Take Up the Cross – Chapter 95: Unnatural Protean Manse

What was ever-changing and uncertain outside is horribly assured with its inhospitality.

Dark, even with the faint light of Kol’s consuming storm, is the key detail that Adris catches onto. His senses which pick out more than other humans cannot pierce into the unknown.

Touching the wall with his hearing, the sounds of his soft footsteps distort each time, making the dimensions equally different.

(Is the room moving within?)

“Hmmm!? Smelled something, but now nothing? Huh, water?”

The most aggressive and luminous invader stumbles upon a pond, splashing a foot in before shaking it off.

(I can’t make out anything, even when darkness normally conceals little from me.)

Though darkness is his reward for stepping foot inside, there is a great relief felt while he grips the black cross.

It’s absolutely silent.

And, with its silence, his heart is also not contorting itself.

(Even if it feels like the Castillo, the Alchemaster’s “gift” doesn’t activate.)

With that refusal to awaken, there’s a good chance that the dangers within won’t be ancient or unconquerable.

Even though Adris can’t hear Still’s footsteps, it is thanks to an invisible chain linked to his shadow the boy can make out the location of the Still who is as concealed as the room. Sneaking around ever so slowly, her scouting is what Adris awaits…

“A-Adris… Still…?”

(This girl is sometimes hopeless.)

“Ave, here.”

“Adris!? Good…”

The elf shivers while clutching around Adris’ chest, leaving him waiting for a change.

“Still, is there no light to be—?”

Like a moving conflagration, a thousand small flames change the status quo.

Too dim to illuminate everything, these wax candles stuck into the wall’s porous architecture do grant knowledge of the dimensions of the atrium. Almost as large as a dining hall from the Emperor’s palace, the empty space focuses on the large pond in the center, upon which pale, red and violet lights intermingle.

For above and through a revealed sky hole, the ever-cloudy sky is parting.

“It’s uncertain within as well, Still.”

“HHIIEEE!?”

Ave clutches harder, lifting Adris up as he coughs. The source of her fear is the snakelike weaving of the gray sludge that makes up the walls.

Rapidly carrying candles with them, the thick and thin of it all flows quickly as it begins to congregate.

{It’s… active.}

Still’s response is just as mystified, with the room beginning to take form before their eyes.

Long runs and sharp angles dominate their view as the chaotic mass settles.

Absent ornamentation, the finishing sections are more like a spartan temple’s walls. The only artistic affectations are indentations of differing depths which form mosaic, tiled patterns from floor to ceiling.

Great globs of gray begin to fall in regular intervals from each other, plopping to the ground and squirming to become colonnades on either side of the atrium.

The only true art allowed are the spidery strands of gray which work to form repeating hanging banners stretching over the length of the walls, emblazoning with insignias of an orange tree with a regal green eagle placed over it.

In its clutched talons, a gray flute is carried.

Adris takes in the morphing room with as much calm as he can, listening to squishing and dripping sounds as it finally finishes its transformation.

No longer dark, the faces of everyone present wish it might return that way, as the light from above is allowed to spread by reflective surfaces formed on the pool’s surfaces.

“The universal color is gray, aside from the banners?”

{The more colors, the more difficult to control. The walls have thick bonds at many spots where the substance will connect back to the central reservoir. It’s all linked together.}

Pointing out these interweaving links, Adris makes note of the disturbing, almost tumor-like bulges on the flat walls. With no apparent threats save for three unopened doors in the cardinal directions, the blue angel begins to tip-toe to the one across from the entrance.

“Heartwood… is gonna… be where the ‘roots’ are…? Probably.” With the room now lit, Ave removes her grabby hands, coiling up with wide eyes as she stares at the scenery. “I’ve never seen a design like this? What temple did he copy…?”

(Hopefully a safe one, though I won’t count on it.)

“Boss, what is ‘perfection’?”

The once roaring Kol releases her aura flame, before waving at Adris and pointing to the center of the pool.

Coming to her side, he finds the same goop beginning to rise, seeking to take the form of a platform that raises upward.

Building atop the center of a circle, where words around it pronounce “Behold this, my Magnum Opus”, grows a figure of a humanoid; a woman in a body-length dress that stretches her hand toward the sky above. A beautifully sculpted face smiles at the twin lights above, before filling with horror.

Her hand droops and collapses, before her body joins it.

Existing only for a second, the woman returns to goo, before another figure starts to grow.

A man with dual horns, a broad chest, and tower-tiered festival pants towers over Adris, reaching his hand out with anger visible in his oxen eyes.

When the hand tries to pass beyond the circle, it collapses back into it as the man himself ends.

“There’s… nothing perfect about it, Kol.”

“Hmm? Fake?”

Watching the procession of figures be born and then “die”, Adris starts to understand something about the mentality of the owner of this villa.

(What he claims as his ‘magnum opus’, his finest creation, is undone in a moment. His decision… changes?)

With these changes come a presence Adris is aware of.

