Take Up the Cross – Chapter 127: Witch and Sinner’s Hangover Cure

The dark hollow does have the stilted air of a crypt. Crystal caskets cut, or grown, to the shape of octagonal prisms entomb generations of evil spawn of the Kestners. Entwined by the deep orange roots of the tree, the toxic leak of these eternal slumberers brings Adris to cover his mouth with his sash of a stretched hand.

From the mass of pseudoprosopon outside does darkness gather to fester with dead dreamers whose dying hopes lie unrealized here.

“After… you vanished from my shadow, I had a hope you’d peek back out. I’d worried you’d been caught. But… it’s you, so I knew it was you when I traced the poison in the walls.”

{Mhmm.} Still only waves once in sluggish response.

(Why choose here to work, and why not actually pop out of my shadow…?)

This is where his sole companion who grasps the larger picture has held up in the company of beasts that smell like Rantil, but as a crowd are far less cheerful or alluring.

One, a struggling and whimpering monstrosity wearing a dog’s living skin, remains subdued by burning strands that fuel from the festering air as much from Still.

(Sorcery loves places like this, maybe? Bush mystics, I hate them…!)

{More you glare at [Wriggly Dog], more it’ll ‘love’ yah.}

Like she sees his thoughts, Still points Adris off of the dog and to stand closer to herself.

“And that fire of yours will keep it from ‘loving me’…?”

A quick waggle of a finger means “maybe, maybe not”.

It’s the last sign she gives before returning to her obsession of stirring the poisonous contents of her irregularly-shaped, silvered pot that looks like a giant’s milk pourer.

(Brewing something in hiding, with the company of minions? I’ll have to risk checking with Authentic Fiction to see if they’re my “last pieces”.)

Adris’ eye twitches when searching Still’s companions, tasting their threat potentials as well. When he settles on each and pierces with his externalized senses, he can feel tidbits of truth dug free.

(What it is… is called… [Shabby Lion]?)

“UWAH!?”

The creature wearing a lion’s pelt jumps backwards and further into the gloom. As if struck by Adris’ gaze, it swings its paws wildly in defense and succeeds in diverting his focus.

“Stop, meanie!? Leave me alone, poor me…!”

(It can feel me reading it!? It can resist!? I can’t see below the pelt it wears, either? Then, the rest are…?)

Hurry drives him to check giant and dog before either can try to obscure him from their natures.

([Heartless Tin]… it’s not iron?)

“PEEKING BAD.”

The hunched gargantuan rumbles this warning out before standing further up and disappearing into the hollow’s higher roof. A grand step forward could squash Adris flat, but this one that’s like a flayed great apeman with armor riveted to him obeys Still’s order not to attack him.

Its shrieking mass of plates obscure its nature in the same way as the lion pelt, with its body smelling of fresh gore as blood seeps anew from below its metallic exoskeleton. The sanguine film rankles Adris’ mind from a distance, causing him to squint and avert his head as if knee-deep in a Xin’Reh cadre’s slaughter.

“AROO!? WAFWAFWAF!”

(Even this fucking thing is hidden!)

The twisting dog’s head slams into the floor with the energy it expends to try to escape to lick him. Its impossibly long tongue and hidden bottom slobbers everywhere, leaving the hollow’s roots smoking.

(“Don’t let it lick you” is all Authentic Fiction will say!?)

{Don’t much like peekers. Don’t get the same thrill I do, y’know?}

Still signs at him while picking through her unfolded ornate box of witching goods, hovering her hand over pungent reagents separated into different open compartments. With her menagerie intent on Adris, something about these black shears preempts a pleasant reunion with him.

Stuck deep into a root column, the dreadful aura licking off of this seamstress’ tool defies the gathering miasma. They hold to the column the ever-crumbling remnants of colorful banners, stained in the same green juices and faded of their imagery.

(That’s more devious than anything I’ve ever made or held.)

Adris’ hairs stand on end, his blood ice-cold when suffering this thing’s impression. Unlike Neesiette or Lycia’s tools, he feels no instinctive jealousy to possess the showy piece that he must normally not succumb to.

(I don’t… don’t want to know how it works, either.)

