NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 84: Times That Changed Us
I strode out of the town, no longer interested in it, or the humans that inhabited it.
They didn’t matter, not at the moment.
My goal now was to rescue Helmy, to strike against the ‘sealing’ magic. .
Problem was, I didn’t have any idea where she was at the time she had been sealed away.
She could be anywhere.
Not only did she have a horse - or rather a close equivalent of one as the ‘Fleshspeakers’ reimagined it - the ‘Displacer’ teleport range was truly massive, limited more by their knowledge of the destination rather than the distance they would have to cross.
South, I recalled. I sent her south to scout the coast near the fishing village.
Did the enemy attack us there?
Getting answers was as easy as asking. However, the feedback the ‘sealing’ magic fed to my link made me momentarily too distraught with anger to do the obvious, and my girls took it upon themselves to solve the issue themselves. My racing thoughts were soon interrupted by the puff of the red fog from which a ‘Purifier’ materialised, then another, then a ‘Displacer’...
“For Master!” They cried in unison, my brain assaulted by the barrage of thoughts, concepts, and images as their minds touched mine.
I didn’t know how ‘Alphas’ could manage the constant flood of information they surely receive in times like this.
They could even see through other eyes.
I couldn’t.
A shaky vision in the eye blink. My girls were rushing headlong into certain death at the blades of an 'elite' warrior, dark robe, two swords. No ordinary human could mow them this fast, dashing forward through the field of flames even as my ‘Purifiers’ lobbed the fireball after fireball against him.
With a flash of the blade, the vision ended, and I collapsed down on my knees.
The ruby fog spat out more of my ‘Purifiers’ slain in some distant battle, one after another. Their voices rang in my ears, and in my brain.
“For Master!”
They were fearless, but this wasn’t right…
If they didn’t get the ‘caster’ fast enough, they would run into one of those barriers, or the priestess would prepare another spell. We didn’t have any clear idea how fast they could sling their spells, or perform any ritual, and what was the upper limit of their abilities.
It occurred to me, a good question I could have asked the ‘Lady’ when she was still awake, but it was too late now.
The fight went on without my input.
Only voices, and the fog, spitting out my beautiful foxies into their next life.
“For Master!” They cried, interrupting my mind going on the tangent in the middle of chaos where the seconds lasted eternity.
The host - all the ‘Purifiers’ were furious.
Burn!
Then, suddenly, there came pain. Strong, piercing, sudden spike of pure agony drove through my mind as the nail.
It hurt.
All of them.
Raging for gave me my girls back, but they, too, have collapsed, paralysed by pain and exhaustion after the re-spawn, and cried together with me in anguish.
No!
A barrier!
The surrounding greenery began to fade away, as Narita drained the life force to feed those stricken by the respawn sickness. The energy flooded into me, into us, but it was barely enough.
I grabbed the first ‘Purifier’ nearby without thinking, not even certain why.
The little fox girl squealed as I gave my order, glancing back at Tama, giving off her amber glowing eyes fixated on the horizon, as the voices at the back of my head heaved in rage. A warm fluff helped me to focus.
“For Master?”
Don’t worry about me, my mind flashed, as I yelled:
“Order them to scatter and retreat! We will regroup and get Helmy back!”
My order came just in time, as the few more respawns were soon followed by the crushing feeling of loss, and the most accursed notification of all, announcing to my face that more of my girls were taken away from me. It hurt, as much as it did the first time.
|
4 units sealed until the caster is dead. |
Only four were four too many. My girls!
“For Master!”
The ‘Purifier’ whined, but rather than trying to free herself from my grasp, she pulled herself closer to support me as I struggled under the suffering the shared link inflicted .
Soon, my personal ‘Displacer’ caught up to me, doing the same, while the other notification, accompanied by an even greater, more crushing sensation of loss, gripped my heart:
“Don’t transport me. It isn’t here…” I protested quietly, as the unfeeling window announced another loss.
|
6 units sealed until the caster is dead. |
“For Master!” The catgirl hissed.
They were targeting our ‘Displacers’!
“No, stop!” I yelled at the ‘Warpstalkers’ who gathered the power to open the portals. A memory of the flying sword flashed through my mind. The swirling rift in the space was opened, and a hail of flaming arrows burst through, some finding their mark, others hitting the ground, huts, a field or crops, releasing the fire, soot, and loud, deafening bangs.
Sulfurous, metallic smoke hit my nostrils.
Gunpowder.