Encroaching on his mind, he feels familiarity with how his thoughts turn.

Kol’s alluring presence, even clad in armor, persuades Adris to place his hand on her back.

“Hmm!?”

The brutish girl looks up into his eyes, her pink ones blazing as she sniffs the air.

(Always close…)

A smell like hers is impossible to forget.

Bestial to a degree, the murky flavor of a kobold becomes even more appetizing when she leans in.

Those eyes of hers cloud with something other than anger or seriousness as she indulges in Adris’s own nostalgic scent.

(Shit, we’re under the Castillo’s direct influence here, even if its “heart” is missing!)

The fragrant waters below him, which are dyed with a wine-colored taint, remind him of the hallways which invited all passing by to give themselves to most extreme pleasures of the mind and body.

But more than just enticements, the awareness of the fragility of the world has returned, for the walls which should be solid and properly obscure what’s beyond feel like they can once again fall if pressed against.

A composure Adris rediscovered outside of this influence, one which let him accept the world of Zennia and create a working plan for expanding his control, feels so desperately far away now.

Rather than the man he knows himself to be, the otherworldly charlatan feels more like his true height and slimness betray.

(I’m not going to lose, though. I made it out the first time, I can do it twice!)

“Keep sharp, Kol.”

“Huh, of course.”

Snapping out of her fixation in a moment, Kol clicks her tongue and wanders away, dragging her poleaxe with a noisy scraping.

(It’s amazing that Crackbrass could repair what was left of that armor.)

Even though Lycia almost melted it, not a single imperfection in its twisted nature remains.

“Still, that way leads onward?”

{Given the apparent size of the villa and the direction, it should go straight to the garden at the center.}

The chosen door bears thick handles and an equally thick bolting mechanism.

“Unwelcome to visitors, it is. We haven’t attracted visible attention, so perhaps we can infiltrate? Can you defeat what bars it instead of breaking it open?”

The cocky girl puts a hand to her hip before tilting her head, her mask a wry smile as she traces the painted lips and then touches the lock.

(Of course you can.)

Delicate tools are applied to this stout door with shining, gray “brass” hammered over it. Though made of the same mockery as the rest, the mechanism is so expertly replicated that the sneak’s lockpicking talents can be applied.

{Feelin’ good about it. Gimmie four “turns”, then she’s open.}

(Not long enough! We don’t even have a real plan!)

Without Neesiette here, only Adris can cope with the threats at hand in a way which derives a solution to them, rather than falling into a trap by being strung along by psychological lures or attacks.

(We haven’t even met a single enemy and already Ave looks ready to surrender.)

“Ave, with Neesiette gone…”

“GONE!? For good!?”

Flinching at the idea, the coiled snake then rushes over to Adris, ready to cry until the calming grace of his hand pats her cheek.

(They’re starting to become affected by the Castillo again, too. Ave was much braver recently, but now she’s…)

Reduced to a mess at just the entrance, Avenalliah provides a wonderful measurement for the rapidity of how the Castillo tears away at one’s sanity.

“Pay attention, Ave. You’re the only one who has the magical knowledge to match Nesiette’s, especially when faced against anomalies like this.”

“… Um… that’s… certainly… true…”

The hyperventilating girl begins to calm when that fact registers, prompting Adris to take up her hands and push on.

(Having a purpose denies fear. The psychology of purpose is present risk, future reward, and…”

“As such, I’m giving you the duty of comprehending and voicing information about anything we encounter.”

“Such as…!?”

(A sense of duty. Anything will work, so long as it keeps her focused.)

One of the older techniques of novices was to train their mind to always be thinking about what they were viewing, actively learning to speak of the object’s, or idea’s, particulars.

Through time, they would grow to quickly accomplish what Adris can.

(Instantaneous, detached analysis. Merely list everything about what you’re viewing, without standing in the way of its meaning.)

Only after would they receive motivation to keep their thoughts quiet.

“This material’s uses, they are…?”

“Hmm!? Um…”

Joining the working sneak and impatient, huffing kobold at the door, Adris has Ave stroke the cold gray material it’s composed of.

“Ahhh, it’s… able to assume forms and take on colors, alter its hardness, gain more weight by compression, and um… it’s mildly resistant to magic. It was discovered in the second age, with its secrets similar to the elvish art of using wind to sculpt…”

“That’s sufficient. Its weaknesses, then?”

A healthy smile from Adris prompts Ave to flick her eyes away with a blush. Her voice returns with a cough and a noticeably more loving, confident tone.

“Once its shape is set by the manipulator of it, it won’t change again until it receives new instructions, which must be given through the medium of itself… and, it’s incredibly hard to manipulate it actively, so this villa is quite unique?”

(So, it can make shapes… and disguises? I’d like to see how many… But, first: are you weak to me?)

Such a material sounds useful, but a black cross is the ultimate test of its ability to help or harm him.

When the quiet obsidian touches the pseudoprósōpon, the result is…

“AHHHH!?”

