[Beastborne: Tower of Blight] (Book 6) Chapter 4

While Elora slept away the night in the sweet, delicate embrace of ignorance, Brightsong’s resident Brewmaster watched Komachi Television™ within the comfortable warmth of Kow’s Inn.

The pobul scratched her creamy, furry belly with one paw while the other pressed a bunch of buttons on the device, changing the channel.

Hal would have recognized the device as only vaguely similar to a remote. One with far too many buttons, knobs, dials, and even switches than seemed reasonable.

Instead of clear markers indicating what each button or knob did, there were strange symbols and even small drawings of Komachi’s face.

Truly, Komachi TV™ was a mystery to all but Komachi.

The little soul aeder peered intently at the projected screen of light.

An adorable, especially round shrub monster was healing a little girl in a hospital bed with glowing white magic. His lamplight yellow eyes looked so hopeful. Komachi recognized that kind of magic to be from another Worldshard, though one not too dissimilar to Aldim.

With a grunt, Komachi saved that channel for later and switched the frequency again. She didn’t like medical dramas. Not after how House ended.

Besides, they always thought it was Lupus, but it never was.

This time she saw a tropical city where a short, dark-haired woman with a bladed shovel was running down a broad avenue lined with spooky buildings. In harsh daylight, a retinue of armored undead skeletons followed in her wake.

At first, the pobul thought the skeletons were chasing a grave keeper. Then Komachi realized that the woman was actually a necromancer.

Chirping softly, Komachi leaned in and peered a little closer. The skeletons kept carousing with one another before hurrying to catch up. While the undead did make Komachi nervous, she liked monsters with personality. The woman looked a little bit like who she was searching for, but not quite right.

The pobul shook her head and changed the channel again. Not Sylvie.

A librarian calmly put away tome after tome in a bookcase that towered higher than even Frostmourn. The mahogany haired librarian looked around as if she was about to be up to no good. Seeing no one at all, the librarian let loose a very dainty fart, rippling her pleated skirt.

Komachi giggled.

The librarian gasped and looked around for the source of the noise. Somehow she had heard Komachi. And that could only mean one thing: she was a Librarian.

The capital L was very important.

Librarians were the stewards of knowledge for all the Shardrunes far and wide. They were the font of all learning throughout every Shard, no matter how grim or bright it was.

Komachi switched away before she was caught. Librarians were fussy and didn’t like being spied on. They were quick to block the various signals from Komachi TV™, making them even harder to spy on.

The little pobul was eagerly searching for another Komachi hanging out with Sylvie, but found an entirely different pairing that caught her interest.

A big, well-muscled man in heavy armor with a giant sword set beside him was hunched over an anvil. His hammering blows rang out across the courtyard full of ramshackle crafting stations. A purplish black-haired woman dressed like a samurai with a sleeve of softly glowing symbols sauntered by, handing a lantern with ethereal flames to a nervous mage-like elf.

A golden furred cat excitedly traded coins with a dog-like mimic.

Komachi’s eyes went wide. She recognized that cat.

That was her.

Though not her, her. That Komachi, which she instinctively called Catmachi, was another version of herself.

Across the Shardrunes, there were many Komachis. Many were pobuls–her true form–but quite a few were different creatures entirely. Some were cats, her second favorite form, while others were the most fantastical creatures.

She watched this Catmachi with great fascination, and then a growing, deep sense of longing for those there settled in. It felt like home.

Those coins were important. They imparted power in some way. And that mimic was a good friend.

Komachi loved Elora, but the half-elf was a bundle of nerves ever since she returned from Pobul Paradise. The place Komachi had sent those she could save from utter destruction during the Battle of Brightsong.

Elora only had a small piece of her soul missing. Komachi regularly split herself into different Komachi’s all the time just to have more adventure. A small piece of Elora’s soul missing shouldn’t have caused so much turmoil, but it did.

Only now that she was whole was the Wildsmaster beginning to come back into her own. Komachi was happy about that, but Elora moved too slowly for her.

It was one of the reasons Komachi wanted to pick up Brewmaster. The Class allowed her to make use of her love for food while also being a credit to Brightsong beyond being Elora’s “familiar”.

Because, in reality, she was more a Wildsmaster than Elora was. At times, this caused the half-elf a great deal of mental strife as she wondered who was the familiar and who was the Wildsmaster.

Even the Shard didn’t know.

She didn’t blame Elora. Ever since the pobul first saw the girl, she wanted to look after Elora. At the time, she needed Komachi in a way Sylvie needed her, too.

That fervent desire seemed to be interpreted by the Shard as Komachi being the dominant one in their relationship. Extending as far as to confuse the attributes of Wildsmaster at the time.

Originally, she had come to help Hal at the behest of Midarian. But as it turned out, Hal didn’t need much of her help. Elora did.

When Catmachi took out a musical instrument and began to play a beautiful tune that imparted magical effects to those practicing Alchemy, Smithing, and Woodworking, Komachi was struck with overwhelming inspiration.

The dog-like mimic danced with his many chunky corgi-like paws and seemed rather happy.

There was a soft knock at the door. Komachi paid it no mind.

The knock became slightly more insistent.

Komachi was still too entranced by the display to do anything.

Finally, the door cracked open on well-oiled hinges without a sound. Kow, with a tray of snacks and drinks floating above his head on a cottony cloud of mana, slithered and scampered into the room as only the ferrety oppa could.

