Chapter 222

◈ Chapter 222:

Lyra watched as the elf they had just attempted to assassinate in her sleep reformed her body from shaped flame, then cowered before Rain.

It wasn't the easiest thing to look at as Rain slowly stalked toward the cowering girl, as it was the very picture of a monster about to kill an innocent person.

Her instincts as a leveler and a rescuer rebelled at the sight, a wild, impulsive desire to rescue the one they had come to kill rushing through her.

But she clenched her fists and firmed her will.

They had come here for a reason, and this person had killed her Rain— not just killed him but tortured him before doing so. She could control herself for a moment while the deed was done and so she watched grimly as Rain thrust a set of claws through her body.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of it. The elf's ability to turn her body to flame saved her once more, and she danced backwards with a gleeful teasing smile on her face.

Her gloating made things a tad easier to watch, but it also confirmed that her death would be an exceptionally difficult one.

Lyra knew well that a leveller with this kind of skill had obscene survivability, definitely not the sort she would ever find herself rescuing from a dungeon. In fact, it seemed the sort of Skill that only a very, very high leveler might have... which was strange, because, as far as Lyra knew, the elf wasn't anything special.

It also meant that they would need all the help they could get and all the tools at their disposal to end her life. Or, more specifically, a particular lamia-shaped tool under their control: Quistis.

She turned to demand the lamia help Rain, only to find no lamia where there had been one a moment before— only the end of a scaled tail disappearing around the open doorway.

"Gods dammit, we don't have time for this!" she whisper-hissed. She glanced back at Rain, who was eyeing the elf. He could hold out, probably, so without preamble, she raced after the disappearing tail, diving around the door in time to see Quistis about to leave through the far door at the end of the corridor.

"Hey! What do you think you are doing?" she cried.

Quistis paused with a hand on the door handle and turned her head to her.

"I'm getting out of harm's way. Isn't that obvious?"

Lyra spluttered at that actually quite reasonable statement.

"I - we need to help ki- to help stop the elf! You can't just leave!"

Quistis raised a hand in question, palm up.

"How? This leveler you have thrown yourself upon is far more problematic than I was led to believe. She can prevent all physical harm to herself, and worse, as you know, my transmogrifying smoke is useless under direct flame. Had I known the target was a skilled fire user beforehand I wouldn't have been quite so willing to help." she pursed her lips. "Nor would I have chosen this course of action with a leveler so difficult in the first place."

"We didn't know—"

"That's your problem, not mine," she turned to go.

"I can't let you leave, not like this, not while I have this!"

Quistis paused and glanced back to see Lyra removing her hand from her pocket, a small, metal dice-like object in her hand.

"You filled me with the tools I used to run my abattoir."

"Y-Yes?"

"Then you know I fully understand what it means to trigger that device. It doesn't mean punishment or pain. It just means my instantaneous death. A death where I cannot help your pet wolf deal with the elf."

"So don't go, help us, or- or I'll press it!"

Quistis removed her hand from the door handle and turned to face her.

"I've been watching you, Lyra, and you know, call it the instinct of someone who has overseen so many levelers fight for their lives, or just an observation of your demeanour, but I don't think you have it in you to do it."

Lyra gripped the small metal object, thumb hovering over it, ready to squeeze down. But what would that even get her, even if she were capable of killing the lamia in cold blood? A dead lamia. Great. Real helpful. Maybe she could throw the lamia's corpse at the elf and—

"Sheepy is far too much of a wimp to do that… but I'm not…"

Lyra turned with a breath of relief to find Opal standing beside her, amber eyes gazing up at the lamia with an annoyed expression.

"You will help Rain snakey, whether you like it or not."

Quistis gave her a steady look.

"Or you will end my life too? Hmm. I think not. With me goes your little town all up in smoke. And worse, perhaps the cavern you made me build without planning ahead isn't as stable as you think it is, such massive structures require so many additional supports afterall. So, you of all people can't kill me, not like this anyway, not when you don't need me for this, not really. If you didn't have some confidence in your pet, then you wouldn't have left him alone with the elf. You cannot kill me either, not now you have weakened your own position, not for this."

"You think I won't?!" cried Opal, thrusting her hand into the air and shaking the trigger threateningly.

"Please. You are far too invested. You won't do anything. Neither of you are as ruthless as the wolf, neither of you will end my life over this mess of your own making."

Opal did not look happy to hear that and practically steamed at her as she white knuckle gripped the heartpin trigger.

"Well, are you going to leave him alone with her forever?" said Quistis, tilting her head and raising a brow.

Opal remained silent for a moment, clearly considering.

"...No. But just so you know, I will make you regret this, stupid snake."

Opal turned on her heel and stormed away as Lyra looked between the two in dismay.

Caught between trying to persuade the lamia, and watching Opal march away to take on the elf, probably literally, Lyra dithered for a moment before, with a cry of frustration, rushed after Opal.

She heard Quistis let out a snort of derision as she pushed through the door behind.

She would definitely be having words with that lamia if they made it through this, unscathed or otherwise. The lamia could not leave, not really, not while they had her life in their hands. Even if things went poorly here, the monsters back in the underground town still possessed many of Quistis's heartpin triggers and thus she could not truly escape.