Absolute chaos, as the grayish substance goes wild, lashing out where the cross subtly rings. Though keeping its solid shape, the door distorts as a shrieking Ave draws back Adris.

{Stop doing that!}

The squatting Still kicks out with her foot, missing Adris’ as he lifts it up.

{You just can’t help yourself from touching shit I’m dealin’ with…! You jealous of a door, now?}

Away from the cross’ touch, the beaten-brass barrier begins to return to solid form, though its final result is a garish, scarred mass at the center of Adris’ limited ‘point of contact’.

(If it touches the cross, it goes insane! I anticipate that it would also probably deform if I wore it over…)

A black mask has ever been a huge giveaway for Adris, drawing fascination, suspicion, and terror from others. Unfortunately, the idea of hiding it away with a “false face” would be exposed as a fraud immediately, bringing a quiet sigh from him.

Shortly after and with no further interruptions, a rough clicking comes from Still’s work.

Pulling on a lever, she produces more clanking sounds, before the door opens with a jarring screech.

As the double doors swing open of their own accord, Kol barrels through with her rage renewed, entering into a long hallway filled with light from oil-filled braziers along its east wall. They gently waft black smoke that disappears above into unseen chutes.

“… this isn’t the garden.”

{Witness the Golden Bitch’s favorite trick~.}

Tailing their frontliner, all take in the view of a reflecting room while growing ever more tense.

A view of the world above is what’s below their feet, like walking on a frozen, pure lake at night. Down this mirrored hallway is a tooth-like reversion of sharp stone obelisks, oppressing them from above as the space between them weaves in their sight.

Though clearly a great distance, the ceiling plays a recursive optical illusion, denying insight into the hall’s own length while seamlessly reflecting the glassy floor’s very own impossible and instinctually nauseating panorama.

(How could this get more eerie…?)

As if to answer that, he picks up on a rising sound echoing down the hall.

From nowhere in particular, a tune starts to ring out.

Soft notes like that from a reed instrument play out a melodramatic and slow song, the keynotes changing as the entire party halts in the face of its ‘welcoming’ prelude.

{We’re not hidden, partner.}

Still eyes the room while pulling out slips of parchment with strange words written upon them, emotional and powerful concepts instead of poetry like other mystics, then hiding them again when brandishing them results in nothing going awry.

(That’s obvious now!)

Forced to continue, their steps are soon fighting against the tempo of the fiendish tune’s rapidly crescendoing volume and booming cadence.

“I don’t… like this music! Oh!? The windows to the left!” Ave quickly slithers over, planting her face against the frosted window and peering into its distorted view. “The garden is there… Ugh, there’s no latch? It’s seated into the wall!”

Despite her prompt, frantic banging on the glass, the immense strength of Ave’s body can’t even begin to menace the thin barrier.

(So, no way out through those…? And the space has warped if the garden is now to the left!)

Something about the mirrored hallway spreads a nervous tingle about Adris’ neck, causing him to eye the spaces above between obstacles.

With gems set into their points and sides, the obelisks that shine a whitish-gray don’t appear dangerous, nor do they bleed with any pseudo-aura.

(Then why do I feel so unsettled…?)

At that realization, Adris notes that the direction of the music has changed, beginning to rise in tension with phantom whistles of a…

(Flute?)

{Ahead, there’s no traps. Ignore the music, it’s a distraction.}

With a cocksure confidence, Still’s hand probes the disorienting surface of the floor, and whatever her examinations of it and the walls seems to find gives her all the assurance she needs to stand and trot forward.

Kol trails behind, only to halt once more upon sniffing the air.

“Nnn? Something is weird for sure. Not a distraction.”

While no tangible breeze can be felt, the kobold’s head turns and angles, following an unknown presence.

(If it’s weird to you, then it’s real!)

Realizing that they’re now split up from each other, Adris goes on top alert.

Extending his aura senses to their fullest, he touches on every surface he can discover, no matter how much the effort buzzes in his head.

(From above is the logical choice…!? An eagle crest on a tree? Birds…? What’s the trick!?)

{… There’s nothing? What’re you feelin’, brickhead!?}

“Something! Wrong! Shut up, Puddle!”

Both begin to bicker and square off in progressively biting taunts.

(Not now! Don’t buckle this early!)

When Adris steps forward to interrupt them…

His body freezes, with a chill running up his spine.

Something from behind fills the corner of his eye.

And with its approach, the music takes a drastic turn with an ear-splitting whistle of the flute’s notes becoming shrill, sharp, and wrathful.

Darkness follows, bursting forth from the shaking cross of its own accord, with surprised shouts of whispers calling others to join in on spectating from beyond the Veil.

The mirrored floor is back-breaking as he tumbles across it, the pain stalling, but not halting, him as he rises to jump forward with the storm of darkness escaping from him. Away from where he leaped, he detects something briefly taken by the energies of the unknown.

A feeling of movement at the back of his head leaves him clutching shorter strands, and with a single glance back, his attacker is revealed.

(You’re fucking kidding me!)