Even the mildest attempt to divine its secrets drives a nail into his thoughts, a sudden headache flaring. As he scratches at his temple, he finds it tries to scratch with him.

Sickly sweet whispers goad observers into turning its blades on their throats. The shears find a worthy victim in the simple straw doll that they have impaled.

Coated in a similar dried greenish substance, this doll with black button eyes is all but lifeless to naked sight.

(… It’s… beating with the room, though! And the sweet smell of rot is… flowing from this [Witless Straw]!)

That debilitating toxin which has blinded Falke pumps out of pulsating veins connecting to the doll’s back. Adris changes between layers of the world that his senses can perceive, horrified to discover the veins’ presence blinding in all of them and infesting the orange tree’s roots all around.

(With these horrible creatures lounging around at the epicenter of the curse… Still is just…!?)

{It doesn’t look right.}

“Mmmm, yeah, and it doesn’t make me wanna run away instead of eating you, either?”

At her back, the creeping coward of a lion peers over, widening its jaws as if it’s looking out them. Though wary of Adris, Still’s question makes it curious enough to “help”.

{Yah sayin’ it ain’t scary?}

“No!?” At Still’s flourishing signs ending in her stabbing at its throat, the lion’s head falls over backwards in its flight from her. “It’s scary, ‘cause it hates me, and wants to hurt me like you do! It’s just… but…!?”

{Ain’t as scary as the real thing, huh?}

The lion hunches, then shrugs its shoulders with a popping sound. It finally relaxes when Still inclines her head in thanks.

{And… you?}

Still leans back on her stool to stare straight up. Above her, the looming giant scratches under its hidden chin.

“MORE TO SEVERING THAN CUTTING, COWARD.”

{True! Just ‘cause you cut with a blade, ain’t gonna mean it stays forever as two.}

The witch slaps her leg, before slowly eying the smoking dog that’s stopped struggling.

{And… what do you think, fuckin’ ugly?}

“WOOF! WAFF!?”

Licking about and seemingly enjoying the taste, the captured monstrosity leaves the surfaces it slurps shining in the dark after smoking.

“WOOWOOWOOOO!”

It stares lovingly at Still before trying to hurl its body toward her and failing, whipping back to where the fire roots it.

{What a great idea, bug. Might as well try fairy wand?}

She drops a plant strand with small white flowers along it into the brew, reaching out to feel the snaking smoke that rises after the stew belches.

{A little bit crueler. Why can’t I get the same feelin’, though?}

She signs this toward the open tome she has propped beneath the doll, its current page showing a diagram of the same black shears. Notes in swishing characters reveal the author’s feminine intellect, but Adris recognizes them not as Still’s own style.

(I can’t jump in with my opinion?)

Adris finds he can no longer move forward, even though he wants to stand beside the witch, curious to observe her craft more closely.

Something about this corruptive scene makes him feel very far from her consideration when she works so hard on ignoring him after that greeting.

The only emotion Still shows now is a frown on her mask and a slumping of her previous anticipatory body. They’ve been separated by a day and a battle, but she won’t reciprocate Adris’ quiet hunger.

(She’s trying to create something? The shears are the subject? If it’s about tools and crafting them, maybe I can…?)

At the thought of being of assistance, Adris presses toward her.

Still makes no notice and none of her strange, new minions dare to intercede, only creep at the edge of Adris’ personal space.

Allowed to peek into the swirling contents of the pot, Adris’ opinion firms up as to why she can’t.

“The taste is fundamentally dissimilar. It’s why the… effect won’t be the same.”

A smile, thin and wry, comes to Still’s mask when she swerves to face his confident voice. Maintaining some measure of sexiness with how she crosses her legs, even if it’s a little boyish how she kicks her foot, Still signs a lazy question.

{How ain’t it the same?}

“The pot feels… dangerous, sure. What you have inside is dying to jump out and cause trouble, but it’s far more measured.”

{It does feel like that, yeah?} Still nods approvingly, tapping the heated rim of the pot’s top. {Dangerous ain’t enough? Measured… is bad?}

“If you’re trying to make…” Tepidly, Adris points out at the shears that seem so dark that he wouldn’t be surprised if they were stolen, plucked from a starless night sky itself. “That, then for you, it’s probably impossible, and I consider it great that it’s so.”