Impossible! The natives didn’t have gunpowder, and neither did we! They would have used it already!
A ‘Ravager’ wanted to grab me, carry me away, but there was no point in seeking cover anymore - the attack was already over.
Portals closed again, and the red fog returned the ‘Warpstalkers’ to me, their black, tall form rising above the countless ‘Purifiers’ around.
I looked around, half confused, half in shock. The smoke and the occasional fire were, by far, the worst natives managed with their attack, but it was a shock, nevertheless.
They caught us off guard.
Without the ‘Warpstalker’ keeping their rifts open, however, our enemies didn’t have the means to continue the attack at our location, and I could only watch as more of my girls materialised from the typical, ruby red smoke that usually accompanied their arrival. A dozen or more felt victim to some attack, and then, the accursed message I hated with the blaze of thousands of suns struck for the last time:
|
1 unit sealed until the caster is dead. |
It stung, as I mentally swore revenge on the accursed ‘caster who caused it, and then…
Then it was over.
I silently watched as my girls put down the fires, and quickly recovered from the weakness caused by the death-by-barrier, and now cared more about my well being than anything else.
The little ‘Purifier’ I had grabbed earlier still clung to me, as did the little ‘Displacer’ that followed me around for the last day, while Narita checked on me.
“For Master.”
My head was spinning at the moment, and there was a budding headache to be had, with disorienting flashes to be seen even as I closed my eyes, refusing to go away. I found solace that my girls, out there on the distant battlefield, reached safety.
Was it what the little one said?
“Master?” Narita checked again, as I didn’t answer, burdened by thoughts now rushing in.
We were caught off-guard.
“Master!” Master!” echoed the others, but I still remained silent.
Narita was attentive, distracted by my silence, but I ignored her.
The lingering aftereffects of the feedback loop inflicted upon me in such a short order, I was more concerned about my monster girls and their fate. There weren’t that many abilities we knew about that could strike us back through the link, except those strange, magical shields - barriers, whatever it was - invisible, yet still dangerous.
I realised we didn’t have any experience with them.
They weren’t used creatively.
During the first siege, merely a single ‘Eviscerator’ ran into this invisible boundary, and it still stung, but wasn’t a case for serious panic. The little wolf was unharmed, recovered quickly, the ‘Displacer’ was able to detect it from a distance, and it wasn’t mobile.
I used to be concerned about the more places covered by those very same magical bubbles, but never considered the possibility that the thing could unexpectedly come up when the larger group was in the area, sending hundreds back to the ruby fog.
Now I knew what would happen if the larger group was caught within the barrier - it hit like a bullet train, and could paralyse a lot of us in the process.
Idiot. I was an idiot.
They could have brought one up during the battle in the city, if they still had any priestess there, hiding.
Jolts of energy followed, the infusion of the life force pushed away both the headache, and the artificial exhaustion that came in the shock’s wake, or even the upset stomach from missing today's meal. It, however, didn’t remove the problem.
“Master?!” Narita insisted. “Do you feel well?”
“Yes, I do.” I said, opening my eyes, gently touching my rat-girls face, caressing her. “Thank you.”
I felt sad, depressed even. The backlash from the ‘sealing’ hit me hard, even if it was ultimately a miniscule part of the horde that was violently taken away from me. It was a dreadful spell, I thought, even though I couldn’t be sure if that sense of loss was caused by the hit on the ‘Alpha’ rather than the rank-and-file of the breed.
Perhaps it was even the ‘evolution’ that strengthened the link of the telepathic network …
I was stuck in my head
My guilt took its course now.
“We got away, Master.” Miwah reported, “We retreated from the vicinity of the barrier, and the humans aren’t pursuing.”
“We could extract them now, Master.” Sora said
Sora? I didn’t notice her arrival among all that chaos, but she was there, in her elegant, panther-like splendour that made her beautiful, and the flesh-shaped armour that made her terrifying.
Where have you been, I wanted to say, since she has been out, roaming who knows where since yesterday, leaving only her adjutant - or how she referred to her sister who got the short straw babysitting me - behind.
“I am sorry, Master.” Sora responded, as it was to my thoughts, “We were mapping the area.”
“Please, bring everyone back. We will go back once we know …” I replied, with attempted calm: “I am sorry.”
I would not yell at my girls.
“Don’t be sorry, Master.” She said, “We are there for you.”
I would have to convince myself I was worthy of them.
But they were all there now, yes, the little ‘Displacer’ so obsessively holding me so the ‘Ravager’ had to pick us together, while the random ‘Purifier’ rode up on the ursine monster girl's shoulders.
