eye mask. When no response came, she took the effort of raising the eye cover, peeking a worried expression out from underneath the mask. ¡°...Cas?¡± Cas tried to respond, to move, but no action volunteered itself. Her crystal eyes stared directly out at the unfocused image of a sideways world. She tried to move again. Occasionally, a procession of nerve impulses would fire in random, senseless waves. An arm would twitch, a leg would shudder, but nothing more. One by one, all the human distinctions bestowed by her body disappeared. Her aura-boost evaporated, all sensation left her body. Even her emotions had dulled. Sara was beginning to grow worried, Cas noted with inhuman dispassion. It felt like being a slime again, floating somewhere within herself. But slimes, for all their limitations, were good at taking care of corpses, and Cas decided to do just that. Prfrf! In a short burst of effort, the body liquified, and Cas felt a sudden freedom. Sara raised a hand to her nose, a mix of disgust and relief apparent. ¡°Cas!" she beseeched, trying to hide the gag in her voice. "Tell me you¡¯re not dying right now.¡± ¡°I¡¯m ok.¡± Cas answered through artificial vocal chords, sounding like a mistuned guitar. Sara, in between coughs: ¡°What happened?¡± ¡°I died.¡± It was a simple answer, one which begat more questions. ¡°You died?¡± Sara perked up, looking around for signs of danger. ¡°I mean I¡¯m fine,¡± Cas corrected. ¡°My body died.¡± As a slime, Cas had refined tastes, but it didn''t require all that sensitive a palate to discern that her body''s chemistry was a complete mess. And that was putting it nicely. Dead cells, stress hormones, inflammation. It was a horror show everywhere she looked. The horror was easily unmasked, however. After all, Cas could turn a conglomeration of monster bits and random crap into a living human body; fixing some bad chemistry was child''s play. A moment¡¯s work, and her Alchemy skill would return everything to baseline. With that done, it would be a simple matter to become human again. Easy peasy... Well, it was almost that simple. As she fixed the acidity in her blood plasma, Cas noticed something that prompted a double take: The iron in her body had rusted. Most of her blood proteins were completely destroyed and the iron, which was supposed to act as a carrier of oxygen, had rusted, completely useless to her. Worse than that, many of her nerve cells -- particularly those in the brain -- had burned, carbonized into ash. Despite her Alchemy skill, Cas couldn¡¯t fix inorganic matter, and neither could Human Figure when she¡¯d tried it. [Transmutation Failed] [Alchemy 101 at Insufficient level to transform inorganic matter.] [Minimum required level: 70] And Human Figure was only level 60 ¨C go figure. She managed to corral the waste products into a vacuole, but any attempts to manipulate the rust felt like trying to tear apart steel ¨C for lack of better analogy. She didn¡¯t even try to unburn the ash-lines which had previously been her nerves. The soup of soggy charcoal danced away from her fickle grasp whenever she tried. ¡°...Cas.¡± A distant voice interrupted her musings. It was Sara. ¡°Cas, what¡¯s wrong?¡± Cas turned her attention back onto Sara. ¡°I need iron,¡± she admitted. ¡°Iron?¡± Cas explained all that she had seen, and she expected confusion on Sara''s part, maybe some clarifying questions, but the woman caught on immediately. Her reply was harsh and immediate: ¡°Cas!¡± Sara leant forward with scrunched brows and an accusatory posture. ¡°Have you been Conflagrating?¡± speaking with the same embarrassed disappointment Cas¡¯s mother had displayed that one time she caught Cas with that magazine. Cas, remembering too vividly the embarrassment of that moment, tread carefully with her next responce. ¡°...Ok," she said at last, measuring her words. ¡°Before I answer that, I need to know exactly what ¡®Conflagrating¡¯ means.¡±