The sneak’s animated swaying freezes.

— AUTHORITY OF ETERNAL SEPARATION —

So reads the black shears when they sigh and give up their secret, all at the cost of Adris’ sense of safety.

(It’s the absolute ability to divorce one thing from another, without any defense or refutation! That’s… heinous!)

Rigid with concentration, Still looks from Adris to the shears, before slowly asking her question.

{Because I’m not… good enough to use them, huh?}

“No! No, great because… nobody should use them!”

Still lowers her hand in surprise at Adris’ shout, tilting her head with interest.

(Acting scared by them… I’m being irrational!)

“Those shears are… pure evil, sharpened and set only for harm. For you, a girl that has a sense of justice about your revenge, and…”

A train of thought that sounds like it’s becoming a sly compliment suddenly seems off putting, because Still leans back in defiance of Adris’ attempt to do so.

(Is it wrong for me to say this? I’ve spoken well of you before, though…)

“… You’re not… vile enough to craft them, then. Those shears are the epitome of evil. You… you aren’t, no matter how much Kol might disagree.”

{Hahaha! So, you’re sayin’…}

Still’s hand bounces around mirthfully, before drawing out with big swoops a joke.

{… I ain’t packed enough to crap out a shit that nasty?}

“That’s an unregimented way of putting it.”

(A bit too informal, as well, but…)

{Right? Well…} Still looks to the doll rather than Adris’ blank face, a tapping finger on her mask and a sudden solemnity to her mood. {If only the most wicked thing in the world could craft ‘em, then I’ll agree with you. That bitch that was savin’ me for a snack had a heart blacker than a fifty-foot-deep fouled well at midnight.}

At this comment, the straw doll impaled by the shears flings its arms around with comical flamboyance. Some sentience drives its wild movements, a kernel of meaning behind them intelligible to Adris’ Talent.

(“Oh-ho, hee-hah, but at the end, you still called that poisonous hag ‘mo’—!”?)

The doll’s arms seize up when Still’s foot drives the shears even deeper.

Her catlike leap to kick them ends with Still standing with her back turned to Adris, hands behind gripping tightly.

Sensing the mood, she turns and steps back to her stool to right it, then sit down as if nothing happened.

{Funnily… enough, I would’ve called her much worse, but I’ve been wrong about a few things lately.}

Adris’ position some feet away, earning distance when she reacted violently, leaves him feeling like there’s never enough space to save him should this catty witch’s mood turn lethal.

{Turns out… you’re the latest one I declare myself messin’ up on. No matter what you said, it didn’t really explain the real deal, did it, Adris?}

(Why is she so… pissed? No, not mad? She’s…)

Still’s mask doesn’t give away her true mood, though, since it’s that neutral grin she maintains around Adris. Her body language, so constrained usually, is instead explosive when jumping up to strut forward.

{Last night, you really let… everythin’ out.}

(I’d figured we’d have done something together… why does it sound like I did something to you?)

A blind spot that’s haunted him since waking in an enemy’s bedroom suite, nothing and nobody has yet explained Adris’ apparently central role.

{Real eye-openin’, seein’ you with the mask off.}

(Does she mean this mask… or…? Did I do something to all of them!?)

The warm sense of fulfillment flushing through him from reuniting is now ice cold. Still’s familiarity grows, no tension to her killer figure with flippant hands, but none of the words are kind.

{Gettin’ to finally meet a weepy ‘partner’ called…?}

(Partner!? Did she fight…!?)

Throat dry, Adris watches Still’s hands make the motions of a plant transforming into a flying bug in order to name this personage.

{… Serras.}

Still’s anticipation grows with this name revealed, taunting Adris from her position of leadership over these ragtag horrors.

Almost as if summoned, the lion shuffles to cower behind her and the giant lurches down to study Adris with its empty face.

(Falke’s evil joke! Ruining everything for what I’ve been trying to build, Serras already attacked them!)

Antagonism that shouldn’t exist was secretly fermenting in this witch’s workshop. Adris’ mistake in coming here so openly and nakedly, before even recovering his cross, had been with the belief that Still of all the others would be…

{After seein’ so much, I can’t get that same rush that everythin’s going wrong when I’m near yah…}

The way she leans in and flirts with her fingers is crudely sinister. All the miasma seems to wrap around Still’s thought to make her white mask gleam like a beast’s tusk with a dark breath behind it.

