Chapter 265: Itty bitty living space

I’m not the only one who notices the blood suddenly drain from Suri’s face.

“Suri?” Kaitlynn starts, leaning forward with a scrunched brow. “What’s wrong?”

Suri lets out a gloomy sigh. “I just remembered... There actually is one way for other Peilor to enter Starlight palace.”

I perk up a little, my interest piqued. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“Capital punishment,” she chimes sombrely. “It’s a punitive measure only ever imposed on the Solith tier, and only for treason. The condemned are brought to Starlight Palace and never heard from again, but the actual means of execution are shrouded in mystery, supposedly as a deterrent.”

“That’s definitely another check in the hive-mind column,” Akir grunts.

“You appear upset,” Marty observes, squinting at Suri through his monocle. “Something you’d like to share?”

Suri remains silent for a moment, and I can feel her chafe against the Command to keep her promises before she relents and answers. “A friend of mine was convicted of conspiring against the Council of Stars once, long ago, but he proclaimed his innocence till the last court appearance. I was never sure if he was telling the truth, because I just didn’t see why he would be falsely accused, as he was a nobody. But if Emma’s right, then perhaps the reason he got accused is because he was a nobody. Son of a bitch!”

I startle a little at her unexpected outburst, not used to seeing Suri this worked up about, well, anything.

She seems a bit shaken herself as well, and quickly straightens, schooling her features. “My apologies, that was... unbecoming.”

Kaitlynn bites her bottom lip and wraps her arms around herself in a way that suggests she really wants to go over to give Suri a hug, but is holding herself back due to present company.

I clear my throat. “I’m sorry for your loss. Do you, ehm, need a minute?”

Suri shakes her head ruefully. “Thank you, dear, but I’m quite over it. It was a long time ago.”

However, she seems withdrawn as Goddess continues asking questions, and her answers are half-hearted at best. Soon enough, Goddess either runs out of questions for her or decides to give her a break, and turns to us, requesting detailed descriptions of the people we’re looking for. Finally, she calls the meeting to an end, citing a need to get started on surveilling the Peilor, and promising to reconvene the war council as soon as reasonably possible.

And with that, the Cinnamon Circle disperses.

“Has she moved yet?” Kaitlynn asks quietly from where she’s seated on a chair, her knees drawn up against her chest with her arms wrapped around them.

I shake my head, once again pacing the room, my mind in overdrive. “Ehm... nope. Still just sitting there.”

“Do you think we should go talk to her?”

“Yeah, sure,” I reply absentmindedly. “Go ahead.”

She cocks her head to the side, smiling at me. “Where’s your head at?”

“Hmm? Oh, sorry,” I say, actually halting my pacing to shoot her a sheepish glance. “You said ‘we,’ huh? Yeah, my mind’s all over the place.”

“Planning and plotting?”

With a groan, I flop down on the couch. “As far as I’m able to. I kinda keep coming back to the same conclusion.”

“Which is?”

“That we just don’t know enough,” I reply with a sigh.

Kaitlynn hums in understanding. “Well, we’ll figure something out.”

I respond with a grunt, my train of thought already chugging on, all kinds of potential plans and schemes flitting through my mind as I try to make do with the information we do have.

Being aware that Starmother is very likely a hive mind is useful—it prevents us from being caught off-guard—but if it’s true that doesn’t actually make our lives any easier. If she can really clone herself by taking over other Peilor, that would mean we need to completely eradicate her, lest she just builds herself up again.

Well, that, or put some really good anti-cloning measures in place, but that would require some kind of control over Peilor society.

More importantly, if I can’t learn the Blank Space technique, that complicates our rescue missions even further, because even if Trisha can learn it, it’s not like I can take her with me, and—

I freeze as something unexpected enters my detection range.

A carrot.

Or something like it, at least—it’s more yellow than orange, really.

It’s travelling with a trio of other vegetables, that remind me vaguely of a light-blue eggplant, a red potato, and an octagonal zucchini.

It’s not just the association that gives me pause, however, because through my finely tuned senses I immediately notice the truth: that these vegetables aren’t spiritforms, but conjurations. And beneath them, are four crystalline spiritforms.

Peilor.

For a moment, I completely space on what to do, then I scramble to my feet.

Kaitlynn glances at me in alarm, and I reply with a single line.

“Peek-a-Boo Protocol!”

“I still can’t believe we named it the Peek-a-Boo Protocol,” I mutter, pacing back and forth behind Suri, who’s doing a magnificent job at ignoring me.

“We thought it would lighten the mood,” Kaitlynn points out, having sat down cross-legged next to the captive crystal.

“A futile effort, it would seem,” Suri chimes dryly. “Why don’t you have a seat, dear; you’ll wear a hole in my nice carpet if you keep going like this.”

The only reason I refrain from rolling my eyes, is that I’m keeping them trained on the floor, staring straight down at where the four Peilor are enjoying a nice cup of tea and a biscuit.