As it turned out, ¡®Conflagrating¡¯ was the proper term for ¡®Aura Boost¡¯. And, you weren¡¯t supposed to Conflagrate for more than a few minutes at a time. ¡°Unbelievable,¡± Sara would mutter occasionally over the following week. ¡°Four days without a break. You burnt your nerves to crisps!¡± Thankfully, Cas¡¯s embarrassment outlasted the damage. Sara procured some iron flakes from the smithy. The neurons were easily replaced after eating some field mice, and Cas was back in Human Figure just in time for movement. Cas, Anne, Dacula and Reginald escorted the munitions cart they had spent so much effort loading. Given that the cart could drive and even steer itself in a limited fashion, it was easy work¡­ until the cart broke down, that was. How a cart propelled by fairy dust and waggling fingers could break down was lost on Cas. Reginald mentioned something about ''magical erosion''. Cas didn¡¯t care to understand the problem. What Cas did understand, was the solution: namely... a lot of pulling on their part. Cas was in a dour mood when, finally, after four miles of drudgery, they dragged the monolithic, metal cart past the entrance gate of the Army base. The army base was massive. Taking up a full acre, it was surrounded on all sides by high, wooden walls. A maze of defensive trenches zig-zagged through the surrounding valley, growing out from the base like creeping vines. The outer walls glowed with a living aura. This effect worked to obscure everything inside the walls, so much so that Cas was surprised when she entered and got a good first look at the interior. A large courtyard was immediately visible. In it, carts even larger than the one Cas¡¯s team had been lugging were parked in neat rows. Surrounding them, a menagerie of loud stables lined the borders. A distinctly earthy note could be detected in the air. Cas sniffed it, and many around her scrunched their noses. It smelled like a barnyard, too. Beyond the courtyard, the Base was far less rural. A Kowloon of multi-story buildings packed the interior. Every building had its own shroud of living aura, obscuring the signatures of people inside. Despite this, Cas could feel the mass of population that occupied the area. The whole base was bustling, a veritable hive of activity. Everywhere, people crawled through the narrow alleyways, hurrying between disparate buildings with hardly a note of acknowledgement between individuals. The buildings themselves were plain, utilitarian boxes of wood and adobe. They created a jagged sky-line that stair-stepped unevenly through the air. Some had open windows, where a myriad of panicked scenes played throughout various office rooms. Cas overlooked this in a single sweeping glance, and then she looked away. It was just like the broken Carriage. Cas just couldn¡¯t muster the energy to care about the fine details. She felt depressed, a feeling which only deepened as the day wore on. Eventually, the sun was beginning to set. By then, Cas felt dead to the world. Nothing seemed to catch her interest and everything seemed muddled. She wasn''t sure why. It were as if the color had drained from the world.
Cas considered her recent bout of depression, her lack of interest in anything. She wondered if it wasn¡¯t a symptom of withdrawal. After all, she had spent the past four days in the high of her ¡®Conflagration¡¯; with a mind on fire. Cas had grown used to holding a conversation while counting the patterns of blinks in different groups of people: (As it turned out, women blinked more often in groups, and people blinked especially fast when in the presence of higher ranking personnel.) Given the tireless energy she¡¯d grown accustomed to, maybe it was natural that ''normal'' would feel depressing by comparison. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Then again, maybe depression was just the natural atmosphere of a funeral. Diiiiiiing! The delicate chime of the mourning bell rang over the procession.. Prince Haowi''s body was laid out with the head pointing northwards. The funeral lacked the adornments one might have expected of a departed prince. His body wrappings were plain white ¨C the same as any other soldier. The dais which displayed his body was similarly mundane, being knocked together out of wood and adobe. Of course, what it lacked in ostentation, it more than made up for with attendance numbers. At its feet, a whole field of soldiers sprawled out before the dais. Looking from afar, it looked like a shimmering carpet of aura had been laid out for the prince¡¯s departure. Squinting through the intervening space, a dense forest of solemn faces could be made out, stretching in organized files to the limit of the gathering field. With so many people in attendance, placements had to be made, and Sara, along with even the most senior auxiliaries, took her place in the far back. Cas had expected similar treatment but at the last moment, right before the funeral was started, a respectable looking gentleman in elaborate clerical garb came asking for: ¡°the foreign princess¡±. Cas