{… ain’t nothin’ I feel like I gotta fear about you no more, right~?}

She has no sword out, but is ready to gore him still.

(… She… she thinks I’m…)

Adris’ left hand raises, gripping emptily without a familiar icon to be held. If he’s being honest, though, it almost feels like he’s touching it for a moment with how hyped his senses push out to assess all the dangers he has overlooked.

(… powerless!?)

Still’s posture is still defenseless, even though he’s always felt a tense, taught energy to her upon uncomfortable greetings.

No hidden weapons feel necessary for her.

(We can’t have… can’t have that! I thought you would be afraid…)

Before her assembly, Adris wills forth the same circulation that drove Hoime insaner. He lurches forward with his own presence focusing into his ideal image, the concept of becoming a giant to match Still’s own foremost!

If Still can look down on him with that sultry manner, then he can project the tight aggression of an uncontrolled horror like he constantly runs into on the other side of Zennia!

(You were just looking at me as a pushover after last night!? Was that why you never came to save me!?)

“You think you might… know the whole tale now, of what calls itself Adris, but…!”

His theatrics seemingly transform into a out-swinging hammer, with the lion and giant shuddering and surrendering ground unwillingly.

Only a dramatic flair, Adris can drink deeply and happily of this fantastical reaction to his fake antics.

“I don’t think even you have the imagination for the horrors I’m truly capable of unveiling!”

The miasma that gathered around Still now rages like a whirlwind, flapping their clothing.

Still pushes out against this gale in a pocket, struggling not to collapse.

(I’m not a weakling like you thi—!)

Still’s two-part curved blade pops out, her body a twisting dervish as she menaces.

(Oh fu—)

When Adris finds the blade never once pointed at him, only at the menagerie that began to strike back, his heart calms enough to notice her free hand flying into quick orders.

{BACK OFF, YAH FUCKIN’ ABOMINATIONS!}

“Nanana, but, buuttt, that scary one started it!”

Two sickly concealed blades each jut out from the lion’s paws, shivering with anticipation to chop him up.

{He’s mine, not food for bugs!}

It tiptoes away when Still’s blade drips bluish-black venom in turn, almost sounding like it’s whistling.

(… Why defend me?)

The feeling that he’s about to be betrayed won’t settle, but when even the shrieking giant’s malformed hand withdraws at Still’s order, the pain he circulated with his aura starts to lose cohesion.

{Nobody’s callin’ yah weak, so calm the fuck down!}

“You just…!”

{Stop agitatin’ the shit you called here before it cuts a rift!}

Still sweeps a gesture toward the darkness of the hollow that beckons with sudden whispers of contrition and interest.

From the walls, and perhaps beyond them, a hunger greater than Adris’ current needs gathers.

(I called!? Didn’t you call this to your witchy workshop!?)

{Please?}

Adris cuts his concentration at her polite gesture, thoughts wild with speculation about his responsibility and her sudden manners.

(The poison is no doubt Still’s… but the miasma is mine? Maybe it’s… Authentic Fiction’s work?

“PLEASE”!?)

Deep in thought, his distraction prompts Still to tug her brim down and roll her shoulders in a “sigh”.

(She’s thinking I’m using it to attack her!? That I’m not powerless, but a threat, so she has to be… appropriately polite…?)

That idea is so confusing, because Still has ever regarded him as a potential threat in the past when he seems irrational. With all that’s transpired, he can’t recall a time when her requests actually seemed polite.

{If you call it, then don’t waste it on bickering, at least.}

“It’s not wasted! It’s gathering here for a worthwhile reason.”

Silent at that, Still just nods once before lowering her blade.

(She trusts that I’m competent?)

{Told yah it was intentional.}

This sign earns a shake of the straw doll’s arms, so fast that Adris can’t catch the reply.

{And you two, fuck off and go at each other if you want a fight so bad!}

“Nngngng! So mean… so mean to meeee!”

The crying lion wanders off like a stilted puppet exiting the stage, leaving the giant to ponderously sit on its hind quarters. Its weight causes the hollow to rumble when it plops down, rushing Still to save her equipment from falling off her work table.