Rather than from above, a curved sword with gems melted into its steel swiped from below.

Standing upside down on the floor is an avian attacker, its bird-like face and stark eyes following as it chirps from a large raptor’s beak. With thin hands instead of wings, its means of flight are attached to its back.

Great feathers flutter as the aerial assassin, clad in shining mail and long, flowing robes of Castillo gold, takes off again. It soars straight down into the floor’s complex depths, while the glittering gems sewn into its sashes, and encrusted into the blade-complimenting buckler it wields, shine like the obelisks above.

“No escape for you! [Brainfry]!”

Adris flings his cross, perfectly calculating the distance and velocity of this new avian threat.

Only for the cross to strike the floor and bounce away uselessly, leaving a crack in its surface that swiftly mends.

(How can it hurt me when it’s not up here!?)

The bird swoops in again, its eyes shining as Adris, its desired prey, is locked into its view.

The sparkling sword swings once more.

By pure instinct, his body moves for him with the misunderstood threat closing in.

“From the floor!”

Yelling as he bounces up, Adris somersaults over an invisible attacker, feeling the blade clip the end of his rabbit boots.

The minutest of fluff is sliced off in the world above the mirroring ceiling, the cause blearily made clear thanks to the actions of Adris’s new gem-crested predator.

Landing on the mirror again, Adris kicks off from the reflection menacing him, but his safety isn’t shared by the others.

“GAH!?”

Metallic wrenching is heard, with sparks scattering from an invisible clash against black steel.

Kol turtles up as more attacks harry her from above, leaving her shifting against a threat she can’t interpret.

“WHERE!? ENEMY!?”

(It’s fluttering above you!)

Just like with Adris, the second attacker is in the world below only.

In outrage, Kol slams her poleaxe into the floor where it’s reflected, but…

It merely lazily moves out of the way as the glass cracks, disallowing the blow to carry through to whatever sub-realm it resides in.

“BOSS! ENEMY, CAN’T BE HIT!?”

“I’m working on it! Ave!”

As Adris lurches back again to avoid a lunging slice, the snake elf cries out with surprise at the leaping and dancing birdman that pursues.

“That’s… a shiny [Malphas]!? They’re usually shadowy bird demons that lurk in darkness, but these are different!?” Screaming at the top of her lungs, Ave darts to and fro while looking to interfere in Adris’ danger, information spilling from her with lightning speed. “When they’re in shadows, you don’t attack the one you see, but the shadow that moves with it, which is the source of it! So that would be the… reflection, maybe!? Or where it would be above it!? They’re really agile and intelligent, so you have to…!”

When Ave cries out that information without stopping, the bird halts in mid-lunge to look at the squealing elf.

(Got you! Excellent work!)

The mildest curse escapes its beak, before it swings wide its encrusted buckler, letting it point behind as its sword aims at Adris.

Light pulses in the gems, before cracks fill them.

“Ave! Flee!”

“… and if you throw a sprig of red-elm at them, they have to pick it up—!?

… eh?”

“[SHINING HEAVENS]!”

At this raucous screech, dozens of dazzling gems burst into from its weapon and shield, becoming swirling balls of radiant death that streak toward Adris and Ave.

Unerring in their flight, an obsidian cross is drawn into their path as Adris falls back, his mind working quickly to calculate how he can properly weave…

(No issue!)

Mindlessly following his body’s movements, the shooting spheres are pulled into a single route to slam into his cross.

To a shattering sound of glass and a peal of thunder, the exploding death bursts back upon the creature that shot it, leaving the bird squawking in surprise as it’s pelted by the energies.

(But Ave isn’t…!)

Further from this fight, Ave watches blankly as swirling lights fly toward her from below the false floor.

“… Ummm… that is…”

Halfway to her, their menace turns her muttering quickly into a shriek as she rises up into the air on her tail, flailing a hand as she rapidly sing-songs.

“[D-D-DISTANT CLOUDS WEAVE CLOSER NOW, THICKENED STORM MAKE AIRLINGS BOW!]”

Fingers which dance with her rhyme ask for air, but receive the answer of the deep earth that fills the hallway with its majesty.

Instead of clouds, the vicious gale which springs up around Ave rips up the glass at her feet, swirling it chaotically around her.

When the light shines as it nears to strike her…

It simply vanishes upon attempting to cross the missing glass sections.

“Ehhh!? AHHH!”

Watching this while cringing, Ave is then further endangered when the compressing barrier around her starts to grind against itself…

Before it explodes outwards, miraculously avoiding skewering its summoner.

(Ah, fuck me.)

Adris dives to the floor, moments before shards of glass propel over him and past his sides.

When the burst of death clears him, he quickly checks his body to staunch bleeding.

(I’m fine!?)

Looking toward the source of his near misfortune, Adris finds it strange to discover glass floating in mid-air between him and Ave.

Moving as he watches, below the reflected surface reveals the truth of these wretched birds.

“[CREEAW!? (WHAT?) DAMNABLE WENCH!]”