Miwah and Tama had to push their little kin away.
It would be funny if I was in the mood.
I was not. Instead, I could describe myself between furious and morbidly sad. They carried me away from the mining town, towards the separate camp with the palisade and the guard towers.
“Sora, speak to me. What exactly is out there?”
“There are three barriers, with overlapping areas of effect.” Sora reported, “Like overlapping circles, all three covering something in the centre.”
“An overlapping circle, like a Venn diagram?” I asked, before I realised she had no way of knowing what it was. She was an anthropomorphic cat brought to the middle of his madness, she never saw….
However, she paused only for a split second before they perked up with the sudden understanding, even without the explanation.
“Yes, Master.” The feline said, “The overlapping area of the circles, like the commonalities part…where barriers are concentrated, it feels… disturbing, pushes us away.”
“Did…” I asked, “Did the barrier come up in the middle of the attack? I think it did.”
“Yes, Master.” Tama confirmed, solemnly. The vixen looked atypically serious, without the playful tone in her voice. While our mind was touching, I could catch the glimpse of the fact that she didn’t take the disappearance of Helmy well.
Helmy was the second ‘Purifier’ that was born, or rather spawned, into the world, and her first action was shielding me with her own body against the barrage of arrows.
She wasn’t dead - only ‘sealed’ - but to me, I still felt a part of me was missing, yearning to be reconnected to the greater whole.
I sighed, trying to release the mental pressure, exhaling.
It didn’t help.
“Where exactly did it happen?”
“Helmy was hit when she was scouting the area to the south.” Tama said, “Arke is reporting the loss of all riding drones Helmy took with her.”
“Nine of my sisters were sealed when we tried to move in, Master.” Sora added, “So we tried a portal remotely…”
I figured as much.
“So they shot through the portal?” I completed the sentence.
“Yes, Master.”
Using gunpowder. While fire arrows were nothing more than the fireworks tied to the projectile, meant to scare us with noise or smoke, far away from bullets and bombs, they still represented an unexpected out of context problem.
The arrow attack didn’t cause any significant damage.
The townsfolk preoccupied with the ‘special berries’ didn’t seem to care too much, so trying to scare off the populace which was - voluntarily or involuntarily on our side - wasn’t working either, but the fact they did figure out that they could, in fact, shoot through rifts, was disconcerting.
They even knew that they couldn’t aim at the dizzying portals of swirling space and hold it, so they used the fire arrows which didn’t need to hit, only pass through.
Add in the more creative use of their spells, along with the better tactics, out of nowhere, and I had to wonder who was feeding them information.
Dragons would, I suppose, but without the ‘Lady’ we didn’t have means to confirm what the humans knew.
It was going too far.
I considered shocking the ‘Lady’ awake with the Scroll power once I got it. They were powerful magic, after all, but we didn’t have it yet, and we didn’t even know if we could even use them.
Issues, issues, issues.
The issue with Lily’s idea of feeding the clearly addictive substances to the humans doesn’t seem all that pressing in comparison. I would put a stop to it. Later. Once Helmy was free, I dreaded to think so, but we might need humans to kill the priestess that cast both the barrier and the ‘sealing’.
The ‘Ravager’ seemed to like to carry me just for the heck of it, while we entered the fortified part of the village. I didn’t protest, even if it was awkward.
It was starting to swarm with my girls - the ‘Purifiers’ and the ‘Eviscerators’ and ‘Defilers’ and ‘Corruptors’ - dozens of them.
Kuma and Ekaterina arrived too, and the new ‘Ravagers’ had to be brought in. The rifts were opened, though it was outside the incomplete ring of the outer walls, seemingly aware of the fact that someone could shoot through the rift. Earthworks and wooden logs were still effective if resisting blast from a small pouch of gunpowder tied to an arrow were involved, though I wasn’t sure if the enchanted, magical weapons were so easily deterred.
Still, it was smart.
The camp, separate from the mining town, even had their set of gates, the palisade, the log houses. Brave was building her own castle, albeit from logs, and far from finished. It would work as the staging area, I thought
It made me think.
“How is it there are so many barriers out there?”
“We don’t know, Master.” Miwah admitted.
The priestesses we encountered didn’t cast those by default, and only the castle had one. If this was appropriate for the Viceroy’s stronghold, and if they cost money, I would imagine someone bled the money through the ears paying for three.