“… It’s… this miasma is what I’ve been gathering to oppose Falke.”

{That so…}

More ingredients plummet into Still’s pot. No longer interested in a standoff, the witch allows the smoke rising to cling to her arm, with the odor smelling more of her own temperament each ingredient added.

(That was… different! Time to find out what she’s up to with Falke.)

“I woke up alone, wondering where you were, where any of you were.” A self-serving narrative is what he starts, trying to near her to let proximity influence her feelings with softer words. Their confusing conflict leaves him feeling cold and left out. “In the time since, I’ve been acquiring the strength to overcome any foe Falke can muster. Seen most of what he has to offer. I’ve come to understand the nature of his ‘game’ he fixed us into, and how to beat it.”

{Yeah, he’s been tryin’ to rope me into this cock fight, too, but I ain’t interested in puppets with fancy offers.}

“But of course he’d fail with you, you’re too clever!” A fine smile earns no response, so he applies more care. “There’s no… dissent with the ‘thanks’ we’ve got planned for him in return, right?”

Still’s shoulder twitches, an emotion flooding through that Adris can taste with its sudden intensity.

Before she rolls once and continues her work.

“Your poison is what’s made him blind and dumb…?”

{Might as well be mine now.}

“Can you control its functions totally? Make it open a path for us at a specific area?”

Still hesitates for a moment, tapping the bubbling pot’s rim.

{… Maybe. For what?}

“For what? For the only thing we should be doing!”

(Stuffing swords into that turkey’s guts until he’s ready for dinner!)

“What’s floating down here is only a part of my plan. I’ve gained… a new understanding of the world around me, Still. It led me to these…” Adris walks up to the nearest casket, wiping the dust off to peek inside. “Relics, among others! I’m so close to him, now…”

(Fehr led me this far, there’s no way that reaching the roots isn’t it!? But what about them is important?)

The body within appears artificial, with all features grown from rocky crystal the same as its casket. A man with eyes shut, maybe at the end of his thirtieth years, he’s dressed in preserved fineries of the same general style as Falke’s eastern designs.

“I’m maybe… an hour from butchering his pride, along with the rest of him…”

(First he’ll weep, then I’ll dry up his tears for—!)

{Huh, confident? Then you don’t need me.}

“What?”

Rather than cagey, Still’s gestures seem bored. She finally turns the tome’s page, its strange language looking odder still when explaining parts of a complicated inner system to the shears that look like veins or arteries within the blades.

“How could I not need you? Your talents, almost every problem before now, you’ve always—!”

{Doesn’t seem important. If it’s just “revenge”, then you got no need for anyone but yourself.}

(How the fuck do I do it alone!?)

Adris’ patience frays further with each dismissal, for the lazy witch brewing potions was supposed to be his ultimate tile. Every action of Authentic Fiction has led him to this point, yet she, revealed as the obvious choice, wants to sit it out.

“Still, we don’t have time! There’s… there’s a deadline of midnight for this plot.”

{Says who?}

(Says me! But… how do I even explain!?)

“I’ve gained new insight into… a number of things! A grasp of the function of Zennia that most miss, but… but you don’t, though I can’t clarify how!”

{Dangerous things, again.}

“In the wrong hands only. But, in my dexterous ones…”

(If I could explain it, if I had the time, you’d be kissing me! Begging for a demonstration!)

Adris can’t bring himself to rush her, no matter how much he wants to “play”. Ever since his shadow was severed from her, he’s felt some recurring obsession with thrusting her back in.

(Usually I’d be ecstatic to kick her out!)

“Vengeance isn’t the only thing I seek! Midnight means something about… ah, Neesiette! It means losing a chance to protect her from something hazardous!”

His reverberating yell strikes something in Still, for she drops her stirring spoon to clatter on the hollow floor. A quick jerk she makes goes unnoticed by him, still trying to vocalize his feelings.

(I’ll never forgive him… for what he tried to do…! Trying to take her from me!)

“That bastard has been haunting her, running his hands over her like she’s property! Smooth-talking our Neesiette, goading her into betraying us!”

{… Ain’t that… it’s soundin’ familiar, though?}

“Familiar? It can’t be familiar if we stop it now.”