was then placed at the front of the formation, in a specially cordoned island formation for the ''diplomatic types''. Next to her, two humans and a wolf stood wearing foreign attire. Having a princess from another continent attend your funeral was worth something, it seemed, even if only bragging rights. Whatever the reason, Cas found herself in the stall, hardly ten feet away from the prince¡¯s body. Being so close to the open casket, and in such a place of honor, it made Cas realize that she¡¯d never sat in the front row of a funeral before. This was only natural. Cas had no dead friends, no spouse, she wasn¡¯t close with her extended family, and ¨C importantly ¨C she had died before either of her parents. That fact struck her suddenly. She died before her parents. Guiltily, Cas felt a bout of selfish relief at that fact. No parent wants to outlive their child, that was true, but¡­ no child wants to bury their father, either. Not really. In a way, Cas had forever escaped that grisly reality. She¡¯d never have to see her parent¡¯s die, now that she was in another world. Hell, she managed to get off Earth without losing a single loved one, save for some ill-cared-for goldfish. As far she was concerned, everyone she cared about would live forever, in her memories of them, at least. Then, the second arm of that scale fell, and Cas realized that, alive or not, she would never be seeing any of them again. Mom, dad, Jennifer, Dr. Sal, J¡­ everyone. You couldn¡¯t ever go home again. That was the saying, wasn¡¯t it? Cas wondered what the real difference was, between her current circumstance and losing everyone she¡¯d ever cared about. She failed to find any real distinction, and the grey-scale of her world pitched into blackness, and the practiced sadness on her face turned genuine as she looked out over the melancholy assemblage. Everyone present was wearing the same, respectfully sad expression as her. Cas wondered if any of them were feeling it as much as her. A series of choked sobs answered her. It was the prince¡¯s brother, and the young boy was kneeling on the top step of the dais, pressing his face against the Prince¡¯s chest, trying valiantly to hold in any noise as tear-stained cheeks dried themselves on the burial shroud. ¡°Ugh!¡± Another, pained sob shook the boy. The funeral director ¨C the same wizened man who had called for Cas ¨C nodded his head at the drummers and they set about ringing the mourning bell once more. To tell by their surprise, ringing the bell at such a time was a novelty, but it seemed appreciated by the young boy, who took advantage of the sudden noise to let out his most delirious emotions. Diiiiiiing! Diiiiiiing! Diiiiiiing!
Like all field funerals, the prince¡¯s burial was a hasty affair, and it was over so quickly that Cas was left with some whiplash. She sat at a lonely table in the corner of the mess hall, ignoring her soup and wrestling with the memories of her parents and everyone she¡¯d left behind on Earth. Absently, she caressed the spot on her cheek where the funeral pyre left an imprint of a warm sensation. She blinked up as some familiar faces carried a conversation in her direction. It was Reginald speaking: ¡°Well, Dacula,¡± he conceded gracefully, ¡°you were right. I was wrong.¡± ¡°Me? Right about what, exactly?¡± Reginald explained. ¡°I mean you were right to play your scam early. I remember telling you people gamble larger sums at deployment¡¯s end, and that is usually the case, but ¨C he glanced around at the dark mood of the mess hall ¨C I doubt anyone here is in the mood for merrymaking. Dacula laughed suddenly at the recollection. ¡°You still remember that?¡± ¡°People tend to remember losing more, ya?¡± Anne growled, scowling up as she remembered her losses. ¡°I won that money fair and square." Dacula sounded hurt. Besides,¡± he continued in a cheerier tone, ¡°how can you be thinking of that at the end of deployment. We¡¯re free people, now!¡± Dacula held up a wrinkled piece of paper with curled edges as proof, dangling it from a fist as if it were a prized catch. Anne held up her own, far more carefully preserved parchment, looking at it with suspicious appraisal. ¡°¡­ maybe,¡± she sighed, slipping the paper into a compartment of her shoulder bag. "We¡¯re just going to deploy again right after this. It¡¯s nothing much to celebrate.¡± She turned to Cas directly, looking at her with a serious eye and asking. ¡°So, princess, what are your plans?