Although this was magic, mysticism, it may not be paid for in gold, but still.
“A castle?” I guessed, “Did we discover another noble’s stronghold..”
“No, Master. If so, it is smaller.” Miwah answered, “It doesn’t have a castle as large as the one we have here. It seems to be only a small port town with a wooden fort.”
Wooden fort, like the one we were building, was hardly meant for the important people. Too ordinary. Though magic barriers killed us, perhaps saving money on all the masonry to pay for all the sorcery was worth it.
I had no idea how it worked.
“For Master!” The nameless ‘Purifier’ snickered, filled with the excitement of torching down the human’s flammable wooden fort, even if it was better built, and soon others in the vicinity joined in the excitement for mass arson in revenge. Even non ‘Purifiers’.
“For Master, Master, Master!”
We haven’t descended so far as to engage in wanton destruction. I would have to think about the situation more rationally, even if that lingering sense of loss was still out there, gnawing on the recesses of my consciousness, demanding action against those who took my Helmy.
I was brought into the log structure that they erected here in the couple of days, realising how fast my girls had worked, from nowhere to starting their own small fortified camp just for there.
Now, however, it was time to stop and think.
The room, quite spacious for what was a structure built over a few days, filled with the various members of our horde, and I was seated, surrounded by my closest girls, and I realised I did like the crowded space, with an unfinished roof to let that currently allow the light inside.
I never liked crowded spaces. But now, there was something soothing about having the larger host so close, and even sitting enclosed within Ekaterina’s bear hug, while Tama pressed herself closer while the ‘personal Displacer’ insisted on remaining on my lap. The random ‘Purifier’ did too. No one questioned it. Miwah waited, as did Narita, while Kuma stood guard as the giant made of steel. Sora was uneasy, shifting her stance, while Lily and Mai pushed through the crowd.
Only Arke didn’t show up, but Kirke somehow found the ‘brain bug’ the ‘Fleshspeakers’ had created and brought the abomination in.
The rest remained at a distance only because they had their gear on, while Ekaterina had to literally dissolve the armour to accommodate me in her tight embrace. I should do this more often.
“Overview…” I whispered under my breath,
The window appeared into existence.
I immediately focused on the bottom of the unsightly, monochromatic list, confirming which of my girls had been sealed off. Helmy was there, as well as the four ‘Devourers’ and nine ‘Displacers’, along with even a ‘Warpstalker’.
It wasn’t a lot in our growing horde, many thousands heads strong, but it was far too many for me to accept. Strange, considering my girls have been sealed before, but still, something deep inside me screamed I would have to remedy the offence in blood.
I could be thankful that the barrier was more pain-inducing rather than seal-on-contact, but that was foolish luck.
However, if only so few were sealed, why did it sting so much?
Was it all because they were named ones? Was it because of Helmy?
Even when Tama was sealed, it didn’t hit with such an intensity, but …
But we had killed the offending caster soon afterwards, so I didn’t know how I would react if it lasted longer.
Or was it because the ‘system’ was ‘routing’ the command to Tama in the meantime?
Nevermind, I wasn’t going to find out. The system could keep its secrets: I had more important issues to tackle.
I waved the overview away.
There was a small hole in the part of my soul now, and I was going to fix it, never allowing the accursed humans to strike us like this, ever again. I tried to put myself in more problem solving and asked:
“So, where did it happen?”
Sora stepped close, and my other monster girls made space, presenting the map with the few other random pieces of papers scattered around it. My little ‘Displacers’ reshuffled it, likely in her mental order.
Everyone gathered around.
There was a map, a professional one, we acquired in the city. A scroll of mundane sorts, paper or parchment, with all of its descriptions written in the local unintelligible script, was familiar. But now there were now more sheets of paper, ones of terrible quality, added to it, with the various doodles on it made in both ink and coals, or whatever was available.
I blinked.
Not a random doodle.
Sora did it.
The feline wasn’t lazing around all that time. When she was away, seemingly indisposed, she was drawing all of this.
She made the larger map! Of lands beyond this valley, this province.
Provided, it was still horrible, compared to what the Viceroy had for his holdings, likely commissioned from the professional cartographer, but it was an actual map, a window to the world we still had yet to see. I couldn’t make out which lines were rivers, or if they were intended to represent the rivers, but I could guess what was the coastline, and the mountain range.
How far did she have to teleport?
“So, where is the enemy? Where was Helmy when she was attacked?” I asked,
“A human seaside settlement, roughly ninety kilometres south from our current position, Master.”