(Fehr is going to revolt, and I’ll ride straight to the top of this tree with her! It has to be there, the gate that is opposite this buried lizard hell!)

“He made a test to see who would be tempted into staying, abandoning each other! If one stays, I wager all do!”

{… It’s what sounds smart, a good con.}

Still’s demeanor becomes more agitated in response to Adris’ excitement. The air that’s been stilted swirls anew, choosing both to wind around.

“Smart is a matter of perspective! He’s impressive on first look, but his arrogance overlooks everything ‘beneath’ his notice!”

(Every puppet he made has fallen, succumbed to either my influence or the “corruption” of touching genuine emotions! That’s what his true weakness is, accruing fractures in his “perfect” false world!)

If the infection keeps spreading, then the touch of a witch is perfect for completing this disease.

“Still, I’ve lined up the parts for the finishing blow, but I can’t do it alone! To save Neesiette, to set us all free from this sick joke of a game, I need…!”

He nears her finally, enthusiasm overcoming wariness that has set into his bones.

Reaching out to grab her shoulder, maybe pull her around to leer at each other like they do when “plotting”, he wants to jolt her emotions and play off of them.

“I need a partner I can trust to drop the final blow on this artless bastard, this dickless wonder that’s trying to steal—!”

{WHO?}

Still’s need for bones gives way to a slippery lunge at Adris. Jumping from his heels, Adris stays just beyond the tip of Still’s extending steel.

{Who is “that” bastard going to steal!?}

“Neesiette… Still…”

{You can only steal property!} Still draws back, lowering her tip slightly. {WHO DOES SHE BELONG TO, BOY!? SPEAK IT!}

(It feels like she’s warping inside!)

Since his ascension, Adris has gleaned far more from his senses, and this particular girl’s extravagant emotions now feel like several wild animals trapped inside her mesh.

Never able to place “why”, the miasma which twists around her leaves him certain that her “humanity” is uncertain when tested.

(Dark things have strong emotions! Undead have the strongest ties of all.)

{Where’s your weeping butcher!? Why not fool that sorry excuse for a woman into beheading him!?}

“… That… that wasn’t Serras.”

{Does it really matter if she’s real if her blade cuts as deep!?}

Taller than him, Still now towers like the giant that’s gone rigid with its own fascination, the hollows where eyes should be in its flat metallic face glowing an ominous red.

Interests peaked, the giant may join in if “this” Still wishes it. Adris can only suffer her own wilting gaze.

“Serras is… long dead… to me. On Xin, which I was thrown out of, that’s… that life I left behind. What Falke made was a… hateful, confused fake.”

A killer’s grin is set at his choice of description, the most composed part of her contorting, outraged body her mask.

{THEN USE THE FAKE, CAST IT INTO THE TRASH WHEN ITS EMOTIONS RUN DRY, RIGHT, BOY!?}

After the emotions wash over him, she calms and taps his chest with her sharp tip.

{Just like you did with your real butcher.}

Throat dry, Adris can’t refute the vicious accusation. Unwilling to hide from Still’s blade either, he can only wait for the girl that’s shifting between obsessions to perhaps grow less catlike.

If he moves, she’ll skewer him, for her rage is deeper than the sunless depths he passed through in her shadow gate.

(How much did she find out? I thought… maybe Still would never discover about Serras.)

{All men betray, but a born traitor like you is the best at it. Why not with that thing, why not now?}

Unwilling to kill him, obviously remembering their oath before she leaps, Still slowly shows her back in disgust.

A hand over her shoulder is quick, though.

{Women, most of all, when at their weakest… are who you take advantage of.}

“I didn’t come here to betray anyone! WE came here to save—!”

{But you will… betray, it’s in your eyes, blazing as bright as last night.}

Still returns to her task, smoother and full of quiet obedience to the necessity of her craft. She no longer will meet him as either a threat or as a partner.

{You want not me… no, only, another weapon, a tool. Leave me out of your… desires. I’ll never get another opportunity like this one, never another chance to surpass her…!}

(That is not what I want from you! Not now!)

“At first… it was true, what you said! Just like… on Xin, I was treating you mostly as a… only, right at the start, though!”

(I can’t… find the guts to admit it…)

“But, not now!”