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t call me ¡®princess¡¯, please¡± Cas requested immediately. She''d gotten enough of that in the diplomat''s circle. Even the talking wolf had insisted on the formality. It had gotten so annoying, Cas quickly soured on the novelty of a talking wolf¡­ waste of an opportunity, if you asked her. Anne laughed at the seriousness of the request. ¡°Oh, why keep it secret? Do you have enemies, ya?¡± Dacula, always quick to carry a joke, joined in: ¡°maybe she¡¯s lying low to evade a plot against her life? It would explain why she had to escape to a foreign land.¡± ¡°Oooh, just like the stories!¡± Anne reminisced romantically. ¡°I didn¡¯t run away,¡± Cas seethed, ¡°I¡¯d just rather not hobble every conversation I ever have with formalities.¡± ¡°Oooh, fancy talk! Finally!¡± Anne clapped excitedly. ¡°Royalty always have good speech," Dacula added proudly, "even in second languages. Isn¡¯t that right, Reginald?¡± Reginald scooped a spoonful of soup beneath unamused eyebrows. ¡°I¡¯ll remind you, I¡¯m not nobility,¡± Reginald announced dryly. ¡°Certainly, if I were, I wouldn''t be going on another deployment with you.¡± ¡°Aww. That hurts,¡± Dacula mimed, holding hands over heart. ¡°That¡¯s life,¡± Reginald retorted. ¡°Anyway, Cas¡­ I don¡¯t believe we ever got your commitment to another deployment. You¡¯ll have to notify the unit leader before day¡¯s end, if that¡¯s your plan.¡± And then the table fell silent, and they all looked at her with something like bated breath. Cas returned a dry-ice grin. Reginald had already guessed her answer, to tell by how smoothly he¡¯d forced the issue. And, now both Anne and Dacula were in on the secret: that Cas wouldn¡¯t be asking to deploy with them. Goodbyes were always difficult, and Cas was terrible enough at the easy hellos. So, she took advantage of their silent acknowledgment, and simply switched topics. ¡°So¡­ what are those papers for?¡± Anne replied immediately, with an exaggerated cheer designed to plaster over the recent awkwardness. ¡°Oh!¡± she hopped up into a straight sit, drawing out her parchment and handing the crisp note over. ¡°So, they¡¯re our pay, ya?¡± Cas blinked in surprise as she took the parchment in hand. It was thick, almost leathery. An intricate seal was tattooed into the upper right corner, and a crystal eye was embedded into the upper left. Instinctively, Cas ran her aura over the object. Bank Note Equipped! [By the authority of the Imperial Army: Anne Zephyra, for due service of 126 days in the expeditionary division Ember Regalia, is hereby discharged early on special notice. Her conduct was honorable.] Immediately after this, a second page popped up, showing a table of figures. [Pay: 36 Silver Coins. 9 Copper. Unspent stipend: 2 Silver Coins. 3 Copper Hazardous Duty Bonus: 12 Silver Coins. Breacher Bonus: 8 Silver Coins. 9 Copper. Retirement Contribution: 3 Silver Coins. 8 Copper. [Not to be accessed until the twenty third of September. Year: 11,023] Total value: 3 Gold Coins. 3 Silver. 9 Copper. ] ¡°Surprised?¡± Anne asked, showing some professional embarrassment, as one might after uncovering their salary books. Cas was. Apparently, her shock had shown. ¡°It¡¯s nothing bad,¡± she assured. ¡°I just assumed you¡¯d be getting paid in actual coins, or gems or something,¡± she clarified, remembering the glimmering loot tables in Siablo. A round of laughter rose, and the dreary mood was gone ¡°Hahaha! Cas, I never knew you could be such a funny girl!¡± Anne guffawed, forgetting her embarrassment. ¡°I really will miss you!¡± she announced simply, looking at her from across the table. ¡°Here here!¡± Reginald raised a mug, stamping the table with a closed fist in agreement. He was laughing too, even harder than Dacula. The ridiculousness of Cas¡¯s statement had managed to break his iron mask, it seemed. Cas felt a bit sad watching the scene. The scene sparked a memory of everyone she left on Earth. Just then, the evening bell rang. Cas remembered her earlier appointment. Hesitating only a little, she stood up from her place, waving a silent goodbye. It was sad to go so soon, but why not leave on a good note? A voice called her back. ¡°Cas!¡± It was Anne, looking up at her with a face that was at once happy and deadly serious. The woman furrowed her brows, leaning forward in a conspiratorial manner. ¡°So, this goodbye, ya?¡± Cas could only nod. ¡°Well,¡± Anne continued unabated, looking to either side to draw Reginald and Dacula closer, ¡°my deployment ends next Winter ya? Let¡¯s all meet up back in Drossland. I¡¯m going to buy a house there. You have to show up to give me presents. If not, I¡¯ll come kicking your door down to pay you back.¡± Cas, still in her jovial mood, laughed and asked: ¡°Why?¡± Anne¡¯s answer was as simple as it was quick: ¡°because we¡¯re friends.¡± Cas caught her surprise at that answer. She felt a bit jealous at how easily and honestly Anne was able to make such proclamations, but it was a jealousy that inspired respect, and she merely nodded in promise: ¡°I¡¯ll be there..¡±