With shards lodged into where armor doesn’t cover, the feathered duelist’s deep wounds splatter purple Vigor upon the floor of its reflective realm.

Its beak opens in rage, glaring down its two foes as it readies to return the pain.

“Still! Kol! Aim for where they would be above the floor! So long as your reflected attacks would strike them, they will!”

The enemy’s response to sharing its secret is to try and take Adris’ head, missing only by an inch as the loose-lipped pain in their tail feathers pushes off the ground and cartwheels to the side, dodging what would’ve been a follow-up thrust to the jugular.

“BOSS! GOOD JOB!

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

A wild swing goes along with Kol’s body catching alight with a red phantasmal inferno, plowing her long poleaxe through the empty air above.

Below, though, a bird is sent into an airborne spin by an air-splitting impact on its buckler, which deforms into uselessness with one hit as it cries out.

Examining the damage as it flees on swift wings, the bird seems shocked by the shield’s total destruction.

(It’s enchanted to avoid that, isn’t it!? The cross did its job! It’s made it possible for us to win!)

Shrieking crashes signify Kol’s next swung attack, while deathly accurate dirks whistle past in tactical harmony, ready to assail both birds at once.

“[GYAH!?]”

“[Blue one!]”

While one manages to block a portion of the flurry with its buckler, Adris is shown what could’ve been made of his own throat as Still’s daggers gore the Malphas’ beaked gullet, and shred its flapping arms, leaving the creature helpless against the disorienting whirlwind Kol’s righteous swing brings.

The sashes and gems being pierced produce a dizzying spray as the whirlwind clears.

(Too dizzying!)

Though the dirks send purple Vigor spraying, they also release balls of luminous energies, ones that immediately sail straight toward the source of the blades.

{!?!?}

Still watches the floor as the radiances lighting up the room collect their momentum and begin their retaliating approach.

(She can’t dodge!)

Not even bothering to try, Still instead ducks low and whips out a crystal-encrusted case, prying it open with her fingers as she points the inside toward the blazing orbs.

The world becomes too bright for Adris’ intentionally amplified senses to take in, shutting out his view as he listens to multiple impacts pulverizing the distant girl.

“STILL!”

But, as he adjusts to the light show, the girl above the mirror lake is…

Encased in a deforming shell of gentle green light instead of broken to pieces on the floor, Still patiently examines the result of dozens of explosions leaving their mark on her protection.

After tossing away the cracked case, she calmly rises and throws her body into a run with her flame-bladed short sword ready to swing.

(A witch’s power is pretty useful…)

Far more useful than the slashing tip of a green whip, for a snapping snake nearly bites Adris’ side as it flies just past the space where an incensed bird would be below him.

“S-SORRY!?”

“Ave! Think of some way to defeat them other than through us flailing at them!”

(No matter the damage they’ve taken, it doesn’t slow them at all!)

Glass shards and sharp dirks do little to dissuade the one trying to behead Adris, while Kol’s even more battered target continues to fly around while shooting out streams of bolts at the kobold.

“WIND! MORE WIND!”

Forced to take them head on, Kol muscles through the unrelenting barrage while trying to goad her swinging poleaxe into producing more whirlwinds.

“GRRRRR! Magic, hurts! … AH! Come and fight like a true warrior, you cowardly chicken!”

“[Learn to fight first before dismissing my own talents, minor creature!]”

(Not enough capability to hit them without Neesiette here to block off their mobility! It’s too tight of an area to risk asking for Ave’s winds… so…!)

Adris springs over the Malphas, turning in the air to avoid its stabbing saber.

In this hasty feat of gymnastics, he manages to tumble upright and dashes flat out toward Ave, whose worried face soon turns green in color as she watches the bird give chase.

“ADRIS! AVE CAN’T FIGHT UP CLOSE!?”

“Call your wind again! The same one as before!”

“EHHH!?”

The boy collides with the girl, clutching onto her body as she shrilly sings while waving her an arm.

“[DISTANT CLOUDS WEAVE CLOSER NOW, THICKENED STORM MAKE AIRLINGS BOW]! EEEEIIII!”

With his scaly good luck charm in his grasp, Adris hides from the skin-flaying explosion of glass that catapults outward, leaving the floor free of its mirroring shell and savaging the nearest bird.

It is injured, but remains spry, not willing to back down until it can satisfy the rage visibly brewing in its eyes.

(I don’t care about the injuries from that, but what about the change in your demeanor!?)

Turning to look, Adris watches the bird’s psychological reaction to the missing floor. At first ready to charge, it hesitates while shifting in place, raising its sword and pointing as if to attack.

With this intentional menace, there’s a reeking hint of desperation on its bird face as it tries to goad them into acting.

“That’s it, is it?”

“[… KRAAAHHH! (SHIT!)]”

Rather than strike,

the bird turns tail and flies away at Adris’ emotionless question, swooping in to join its compatriot in slashing at Kol.

“Ave, the way to beat them means destroying or obscuring the mirror floor!”