“Ninety?!” I gasped.
This was quite a trek.
Even though ‘Displacers’ made the question of distance rather moot - for them, it was just a few moments away through the shifting void they travelled through - I didn’t think it was a good idea to provoke multiple human factions, or attract more powerful foes to our location. That way courted death.
While mundane humans were still mostly belligerent, even suicidally so, their super-powered ‘elites’ posed an entirely different form of threat, further exacerbated by the fact they wised up to our own powers and abilities.
The map, even though made with probably the worst writing supplies imagined, and sketched on the run, did confirm that we went to a new province under the rule of a different lord than the local viceroy.
I knew because, simply; it wasn’t on his map.
“Why?” I asked, confused, why to draw the other province into the conflict even if our control here was tedious at best, and I couldn’t afford to draw many ‘elites’ there should they embark on any quest to find our base of operations.
The different provinces must have had their own soldiers, too.
There was no telling how many of them were, and how well supplied they were.
“Humans are nothing but trouble, Master.” Kuma yawned, interrupting my thoughts. “We should kill them all.”
I hesitated to agree. I never wanted this, but Helmy … my vixen was taken from us. The human spells hit us where it hurt, and the host wanted to retaliate. I wanted to retaliate.
“They would see the light, eventually.” Kirke suggested, her cute mandibles twitching as she spoke. “We made them understand, Master, as we did with the other village.”
The moth-girl didn’t seem to be as misanthropic as the rest of the host, but I suspect her solution to ‘taming’ the human was similar to Lily’s. Feed them addictive substances.
The morality of it wasn’t an issue right now. Later.
What possessed Helmy to travel the ninety kilometres to pick the fight with another town?
We had enough trouble here as it was. Even this valley wasn’t under our de facto control, though the Viceroy’s decree made it so de jure as far as we could tell, although the other hamlets, villages and towns in the valley didn’t even know we existed.
Or did they?
Some coastal town ninety kilometres away knew, somehow.
“Yes, but ...”
It made me realise something as Sora re-shuffled her makeshift map.
“This is close to the dig site, isn’t it?”
“Ten, perhaps twenty kilometres.”
“And it is the closest settlement humans have?”
“Yes, Master.” Tama said, “Helmy followed the coastline to the south, then south-east.”
So, it wasn’t that my ‘Alpha’ went on a random raid into enemy territory. Instead, she followed my orders, and I was at fault.
My already abysmal mood sank, but I forced myself to focus, to think about practical matters.
I didn’t know the lay of the land, and couldn’t estimate the shape of the coastline from the bird’s view, so to say, or higher. In a way, I didn’t want to. I was terrified of heights. The smudge on Sora’s version must be a bay, with the cross that marked the city. Town. Settlement.
“How large is the town?” I asked.
“About the size of South Maiville.”
“Hmmm.” I murmured. I didn’t know how large the so-called South Maiville was, despite I so graciously delegated it to my mate, and even re-named it after her, but it wasn't a small hamlet, that was for certain.
That settlement may not have a fort, but it certainly had a temple and, with more than one priestess staffing it. We also found a magical artefact there. And angered the celestial dragons that the natives apparently worshipped…
I was seeing a pattern.
“Number of soldiers?”
“Less than here. Less than a hundred.”
Not a lot. Viceroy had more men before our clash, but I suspected that numbers
were deceiving, and wouldn’t reflect on the threat they would pose to our host, especially if they used their abilities more competently than we did ours.
“I hope all of them aren’t elites.” I remarked bitterly. I didn’t want to send my girls against them in waves, hoping to score a hit.
However, if there weren’t, it didn’t matter.
They were there to protect the priestesses, allowing them to ‘seal away’ my girls while the humans hid behind those shields.
And there were, at least, three of them, since this was how many barriers were reported, although I wasn’t quite certain if there was a limit of spells per caster, or priestesses per settlement.
I wonder if the natives had any laws, any rules about this.
“Were there any of those temples?”
Those were hard to miss. They looked expensive, and if they didn’t involve towering pagodas, they certainly did have massive dragon statues.
“Don’t know, Master.” Sora replied, “If it is, it is located in the centre where the bubbles intersect.”
“Their fort isn’t in the centre, then?”
“It blocks access from the direction Helmy approached.” Tama said
“So we don’t know about the entire town, do we?”
“We could jump above the barriers, Master.” Sora suggested.