The background roar of fire filled the air as she rushed after Opal. Louder. She stumbled as the floor shook beneath her hooves and what sounded like the bedroom ahead of her collapsed, followed by a thundering drumming sound which made the walls buck and tremble.

Wary of what she would find, she approached and peered into Myra's bedroom. The bedroom was fine, aside from being partly on fire, but more importantly, the room next to it could be seen through the collapsed wall, or what was left of it at least, as the floor had collapsed.

She couldn't approach as flames, although now dying down, were scattered across the floor. But ahead of her was someone who could, someone who was peering down into the room below.

Vash stood at the edge of the drop, flames licking around his steel greaves as he looked down upon the room below.

"Far be it from me to point out the obvious, but amongst the living, it is generally considered crude to walk around stark naked," he pointedly mused.

There was a pause as the elf below seemed to digest this. Her gaze narrowing as the thin knight drew her attention.

"By the sound of it, you aren't female and so most likely aren't part of Rain's little monster harem, unless he has tastes I wasn't aware of. So what are you, his servant? His slave?"

Vash bristled.

"Do I look like a servant to you? Do you think I follow the brute around against my own free will?"

Lyra had to wonder about that. Maybe it wasn't true now, but there had been a point where they had distrusted the necromancer enough that Rain would rather have destroyed Vash than let him loose to do as he willed, fearing that the necromancer would seek revenge.

"I simply have my own reasons and desire to see that the specimen is maintained in good form. Part of that, it seems, is about you."

"...What are you saying? This isn't about revenge?"

"Perhaps for the brute. But for me, your life is to be harvested so that my project might live. That is all. Thus it would be convenient for me if you simply expired."

Lyra wondered just what the necromancer was trying to pull by talking to the elf. Playing for time? She didn't have to ponder for long as just as Vash finished his sentence a shower of plaster caught her eye. The ceiling above the broken room crumbled in the middle and then fell apart, plaster crashing down through the bedroom and into the room below where the elf stood.

Along with the plaster came a simply astonishing number of undead rodents.

Lyra felt her skin crawl as she watched what must have been thousands upon thousands of rat and mice skeletons rain down upon the elf like a monsoon, and many of them, it seemed, were carrying knives scavenged from the mansion's kitchens.

The necromancer hadn't been idle as they had traversed through the building looking for Brax. The entire time they had been searching, he had been calling to life every last vermin that had crawled under the floorboards or into the walls and vents and goblin slave corridors to die, and in a mansion of this size and age, that apparently meant a truly staggering number of bodies to resurrect.

It was genuinely a little uncomfortable to consider that such an insane number of dead rodents were riddled throughout most buildings of any age.

If it was uncomfortable for Lyra to think about, it was an order of magnitude more uncomfortable for Myra as ten thousand dead rats carrying knives promptly landed on her naked body.

A ragged scream of horror rent the air as claws, teeth, and blades sliced at the shocked elf for a fraction of a moment before she gathered herself enough to react. The elf became a pillar of fire as thousands of now-burning rat skeletons poured through her disintegrating form.

Lyra could just about see a thrashing form on the rubble below, a hand thrusting free from the mound of rats, desperately trying to turn back to flesh before falling back beneath as the undead rats swarmed on top stabbing and biting at the scattered flame.

For half a moment, Lyra thought that the necromancer had somehow, against all odds, beaten her. He was using the sheer number of rats against her by preventing her from regaining her physical form, turning her own Skill back on her. Judging by her increasingly panicked motions, that was a genuinely bad thing for the elf.

But then, Myra thrust her head free, transfiguring back to flesh as she desperately breathed in a great lungful of air, her eyes wide with fear.

"Enough!" she screamed, and flames roared from her back, now returned to flesh. Violet wings bloomed, thrusting outward with incredible force and scattering or obliterating countless undead rats in one motion. She freed her upper body and arms and then poured fire down, a wash of searing flames that ignited the thousands of rats in a sea of flame.

The rats burned in silence, their bones blackened and cracked as kitchen knives dropped from their boney paws. Myra was left panting, her chest rising and falling frantically as she stared around at the morass of dead rats. She looked down at her body and then made a face of disgust. Part of a dead rat was embedded in her thigh, its bones protruding from her flesh. She waved her hand over it, rapidly flickering from flesh to flame and back and the charred skeleton dropped to the floor. She cauterised the wound on her leg closed with a snarl and then, with a vicious flap of her wings, launched herself upward.

She alighted back in her bedroom forcing Vash to take a few steps back giving her room.

"You know, suddenly things are starting to make a lot more sense. I know Rain died, I know he did. What I don't know is how he came back, and in the body of a monster. But you are a necromancer, don't deny it—"

"I'm not denying it."

Myra scowled at the interruption. "...A powerful necromancer, no doubt, being willing to admit such a vile thing. So you brought him back and put him in that body, a blend of leveler and monster. Does he even know that he is an undead? The appearance of life is remarkable; you clearly put time and effort into the illusion and maintaining his mind, I never would have known otherwise. But now I know you exist, it just makes too much sense, a necromancer can knit flesh like no other, you made him like that, it's the only thing that explains everything."

Vash paused. "That's, ah, quite the conclusion..."