Chapter 203

◈ Chapter 203:

"Ready?"

Rain created a half dozen tigers, surrounding Lyra from every direction as a mass of centipedes coiled between them. A number of wolf teeth circled above her head, ready to attack anything that came through. Rain himself loomed over her, ready to grab and stuff back inside any escapee.

Safe to say Lyra looked quite nervous standing in the center, doing her best not to move an inch.

Opal was crouched by her leg, the incense brazier dangling from her fist. Even Red was standing a little ways away, his gold bladed gladius clutched shakily in both fists, his eyes wide with alarm.

All had been prepared and they were as ready as they could ever be. Opal drew in a breath.

"On the count of three. One, two, three!"

Lyra's wool washed black and Opal uncapped the brazier and thrust it into Lyra's leg wool as it billowed out smoke.

It passed through and Lyra flipped her wool back to white as quickly as possible.

With a sigh Lyra slumped, the lamia hadn't escaped and it seemed things had gone off without a hitch.

"Oof that stuff is strong," said Opal wafting smoke from her face and looking a little woozy.

"Good, I should hope so. Imagine if she woke up part way through operating on her! Which by the way I am still not okay with."

"So you'd rather we just kill them?"

"No!"

"So what do we do? We can't just let them free, they'd kill us or fetch other levelers to come kill us."

"I just…"

"Think of it as a punishment if it bothers you that much sheepy."

"I guess… Sort of."

They waited fifteen minutes just to be sure the smoke had taken, and then with Lyra trying her best not to blush, Rain stuck his head through her arm wool.

On the other side he found exactly what they were hoping for, a passed out Quistis lying on the gold, her limp tail draped across it.

Except… it seemed the lamia had gone quite mad being trapped in wool space and his brow rose as he looked around the trashed room.

Their possessions had been scattered everywhere as if a hurricane had passed through the place. Trinkets and baubles, gems and jewellery, crystal encrusted daggers, fat rings stacked with rubies and sapphires, heavy crowns and dusty ornamental blades that looked as though they had been looted from some ancient kingdom’s barrows, all mixed with various potions and dildos and supplies, even the giant bear costume. Seeing it all together like that made it seem quite an odd treasure room. To top it off the statue of Lyra had snapped it in half at the waist, the upper half of the thing now lay on the gold covered floor, resting up against the corpse of the chimaera.

The walls too were strange, almost deformed. But what was strangest of all was that there was now a perfect stone sphere resting amongst the piled up gold, a sphere about five foot in diameter. Quistis's work he had to assume.

"Whoevers brilliant idea it was to use this damned place as a prison was a fool," came a voice, and Rain looked down to see a skull emerging from a pile of gold, a rat skeleton hauling it free. After a moment green flames sparked and flamed to life in the eye sockets.

It was Vash.

"It worked didn't it?" he replied with a guttural growl for the insult.

The skull gave him a studied look.

"I do wonder at what cost. You may not like what you find when she wakes."

"Hmm."

He wasn't sure what the necromancer meant but he grabbed hold of the Lamia's tail and backed out, pulling fully free from the sheep girl's wool and pulling the lamia with him.

After a moment the rat skeleton popped out too, the skull jerking from Lyra's wool with it and falling to the flagstones with a clonk. Vash made some irritated sounds and the rat rushed to pick up the skull, with difficulty. Swaying as it held the weight over its head it then scuttled off into the ruins with the necromancer, disappearing over the rubble.

Rain lifted the limp lamia he'd retrieved and carefully placed her on the stone table. She was much too long for it of course and her long tail coiled across the sand.

Opal quickly ran over and unlatched the door and stuck her head through.

"Go! Go!"

The blue kobold bolted back through with a pair of scalpels in each hand and practically sprinted for the lamia, diving on top of the table and straddling her as she began slashing her open.

It was not pretty, but the kobold seemed to have learned a lot from her previous patients and it wasn't long before the fanged goblin was darting in and splashing potions across her insides, keeping her alive.

Then it was time to start putting in needles, small razor sharp things, and heavier duty things the size of knitting needles meant for massive monsters. It wasn't just needles that she began throwing into Lamia's body, but other sharp metal devices that Rain didn't know the purpose of. No doubt all enchanted, and all very very deadly.

The fanged goblin even thrust more of the things into the kobold's hands.

"Put more in her, more! I want to hear this bitch rattle when she moves!" she snapped.

Rain wondered if she really would rattle, that was an awful lot of metal, they even went further than just sealing them into her chest, her tail received them too, and her arms. He thought they might be going a little far when a number of needles were inserted into her neck, aimed to shoot up into her brain. Then he remembered what this leveler was capable of and almost recommended they use more.