“How do you know!?”

(Because I can notice the fucking obvious!)

With the floor failing to regenerate fast enough to reconnect the mirror to their location, the reflected beings can’t seem to cross over to deliver harm.

(If they can’t deliver harm, then can they exist without being reflected?)

“When those energy balls from earlier sought to hit you, they disappeared when trying to cross the gap! If we do that to—!”

“The entire floor!? Is that it!?”

Catching on while holding tightly to him, Ave begins whispering to herself.

“More wind? No, everyone will be hit! Slamming my tail!? I’ll get huuuurt! Um, what would… obscure everything…!?”

Her ponytail whips as she looks around, before settling on the object of her desire.

That small mouth of hers goes wide as she stares at such a beautiful thing as pure fire, before she gains a deranged smile born of removed inhibitions.

“Oh, Ave has an idea…?”

“Do… you, now?”

Before Adris can inquire further, her whip is already flying.

“EH!”

The green length wraps around a brazier of blazing oil, pulling it off its holder and spilling the contents onto the floor.

Where the top layer only burned while in the brazier’s holder, the oil spreading across the mirrored surface finds the life-giving air that turns it into a large “celebration”.

“There we go!”

“AVE!?”

Slithering at top speed while holding Adris with one arm, the suddenly enlivened elf keeps whipping at braziers along the way, spreading an enormous “party” as she prances to-and-fro with coiling leaps.

“Hmm? Elf, gone insane?”

{What the fuck is she doing!?}

The rising festivities distract the combatants, bringing an end to their fight as the pyromaniac nearing them gleefully shouts.

“Ave had an idea!!!”

“RUN!”

Racing by them, Ave drags the nearest brazier straight toward the spot the Malphas fly over.

When the burning oil flows over their reflections…

“[SKREEEEEEEEEEE!]”

They scream in pain while their reflections distort with light and smoke, before they rocket out of the blaze. Singed and with robes burning, they ignore the team as they retreat to the obelisks deep in the mirror world.

“OOOH! Elf, good idea!”

Kol raises her hand, shaking it in appreciation as the flaming oil pools at her feet.

{RUN, YOU IDIOT!}

The flames take on a life of their own, even after Ave stops yanking to add more.

Flowing down the hallway, the smoke and blaze seems to be following them.

“… Mmmm… I didn’t… think it would…?”

“Ave, keep running!”

Slamming into the door at the end of the misleadingly short hallway, Ave beats onto it with her fists as a smoky kobold drives her poleaxe into it, only managing to split it part ways.

“OPEN UP! OPEN, PLEASE! AVE HATES FIRE!”

{That ain’t how you acted a moment ago!?}

With no locking mechanism evident, Still instead takes to throwing out scatterings of bluish powder onto the mirrored floor behind them.

The oil that cooks to room continues to close in, for the many braziers turned over contained enough to cover the entire hallway.

“… Will that save us…?”

Coughing as he asks the question, Adris wonders at Still’s miraculous abilities as thick smoke begins to obscure his teammates.

{You’ll die—

smoke and heat—

not burning alive?}

Her hand signals are unclear toward the end as smoke fills the room, leaving the crying Ave battering the door even faster; but, as the entire floor except for their section is doused in fire, wonderful screams are added on top of Ave’s.

“[CUR—CURSE YOU FOOOOOLS! EEEEAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH—!]”

The sound of a chicken roasting alive echoes across the glass floor, before it abruptly ceases.

A thick, metallic wrench announces a change as whispering voices exult the temerity of their tactic, before the doors open outward to let Ave fall through them.

“ADRIS—! HAK! RUUUN!”

Adris has no time to try, though, before he’s dragged out of the inferno’s reaching flames by a long tail wrapping around him.

His last sight of that mysteriously mirrored mantrap of a hallway is of gems from the ceiling falling to shatter into the flames, as the resin holding them to the obelisks melt away with the heated air.

“… That… worked out.”

“Sorry! Sorry! It… seemed like a good idea…!”

Still cleans Adris’ sooty face off before applying a balm to a reddened hand, leaving Ave to wipe Kol’s armor and her own skin off. Quiet for a number of minutes after escaping the licking blaze, Adris’ voice allows them to move past the near-demise they faced.

Held up in a servant’s corridor beyond the deathtrap, they now recover from Ave’s latest “good luck”.

While they rest, Adris notes that the music that was energetically goading on their death earlier has become more somber. Though ill-fitting for a victory, it’s perfect for worsening their moods.

“No, it actually was a good idea. Next time, however, communicate your intentions before taking flight with them, Ave.”

“… Yes, sorry.”

Surveying the damage to his teammates, Adris stands while dusting off his clothing. He frowns at his hand turning black, but keeps his cool as he looks around for future dangers.

“A servant’s way? Rooms on the… left side, with the garden windows on the right?”

{We’re being sent to random places.}

Still takes an interest in the doorframe behind them, running her fingers over runes inscribed into it that were barely noticeable to Adris.