Adris’ hands come up, uselessly curling his fingers. Whatever ideas he’d had for a soft reckoning are turning sour with Still’s unknown knowledge fueling her hate.

“We’ve already talked about this before! Ambitions change! Even you tried to take the easy way, Still! But, what I demanded wasn’t slavery for us, but—!”

{Yes, you wanted us closer.}

Still’s gestures carry her painted sneer in energy, but she does turn back to face him once he admits some of his sins.

Her sword rests on her lap, body leaning forward to front her heavy breasts.

{That’s the price of men: closeness, subordination… slavery of emotions. The softest bondage, most dangerous, it’s seductive and… slips through all defenses…}

“You can’t be serious!? Do you think I’ve gotten the better of you with all of your leading me by the nose each time we flirt!? Who usually slips through who!?”

(Is it that I’m—!?)

{Fresh off of seducing that airheaded snake above, but energy for a dance down here still!}

“… Ave was unsure, she needed someone to believe in—!”

{Skip the play. I know what you are, now. The rest is irrelevant. It’s all irrelevant, your very nature is as a betrayer!}

“Says the one that won’t even sleep in the same room, fuck, the same street as me!”

(What I am is betrayal!? What did you see, you double-talking sneak!?)

For Adris, the real betrayal was of him by the others, abandoning him to Falke’s care.

For Still, it cemented last night, and all Adris can revive are flashes of facts.

(Felt like I was consumed by doubts, last night, now that I try to remember. I can’t… let her escape, though!)

At first complimenting him in a strange way, this Still becomes so moody that she no longer gestures.

Even her menagerie gives wide berth to this territory of hers which now reeks sweetly of rot.

“The oath we made was permanent! I would never have made it if I wasn’t planning to make it last!”

{SO YOU ACTUALLY WANT SOMETHING PERMANENT!?}

An unknown flow runs through Still’s body and down to the hand she sweeps over the top of her pot.

The boiling liquid inside explodes out, evaporating into a thick gas which billows forth toward Adris.

Still’s sword clatters to the sword, the sneak’s essence vanishing from his senses.

(Dangerous!? No…?)

Orange radiance from the roots vanishes into this witch-brewed gloom. The clouds slink around Adris and cordon him from escape. With no acrid smell or bodily reaction from its fumes, he can’t consider it hostile to himself even if the hollow floor sparks with brief flames.

(Theatrics!? You fucking witch! Still wouldn’t harm me… she needs me, no matter how she resists!)

Not even when Still’s dark form sashays out of the cloud bank directly before him does he act, with her leaning forward with the impression of a hexer to offer an open vial held between two upturned fingers.

{Drink this and secure your heart’s desire!}

A red liquid, a deeper and brighter shine than blood, sticks to the vial’s interior. Still leans closer, a slinky twisting of her body to accomplish it.

(Familiar… and… deadly!)

Its bloody ruby contents send his mind racing. What they boldly state they are, causes his mind to revolt.

— [SYMBIOSIS OF LIFE AND DEATH] —

— A CONCEALED CONCLUSION —

(Still couldn’t have made this!)

Its composition, unknowable, but it feels older than anything Adris has ever beheld save two.

(Cethran and… and…)

Still reads his horror, twirling the vial that contains thick black lines of secret danger pulsing within the red fluid.

{We’ll be so close that when your heart beats, mine will too!}

(Can I… even consider…)

Adris relaxes his rigid form, tentatively lifting his hand before dropping it. The temptation and horror weigh on the scales of his heart, interpreted by Still as pure fear by how she “laughs” in his face, rocking her head with a jubilant smile painted on her mask.

{Come on!?}

Flames like lit swamp gas billow up around Still with her jabbing gesture of the vial.

{You said you missed me in your shadow! This is your chance, to make me never leave it!}

(… Never?)

Adris swallows, eying the vial more covetously. Yet, keeping his emotions contained.

Concealed. So that she can’t help but prod him.

(Would it… bind us both?)

“We’ll be together?”

{Closer than mother and child, coward!}

Still twirls the vial, drinking in the fear she perceives.

“… Do you offer this as… a witch?”

{I am a witch, what else could it be but a treasonous offer!?}

“Nothing will separate us?”