They moved quickly, unsure when she would awake, and it wasn't long before she was being sealed back up, potions returning her body to perfection, at least on the surface.

The blue kobold blew out a breath, wiping her claws on her apron as the fanged goblin wiped her brow. They turned and showed them a dozen small dice like objects and then handed them out one by one, although not to Rain. The fanged goblin looked at him, considered it, then in a fright thrust the extra one into Opal's hands before pretending not to hurry as she put the table between herself and Rain.

As she was doing so the lamia started to stir and with a yelp the goblin backed up even further to the wall, holding her heart pin control out as if afraid she'd have to use it.

Rain was ready, positioned to pounce on Quistis and hold her down until she understood her situation. He expected rage and hate when she awoke, and an attempt on his life, attacking the moment she saw him.

He did not expect her to scream in open eyed terror and full body throw herself from the table, scrambling and crawling across the ground.

She threw herself into the corner of the ruin, tail coiling up protectively as she slapped at nothing, trying to bat away… the empty air?

In fact she didn't even seem to realise that Rain was there, or the other monsters at all, and to his complete shock the lamia started to cry, she was so scared she was crying in fear!

Opal looked between Rain and Quistis.

"What the hell did you do to her to make her like this?!"

"Not me. She doesn't even seem to know I'm here…" murmured Rain in reply.

"I have to agree with Rain, she wasn't like this at all when she went inside," said Lyra, looking very confused.

She took a hesitant step closer to the lamia and waved a hand at her.

Quistis screamed and covered her eyes with her hands, trembling like a leaf.

"Uhm, did Vash do something to her?"

"Like what? She could crush him with ease."

"Well, how are we supposed to get her to do anything like this? She doesn't even know she's full of— Look, if she doesn't know about the heart pins then she could do something really bad! They won't stop her from doing anything!"

True, that was a problem.

"Why don't you do that thing that you did?" said the fanged goblin, looking warily between the lamia and Rain.

Ah.

This could be a problem.

"What thing?"

"This wolf monster, he can do other things, strange things. We saw it when we were caged near him. There was this one thing, where everything felt like… well it's hard to describe. Like the safest you've ever felt, but times ten."

Lyra frowned and glanced over at Rain.

"What is she talking about?"

Rain considered just blurting it out then and there, that he was still technically a leveler… But then his eyes moved over to Opal. Something had happened, something bad Lyra had said, and now Opal was doing this, hunting down levelers who did not surrender, and then filling those who did with heart pins. Talking about making a… monster town? Something told him it might not be the best time to come clean.

The lie came easy, then.

"I grew stronger and found I could do something else. I might have 'evolved'. I don't know. I can create an area of calmness? I think you could call it that."

Lyra gave him a funny look. "That doesn't sound very monster-like, how are you supposed to use that to fight?"

Rain shrugged.

"I don't know. If you give us space you shouldn't be in range of it."

They backed up in the ruin and after a moment of hesitation Rain approached the petrified Lamia whimpering in the corner.

He waited to see if she would attack, but she was so out of her mind with fear she didn't even seem to register he was there.

He sank to the ground and crossed his legs. If he was going to do this then he might as well do it properly.

Hoping that the others were far enough back from him Rain activated his [Home] Skill.

The effect wasn't obvious at first, but then oh so quietly the faint sound of a crackling fire could just be heard, the sound of popping rustling twigs, a plume of sparks from the occasional shifting log. It was almost like they were resting by an invisible fireplace.

In fact he could feel the warmth on his fur and the scent of woodsmoke and as he looked the light of a fire flickered off Quistis's scales. Then came the sound of rain outside, raindrops pattering gently at the window pane in a soothing way.

He heard the others murmuring in confusion at the sound. But the sheer bone weary peace that settled around him made it seem a non-problem, and the last of the aches and pains seeped from his body.

The stone floor was starting to feel soft, like the softest fluffiest of rugs, and he had the vague urge to curl up and take a nap. An invisible family watching over him, making sure he was okay.

It all felt so very safe, a place to relax, lower your defences.

And it worked. The lamia's hyperventilating started to slow, and then calm, her tense limbs and uncontrollable twitching and shuddering eased, and she slumped in the corner, curling up tight in a ball.

She seemed to fall into a peaceful sleep at last and Rain let the Skill end.

He turned to find Lyra staring at him, her brow furrowed.

"That... That almost seemed like something…"

But before she could finish the thought Opal poked her in the side.

"Seriously though, what the hell did your insides do to her sheepy?"

"It wasn't me! I promise it wasn't me!"

"She would be correct in that assumption," came a voice as a figure clambered over the nearby rubble and slid to the ground, small stones rattling off its metal greaves.