{Some sort of system, but I can’t determine what logic governs it.}

“All it reads to me is as ‘living way, thought-seeking place’, so it’s likely some sort of truthful code, if it is one.”

(The ones that try to hide things are the ones I can interpret. The destination is probably just as inscribed.)

Understanding air and darkness does little in aiding with comprehension of the person who wrote this sentence, for no greater intent was left behind.

“All we can do is press onward.”

When Still points ahead, offering to scout, Adris shakes his hand “no”.

“We go together. The moment one of us enters a door, it could close and then change directions, so unless we’re entering together…”

{True. Then let’s go see what’s in store for us.}

Still rolls her neck, ready to face the next likely life-threatening trial of the day, before creeping down the uncertain hallway.

“Kol, agrees with that! Stay together, to fight for glory!”

Tramping happily along, the only member of the expedition not unsettled is also the most fearless one.

(In addition to fearless, also the one that noticed the danger first.)

Even if she couldn’t see, smell, or hear them, Kol was aware of the Malphas’ presence through a sixth sense.

Not even Still had felt the threat, which confirms to Adris that Kol’s intuitions are similar to his own.

(She’s become quite reliable for protecting us. If only she’d stop running off at the enemy “before the cadre expands their own spirits”.)

Plenty of aura users were like Kol on Xin: self-assured and enthralled with their own sense of total prowess. For power easily distorts one’s understanding of danger, a lesson Fatso had imparted to Adris with wise words shortly before embodying that reality at Serras’ deadly clutches.

“Kol, we rely on you to hold us together. You are our center.”

“Hmm? Kol, knows?”

Though paying attention to him, Kol’s tail is whipping as she awaits the newest threat with an eagerness that denies her responsibilities.

(No, you don’t.)

“Without Neesiette here, you are our sole means of defense, Kol.”

“Nah!? ‘Defense’!? No, Kol, will take the fight to the enemy!”

With a turn and a swing of her well-proven mighty poleaxe, Kol resembles a daunting statuette when she lifts her head and poses with it pointing toward the ceiling. She claps her chestpiece, ringing it loudly before cackling.

“Kakaka! The enemies come to Kol, or Kol goes to them! Either way, rest of you guys are safe, right~?”

(Zero understanding of tactics! This girl is a godly warrior when it comes to personal combat, but I’d rather fight by an illiterate peasant’s side than hers!)

Even the one time Kol had counted on Ave for support had likely only been a means to test Ave’s growth, as Kol rarely calls back for aid.

Or even to announce what she intends to do next.

“Kol, there are many things I’ve yet to teach you…”

(A great many, such as to always listen to me!)

As Adris grows terse with a disagreeing voice, the kobold sighs in annoyance.

“Right, Kol listens to Boss; but, when battle comes, Kol only knows how to do… no, Kol just listens to what her body says to do?”

Stuck on a reason for her constant break of formation, Kol nods at that justification while pumping her fist.

“Boss! Kol, can only do what Kol knows to do inside! If you tell Kol to do something, it better be something easy for Kol to know how to do, okay?”

(Are you saying that you’re too stupid to do something mildly complicated!? Are you admitting it with a shit-eating grin under your helmet!?)

At such a bald admission of her incapacity, said without any faltering in her prideful voice or self-belief, Adris can only nod silently as she turns and starts forward again.

{… That’s why I said you gotta fix her from the ground up. You’re better off breaking her and making her like it.}

A dark figure falls back to walk with him, tutting at Adris with her finger. Still then flirtatiously wipes it over her painted lips.

{Next time you win, I think it’d be fine if you just pulled down her pants and—~?}

Adris stops, moving close to Still while she steps back like a feral animal.

“Don’t say something like that, ever again.”

Quiet when speaking, but menacingly said, Adris glares at his partner with a manner he’s rarely shown to anyone on Zennia.

(Control yourself, Adris…)

{… Okay.}

Without flinching at his tone, Still just furtively flashes signs without energy to them as she backs down.

{Are you… actually saying you care about what happens to her…?}

“To all of you. Have you not understood me on that subject, even now?”

Ave watches the two whispering, fretting and pulling on her whip as Still and Adris are prompted to grow less tense at having a witness nearby.

{Maybe. Or maybe you’re just… getting different…}

Finished with him, Still creeps after Kol, keeping her intimate thoughts on this newly realized fluctuation in their partnership close to her chest.

While she grew furious with him for discussing Echo’s sexual punishment, the Castillo’s atmosphere has amped Still’s hatred of Kol enough to resume her “joking” about the brutish kobold’s supposedly deserved fate.

(You’re not allowed to let your hatred blind you, even if you’re special to me. I can’t call any of you expendable anymore. So…)

His hand invites Ave to follow, while he gifts the uncertain girl a confident grin that plays up his aloofness to the world around him.

“It was a good idea. Of that, you can be certain of my approval, so stop dwelling on it.”