They could. We could, in fact, rain the rocks from the sky above assuming the magical shields didn’t deflect them too, but I dismissed the idea once I remembered the arrows, and worse even, magical sword we still didn’t have any defence against.
Worse still, the enemy knew they could fire through portals and tried to target our ‘Displacer’.
Firing a bow vertically may be difficult, if not impossible, but now I had a reason to fear that the locals didn’t run out of tricks up their sleeve, and I was to be cautious. Magic was involved after all.
I would have to learn to expect the unexpected.
They knew we could teleport.
Putting the question of ‘how’ aside, I didn’t know if they could sense incoming portals, not to mention we would be going in blind.
“Bring me, Master.” Kirke proposed.
I considered it. She could fly above the barrier, and the moth-girls did affect all the flora, even fungus, within the area of effect. The ‘Mutators’ could turn every plant in the town toxic.
They could also be sealed or shot down, and her collision with the barrier would give all of us quite a headache should the feedback flare back up.
I am not endangering my cute moth girls, either.
“No. I didn’t want to risk you or your sisters. Not for fly-bys.” I ordered. There was no point.
“Did the barrier kill our horses?”
“No, Master. I am already thinking of improvements...” the disembodied voice of Arke said, and Kirke, still holding the abomination of a brain-bug as if it was a strange puppy, but now she had put the flesh-construct down on the ground. It skittered across the room, between and under the legs of the girls without them being disturbed by it very much.
“So they didn’t?”
“…I didn’t make the riding drones combat capable. They were butchered once our cousins were sealed away.”
But there wasn’t any ‘Fleshspeaker’ among the girls. I thought they had only limited range, restricted to a certain distance, or perhaps to visual contact. I didn’t know.
The ‘Overseers’ did not have a limit. Arke was, very likely, still inside the city, and spoke to me through her newest creation, without her having to move even an inch.
“But your link to them? Was it there?”
“Yes, Master.” She said, through her proxy, “We could see the woman that sealed us, along with the group of human soldiers. We counted thirty. We sent the riding drones forward, and we could be almost sure there would be at least a hundred of soldiers in their fort.”
This was how they knew. They saw it through the eyes of their puppets. It didn’t matter how much she lamented that their mutated animals weren’t ready for combat, she already gave them multiple eyes so they could see the surroundings wherever they went!
This was brilliant!
“Wait.” I ordered,
“Master?”
“Arke! Get me the roach-hounds. And the crabs. All the crabs. Prepare them for transport by Sora!”
My girls answered immediately. I was trying to sound decisive, but their devotion was something else.
“Yes, Master!”
I could assault the barrier with the flesh-crafted drones, but the town had to be cut off from the rest of the world first. Maybe they could contact each other through magic - I didn’t know - but the messengers and supply wagons couldn’t go through, even though the sea was still beyond our grasp.
Even that may not be for long.
“Miwah, Brave?” I spoke up, “Ask which of your sisters were willing to go. They might be sealed, too, so be careful. I don’t want to risk you either, but we need this…”
“We are ready, Master.” She said, “All of us.”
“Sweep the forests and fields around the town.” I ordered, “Some could see you even if you are invisible.”
I didn’t know what made humans capable of seeing through the ‘Eviscerator’ cloak, but I was certain that only a handful of natives developed the ability. I just didn’t know which of them did.
Both Miwah and Brave shot her gaze towards the unseen horizon, and there was a sudden heave in the countless whispers lurking just beyond my notice.
They were willing to take a risk, but I was hesitant.
“Don’t go by yourself, Brave.”
“Master?”
The fruit of the arcane made ‘Eviscerators’ or rather, Brave herself, completely invisible, without the shifting air flaw her sisters had, not to mention she could now be even more deadly combatant than even before, considering the additional element, but it was not worth the risk testing her against the very specific spell that was meant to put us down.
“I won’t lose you, Brave.”
I assumed the ‘sealing’ spell hitting her would be as painful as the one that hit Helmy.
“Master.” the ‘Alpha’ acknowledged, sounding rather charmed. I, however, continued:
“Once we know there aren’t more magical traps in the fields and forests, we close the area in and start planning an assault...”
“Yes, Master.”
As much as I was dedicated to avoiding confrontation and killing, a previous mention of what was now South Maiville reminded me of something.
I warned the Red Dragon, whatever his fancy title was: Mess with my people, and I would torch down all those shrines. Time to make good on my promise, and earn a reputation. If I couldn’t get respect, then I would teach them fear.
“Girls. We will go to war.”
The fact there was no objection still terrified me inside.