All conjured, nothing Extant, I can’t help but notice. I guess Trisha has no interest in having any of them star in her next play. Though I guess they probably wouldn’t be able to digest it anyway. With the Imagined stuff they can at least just have their conjurations ‘consume’ it, even if that means the flavour sensations will be second-hand, and therefore muted and dull at best.

Note to self: add vegetables with mouths to the list of things I never need to see again in my life. And especially friggin’ carrots.

Anyway, Trisha told us visits to her shop from Peilor were rare, but not unheard of, so we came up with a protocol for such situations.

Hence why Kaitlynn and I are now inside of Suri’s secret hideout with its noise-dampening field, despite the fact that she’s clearly not in the mood for guests. Meanwhile, Trisha is downstairs entertaining her patrons as usual, without showing the slightest hint that she’s got anything to hide.

Part of me wishes she’d just told them to screw off, but I get why this is the smarter play.

As far as the Peilor know, there’s nothing to suspect, so there’s really no sense in rousing their suspicions.

An additional benefit is that I can listen in on their conversation. However... it’s not exactly riveting. About ninety percent of it seems to be straight-up gossip about who had been seen where wearing whom, and the remaining ten is mostly comments about how nice it is to be ‘out like this’ and how they ‘really need to do this more often.’

Ultimately, I let out a sigh and sit down next to Kait, resigning myself to just listening with a single ear. I can sense one of Trisha’s drones in another room making notes of all they’re saying, anyway.

Unfortunately, turning more of my attention to the interior of this little hidden room doesn’t help alleviate my nerves, because the silence in here is stifling. Even Kaitlynn isn’t much help, as she keeps awkwardly shifting her position and throwing sneaky glances at Suri, who remains silent and unmoving, despite our presence.

After a while I simply can’t stand it anymore. “So is this what Peilor do when they Visit here most of the time?” I ask, directing the question to Suri.

“That depends,” Suri chimes a moment later.

I squint at her, waiting for her to elaborate on the ambiguous answer, but it’s soon apparent there’s nothing else forthcoming. “On what?” I finally prompt.

“On what they’re doing.”

Oh. Right.

Kaitlynn covers a small smile with a hand, as if it’ll stop me from noticing. I shoot her a playful glare, and she just blows me a quiet raspberry in response.

“Well, they’re mostly blathering inanely,” I at last reply, after another needless glance down.

“Then I imagine that is indeed what Peilor do when they Visit here, most of the time.”

Kaitlynn glances at her in surprise. “You imagine? You mean you don’t know?”

A silence stretches on after the question, and for a moment, I think Suri’s simply going to ignore it. Then she sighs. “I was Solith tier for most of my existence, dear. Entry slots for the Realm of Imagination were not something I could afford. I’d never Visited before becoming a contestant on Humanity Unleashed.”

Huh. Right, the number of Peilor that’s allowed to Visit is strictly regulated due to the treaty. Of course the upper tiers would monopolise access to this place.

“I never considered that,” I admit, turning towards her a little. “I guess I kinda figured Peilor would bring their hosts here for Skilldreams all the time.”

“You thought they’d waste their precious slots on hosts?” Suri chimes in a vaguely amused tone. “No. Well, perhaps the Lustrous tier can afford to be so wasteful, but I suspect it rarely happens outside of network television. It’s standard practice for them to hire a lower-tier trainer to take over a host for a while and coach it to gain Skills the old-fashioned way: through hard work and repetition. I suppose the executives of the Network felt that would make for poor television, however.”

“Kai taught me a few more Skills himself,” Kaitlynn muses. “I think he could have afforded a host-training service though; he just preferred it like this. He also live-streamed the whole thing, so that may have been an additional incentive.”

“What kind of Skills did you gain?” I ask with interest, quickly forgetting my goal of just getting any kind of conversation going as I grow more and more intrigued with the topic.

“I don’t remember all of it too clearly,” Kaitlynn replies, leaning back on her elbows and stretching out her legs in front of her with a sigh. “But we started with the first three levels of Lavi Font. Having a host that was reliant on taking in Lavi through Aether was apparently quite inconvenient, even if Kai produced a decent amount of Lavi himself. After that we started doing more Gravity stuff, which was kinda fun, if slow going.”

I start to nod, but then freeze when one of the Peilor downstairs—the one wearing the guise of a red potato—asks Trisha for a tour of her lovely establishment.

Thankfully, Trisha handles it with practised ease, starting to lead them around while at the same time gently but firmly stating that the upstairs areas are only for overnight guests, and she doesn’t wish to disturb their rest.

I exhale quietly, and quickly rack my mind to recall what we were talking about, not wanting to derail the conversation. When I remember, a question quickly pops into my head, and I turn to Suri. “Hey, what about me? You said it was standard practice for the Lustrous-tier to hire host-trainers, so did you get me any new Skills?”

I instantly regret it, of course, when my question is met with two blank stares.

Author's note:

Thanks for reading! ^^