“Would you like a little snack?” Kow asked, scrambling up the small steps to the side of the bed where Komachi was lounging.

Komachi smelled the food before she registered the polite tone of Kow, the oppa with as many spots as his namesake.

She nodded eagerly with a heap of rapid chirps.

“I made some things,” Kow admitted. “After noticing you were still awake.” With the rustle of his fluffy tail, the tray descended gently to the foot of the bed.

Elora grumbled about Hal and turned over.

“Ya wanna watch too, huh?”

Kow fussed with his paws. “If that would be okay… miss?”

Komachi chuffed at him. “Ain’t no ‘miss’ here!”

Bowing his white furry head, Kow apologized for offending her before snuggling up and watching Komachi TV with her.

They ate the snacks Kow had whipped up for them, and sipped the frosty lemony drinks he had made with the help of their Gourmage, Hamrin.

Though Komachi hadn’t spent much time in his company, Hamrin had turned out to be a godsend. Not only was he working with Hal to make more food than they could ever need, but he could create culinary wonders the likes of which only people like Metira and Desmere could be able to achieve.

That was saying a lot, considering one was the Kindred of Wisdom and the other was the Kindred of Dreams.

“Is that you?” Kow asked, watching Catmachi prance around with a bag of clinking coins. She upended the bag over her own head, the heavy coins raining down on her without harming her in the slightest.

“Hehe,” Komachi mumbled, “Catmachi casts money shower.”

Kow snorted.

“Who is that big man?” Kow asked politely.

“They call him Sam,” Komachi told him. “He’s their leader or somethin’. Very cool surfer guy.” She stared at Kow, as if daring him to defy her assessment.

Kow cleared his throat nervously. “Yes, very. Is he a blacksmith? Could he… come here?”

Komachi looked at Sam on the Komachi TV™, then back at Kow. An idea began to form in her head. Was it possible?

Komachi was far less like a normal soul aeder. She wasn’t anybody’s soul companion on Aldim, and that gave her special leeway to play hanky-panky with the Shard’s rules.

Rules that, if she was honest with herself, were quite lax regarding soul aeder to begin with. It was almost like Aldim was desperate for more soul aeder.

“Mebbe,” Komachi said distractedly. There was a lot a Komachi with gumption could do.

Perhaps bringing Sam to Aldim was possible, but she wasn’t sure she had the juice for something that big. However, establishing something of a trade route? That definitely sounded possible.

What things might Aldim have that this Shardrune of Il’dran lacked? What could Sam and his friends–including the merchant Catmachi–make that Brightsong could find a use for?

“That is a Shardrune, yes?” Kow asked, full of unbridled curiosity. “People and things from there must be very strong.”

Komachi nodded. “Yis. Mebbe too strong for Aldim,” she admitted.

She hovered a grabby paw over a dial and gave it a hearty twist, but not before bookmarking that channel. She would keep a close eye on Catmachi.

“Ohhh…” Kow moaned, putting his paws over his muzzle.

The scene on Komachi TV™ shifted to a violent, dazzling display of magic and power.

Two… for lack of a better word “mages”, were wielding glowing guns that blasted out devastating spells. Monsters clambered over stone outcroppings among a dusty red desert from hell.

A young, handsome mage with a large floppy blue hat and hair like spun gold leveled a long-barreled revolver at a creature and out its tip blasted blue coiling lightning.

The gruesome bat-like creature the size of a man took the shot straight through the chest. It screeched in rage and pain, but the man was already moving on to his next target, his second silver revolver raised and taking aim.

Beside him, a tall young woman with hair like moonlight and eyes as red as rubies was racking a sawed-off shotgun. Sigils lit up along the barrel and by the time she raised it to a monster just about to overrun their position, the last sigil flashed gold.

A shadowy explosion of ripping blades the size of postage stamps erupted from the end of her gun and shredded the creatures nearly on top of them.

The two worked methodically and with no small amount of flare. A golden rune flashed over the body of the man, and he moved with such grace and speed that the whole world seemed to slow to a crawl around him.

Meanwhile, the silver-haired woman racked her weapon again, but this time, the runes looked different. They were red and angry, harsh and nearly alien.

When she raised the weapon to a dog-like creature with three snapping maws filled with teeth, she grinned no less viciously.

The beast vanished in a haze of red smoke that the woman eagerly stepped into, breathing the blood mist. The whites of her eyes darkened to black as she inhaled the healing vapors.

Wounds visible through rents in her torn clothes sealed up in seconds. She reached over to the man in the large floppy mage hat as he fired off spells from his twin revolvers.

Another rune flashed across her body. This one was large and green. It resembled growing leaves and verdant fields. As her hand touched the man’s blurring form, he became more solid. His wounds knit before their eyes.

Restored, the two fought back the tide of monsters with guns that sent out spell after furious spell. Each one different and altered for its purpose. Runes gleamed in the crimson desert light, granting them supernatural powers beyond reckoning.

Kow and Komachi were glued to the Komachi TV™, hardly noticing when they ran out of snacks.

Komachi, Kow, and later even Ashera spent the rest of the night watching the awesome display of gun wielding magicks known as Bullet Sorcery. It was only when Komachi woke up the next day that she realized who they were.

Midarian and Morleth.