Sara had a private room in the specialist''s building. Her floor was filled with Psychic specialists, hence why it had earned the moniker: ''the floor of invisible gossip''. Of course, the Psychics vehemently denied using their powers to spread salacious rumors on private lines, but the reputation stuck. Sara, didn¡¯t comment on this accusation. And, to tell by her bored expression as she packed her bags, the rumor mill in this base was quite droll. Cas knocked on the open door. Sara looked up from the open top of her carrying case, not bothering to mask her annoyance. Not hiding her annoyance. That could have been a sign of trust or anger. As was often the case with Sara, her thoughts could be surprisingly elusive for a psychic. Cas wasn¡¯t sure how to start the conversation, so she plagiarized: ¡°What are your plans for¡­ after this?¡± she asked, copying Anne¡¯s question down to the mannerism. Sara apparently caught the lack of authenticity, to tell by how she turned her nose up. ¡°I¡¯m going back home,¡± the woman said. Cas feigned surprise. She remembered deducing that very fact back when she was Conflagrating several days ago. ¡°I thought you¡¯d be going on another deployment. Everyone else is.¡± Again, Sara caught the lie, and her nose only lofted to higher extravagances of disappointment. She answered with an official and distant tone. ¡°I joined this unit because prince Haowi was in it. Life can be rough in my line of work, and I take care to calculate risks finely." Cas laughed. "Is that why you joined the army?" ":I suspected travelling with the Ember Regalia would be safe," Sara clarified. "I thought wrong¡± ¡°I imagine everyone did,¡± Cas consoled. ¡°No matter. I suspect the king will want to make an offensive push, now.¡± Sara sighed, putting the last of her items ¨C a toothbrush ¨C into the designated sleeve and closing the case with a loud click. ¡°I¡¯d rather not partake. Anyway, I¡¯ll be leaving soon, so, if you¡¯ll excuse me,¡± Sara brushed past Cas at the doorway, making her way down the empty hall. Cas stopped her, hooking hands onto shoulders. Sara looked back over Cas¡¯s left arm, almost offended. ¡°It¡¯s improper to touch a lady without permission, you know.¡± Cas smiled. ¡°No exception for princesses?¡± Sara almost rolled her eyes. Almost. ¡°Is there a point to this?¡± ¡°Well, I can¡¯t let you get away before I¡¯m ready.¡± ¡°Pardon?¡± ¡°I¡¯m coming with you.¡± Cas explained. ¡°Oh?¡± Sara said, voice cold and disbelieving. ¡°I thought for sure you¡¯d be going off with those ruffians you¡¯ve taken such a liking to.¡± Cas, over the course of her four days in Conflagration, had noticed a lot. Among the myriad minor and mundane discoveries she¡¯d made was this: that Sara, despite her social skills, was almost always the loneliest figure in camp, hanging exclusively with Cas whenever she wasn¡¯t attending to official duties. The life of a mercenary, perhaps. Of course, Sara never seemed lonely. Her demeanor and expressions were unreadable even to Cas. But, Cas had also never seemed lonely back on Earth, even to herself, until she¡¯d made friends that was. "No," Cas answered. "I''d rather go with you." Sara humpfed: ¡°Why would you want to go back home with me, of all people?¡± Cas could have answered that in many ways. ¡®Because I¡¯m not deploying, either.¡¯ ¡®Because of the demon.¡¯ ¡®Because you¡¯re the only person in the world who knows my secret.¡¯ But, eventually, her thoughts came to a rest on the most honest answer: ¡°Because we¡¯re friends.¡± Sara, noticing again the hint of Anne¡¯s mannerisms in the answer, only quirked an amused eyebrow as she slipped from Cas¡¯s grasp with a forgiving smile. ¡°Well,¡± she said, standing up straighter as she walked further along the hallway, ¡°I suppose I did promise to introduce you to society. It wouldn¡¯t be very lady-like to renege on a promise. Have you managed to get your pay in order, yet?¡±