Rain jerked to his feet in surprise, then lowered himself ready to attack, to kill this new leveler threat.

A tall and slender knight stood before them. A knight wearing polished steel armour, steel armour with a helm in the design of a wolf head, a faint green glow emanating from within. The armour was extremely battered, ripped apart, and apparently having been put back together, the metal bent back into place leaving thin splits and cracks, sometimes held in place with the addition of buckled straps. In fact it appeared the armour had been cobbled together from three different sets of similar armour, taking the salvageable parts from each. Three sets owned by a certain three elves. Although perhaps that was obvious considering the fine lines of scripture that had been engraved into the battered rim of the steel, written words such as 'Purity', 'Pride', and 'Smite'.

The knight wore a black fur trimmed cloak hanging over back his armoured shoulders, looted from the bodies of the wealthy. Combined with the silvery steel it gave him an almost mercenary appearance.

"You can stop giving me that look you oversized brute."

Rain straightened up. "Vash?"

"Yes," sniffed the necromancer. "Don't think I don't recognise your handiwork by the way… paw work… You were the one who tore this quite exquisite armour to pieces, it's a miracle there was enough left to even form this."

Rain blinked. The necromancer was inside the armour? The skull was in the helm?

He half wondered what headless corpse the necromancer had resurrected to make the thing move below the neckline. Then he decided he'd rather not know.

Lyra eyeballed the armour. "You've got a dead person in there, don't you? Well you're not coming back in my wool like that."

Vash seemed to visibly brighten up hearing this, the green glow seen between the cracks in the helm brightening. "Really? That is excellent news, I shall endeavour to wear fresh corpses more often."

He glanced over at the Lamia who was peacefully snoozing.

"But to return to the subject at hand. As I previously said, using that dimensional space as a prison was a foolish move. Especially when the leveler you decided to put inside of it was capable of manipulating the material it is made of."

Lyra paled "D-Don't tell me—"

"Yes. The lamia did not understand what had happened. She did not know that she was in dimensional space. From her perspective she had been imprisoned in a strange but normal room. Thus her immediate response was to break out of said room."

"But the walls, aren't they enchanted to prevent something like that happening?"

"It appears not in this case. The material properties of this 'woolspace' are sufficient to maintain and protect without additional enchantment, perhaps unsurprising considering it is formed from a natural Skill rather than an artificer's work. This is also why she was able to simply gesture and form an exit before her. And then… we were exposed to the void," said the necromancer, his voice going low, almost a whisper. "She realised her mistake immediately of course, faced with infinite black emptiness as the air was being sucked from the space in a howling wind, a torrent of gold with it. But before she could think to reseal the hole she screamed as though stricken by something, she formed a sword and slashed at the air in response, at nothing."

"You couldn't see what she was attacking?"

"...No. And that is quite a disturbing thought for me as I can see a great many things that others cannot. Whatever she was being attacked by, it inflicted no visible wounds, but she screamed as if she was burning alive. She realised she couldn't kill it, whatever it was, but she managed to grab hold of it and wrestle it back to the hole where she thrust it out and sealed the wall. Unfortunately there was still one other of the things in the room with us and she burned for ever such a long time. It was then that I grasped that something was being done to her beyond her body. It was tearing at her mind like claws ripping through fine cloth, not to mention her soul. I thought she would die there. But in a desperate last ditch effort she managed to capture the thing in a sphere of stone scraped from the walls before she collapsed."

"I saw a sphere of stone inside." murmured Rain.

Lyra looked between the necromancer and Rain with her mouth hanging open.

"That thing is still inside of me?!" she shrieked.

"It would appear so. I can see you have control over her with those needles you have put beneath her flesh. I approve, very necromantic. If you ever get this lamia in any state of use I would highly recommend making her eject that sphere from within your woolspace and back into the void. Whatever it is that she caught in that place should be disposed of as quickly as possible."

"You said her mind… Which explains her current state, and also her soul?" said Rain.

"Yes. Significant trauma was done to her soul and parts of it have been ripped away."

"Is… that a problem?"

"Not particularly. A person can still function with no noticeable difference even with large chunks of their soul missing. A person can even function with surprisingly little of the stuff. In any case, the most she might see is healing potions not working as well as they might. The larger problem is what was done to her mind. That amount of mutilation…"

Rain and Opal looked at the curled up Lamia and then over to Lyra.

"Wh-what, why are you looking at me like that?!"

"Like hell I'm ever going back in your wool," said Opal.

"It is a little concerning that thing is trapped inside of you…" gravelled Rain.

"Haaha, it's fine, haha, it's-gotta be fine right?! RIGHT?!"

"You're fucked sheepy."

"Nuu! Don't say that!"