“… Um, thanks! Sorry, I got a little carried away. I just… wanted to do what Neesiette can do…”

Ave sidles up to him slowly, staying with Adris as they sneak forward.

“… She always does the right thing without hesitating… so I’d like to be able to do that.”

The wistful voice she uses is a sign of how she hesitates, but Adris finds the reason useful.

(That’s an excellent goal! Also, a useful bond.)

“You will. Eventually.”

Patting her shoulder and letting his hand flow down her skin, Adris reinforces his hold over the girl’s emotional fulfillment as she shifts away drunkenly at the touch, before rejoining him again a short time later.

“… Nobody believes in me the same way that you do, Adris. It… it feels nice.”

(Like always, I must be an emotional center and an entity for them to invest themselves into.)

No opportunity for Adris to sink his clutches deeper into them can be allowed to pass, for these minor moments of emotional bonding grow towards the future he desires.

(None of you is allowed to escape my ability to understand you. Nor to direct you. No “expendable people” exist in my life that are bound to me and this cross.)

Even the likes of Anaxis and Cherie are quickly filling spots in Adris’ plan that can’t be replaced with others easily, and Adris finds himself unwilling to allow talent to escape him.

For the purpose of protecting his life and concerns on Zennia, a charlatan is no longer allowed to abandon everything. While he once could take up Serras’ hand and flee at fortune’s slightest turns, he has only one life path available now.

(That’s frightening beyond the ability for words to describe; but, I’ve known it to be true for a long while.)

“Adris, you do a lot for us, so we’ll pick up the slack. Right?”

Ave muses openly with him, her thoughts entwining with his own without her possible knowledge.

“I recall that promise. That’s why you decided to change, Ave: to grow into a woman that I can proudly call my friend.”

A special word sends her giggling for a moment, with her dainty hands rubbing her blushing face.

“Yes! … Thank you, again, for allowing me to try. I know I didn’t explain much back then, but… I’ll let you and them know more, soon…”

The elf brings her whip behind her back as she slithers ahead with an impish smile; a show of confidence that he wishes to see more from her.

“Once we’re out of Petripolis for good, I’ll show you a treasure of mine…!

Ah!”

Ave blanches, a look of shock overtaking her optimistic glow as she leans in toward Adris. Her shifting body corrals him off, before she points at his feet.

(What?)

“Adris! Your boots are coming untied?”

Such a statement brings immense surprise to Adris, sending his heart racing.

Because…

(They’ve never once loosened up before now?)

Though the magic boots have always been reliable, just as Ave said their laces are untied. Even though they by design tie themselves, right now they refuse his urging to do so.

(… How strange.)

Kneeling down to physically tie them, Adris wonders about the likelihood of…

The somber music ends.

It is replaced all at once with a single sharp stab that whistles an air of arrogance and the desire for a bloody, majestic clash.

Exploding debris flies to his side, with only a small piece of glass hitting Adris’ shoulder. Eerily, there’s no cloud of dust from the rampage, for only gray fragments of the villa roll across the floor before beginning to melt.

A huge thundering to his left concurrent with the explosion causes him to freeze in place, with his mind warning him against standing up.

“HMMMM!?

HMM…!?

HHHHMMMMM!?”

When Adris glances up to discover what Ave’s strangled humming is about, he finds a cylindrical pole vibrating as it stays locked above.

Tracing it to its origin, the window is shattered from its entry, with the glass reforming slowly to enclose the enormous…

(BOLT!?)

“A-A-A-A-A-Ad-Ad-Ad…!?”

The shaking elf is locked in fright as she stares at a giant bolt made of gray substance stuck inches from her face, with its long fluted shaft ending up lodged into a hole in the wall across from the window.

(… They’re… shooting enormous…)

Adris steals up Ave’s hands, dragging her with all of his might as he flees toward a kobold and sneak, who stare back in surprise at the random addition to the architecture of the villa.

“OUTSIDE ARCHERS! ENORMOUS ONES!

RUN!”

This warning scream comes only moments before a second bolt pierces through where Adris was only a second before, barely missing Ave’s waist as the shell-shocked elf reawakens at the new mortal threat.

“HEEEEEELLLLPPPPP!”

“Gah!?”

Adris is scooped up into surprisingly strong arms, before the elf zooms past their friends to hurry exuberantly into the unknown ahead.

“OOOH!? BIG BOLTS! Kol wants to fight this crossbowman!”

{Shut the fuck up and run, you rolling slag pile!}

Down hallways they flee, ever avoiding the windows which may, without warning, grow dark momentarily before conically tipped bolts the size of trees rumble through them.

(This is way worse than the Castillo!)

Music plays merrily, a flute being joined by other instruments as percussion and brass drones out for confrontation.

The flute takes center stage between the two different sets of instruments, happily calling for ruin while inviting them to dance to it instead of resisting.

Unlike the Castillo, which draws its opponents toward ruin with guile and warps their minds through subversive enticements…

“This villa is just trying to kill us!”

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Chapter 94         Table of Contents          Chapter 96