{Not a thing on Zennia could separate us, not even death. Not even the Gravemonger himself.}

Adris shudders at that thought, causing Still’s smirking grin to change to a sinister cheshire when she moves a hand before her face.

{Right, it’s always so nakedly frightening when you can’t hide from the offer!}

(Is this really fear? I feel… less afraid the more you gesture.)

“And… if this… if I do this, you will believe that I’m not… a traitor at your back…?”

{Put your life on the line, liar, just once without me to hide behind.}

Now kneeling from this imposing figure who darkens him in her shadow, Adris faces a confusing situation with a set face.

Not revealing a single tell as this witch before him gloats, all her deepest feelings cut loose.

{Do it, and… I’ll believe even just a little! I’ll look at you… as if, maybe, you’re the sole MALE that doesn’t scream for a gelding!}

(“Will never be apart”, “will believe”, “no one can sever us”, “it’s fine if I’m male”…?)

The calculation starts from multiple facets, but ends up with the same conclusion in his feverish mind no matter where he starts from.

A few seconds of silence are provided by Still as the cloud of witchcraft she flung closes further in, suffocating them.

(…

… We have an existing oath that prevents us from harming each other, so there’s no real danger, right?

Did she just present me with a proposition that contains only… pure gain!?)

{But you can’t trust a woman, can you, because in the end, YOU’RE JUST A DARKLING, COCK-WORSHIPING, NO—!}

When he darts in to lift the vial from her fingers, her last gesture cuts into a long drop of her arm.

{—OOOOOOOOOOOOOO?}

To his lips, he knocks the red death into his throat just before the vial is ripped from his fingers and shatters on a wall.

(GUHK!? WHY!?)

He gulps it all before her fingers tear past his lips, forcing him to bite so she can’t induce him to vomit. When he tries to roll away, she pounces like a rabid weasel!

No sooner has the liquid hit his belly than the crazed witch’s fist starts driving directly into his stomach, hammering with increasing force to each punch.

“STAHP!? LEGHOOOO!?”

{!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!}

Her own gestures are illegible between sequences of vicious punches, but the witch has never been more frantic except when melting in Gallus’ fire beam.

(HELP! HEEELP! WHY IS SHE TRYING TO MAKE ME THROW IT—

Ugh?)

The instant Adris’ stomach convulses, Still’s fist stops.

A cold feeling seeps into the pit of him, one that begins to traverse straight for his chest.

“… S-Still… what… what was…?”

{YAH FUCKIN’ IDIOT!}

Still leaps from him and to her kit, ripping out herbs and a grinding bowl. Adris can only curl up, heat draining from his suddenly fastly beating heart.

(… What did I just drink?)

Quick beats then slow.

The feeling of sluggishness in his veins all over sends him clenching his muscles.

When the first pulse of red covers his sight, Still flinches at the same time before recovering and kneeling at his head.

Like a practiced nursemaid, she tilts his head back and forces freshly ground, mixed juices down his gullet.

The warmth these bring to his body is quickly shut out by the growing cold.

At least until something clicks in his heart.

(F-Fuck…!)

A key turns.

(FUCK!)

With its rotation, the unseen lock ceases to be as tense.

An unknown substance lubricates, earning easier movement of its mechanism.

Anger floods through his body, colder than the feeling of impending death! Fragrant and subtle, outlandish and sweet!

All at once, the liquid that was spread by his slowing heart is ripped back toward it.

“Gack!? … Still…! HELP ME!”

{Don’t fight it! Whatever it is, let it get… sucked away!}

Snakes rush through all his limbs, until they nestle in his heart and coil up tightly.

The flash of red that Adris recognizes as Still’s special view of Zennia reemerges, bright and pulsing. Adris can feel his own heartbeat echoing, as well as the false lives of her monsters and the quiet pulse of the earth of the hollow.

And, then, it fades.

Staring into a mask with a neutral look set to it, Adris’ mouth feels dry.

Before he can part his lips, a water skin is to them.

“Huh…!”

{Are you actually retarded?}

“… No, I’m… I make calculated—!”

{A worm-eatin’ slobberer that people throw Peca to on the streets?}

“F-Fuck you, I’m… brilliant…”

{How are you even still alive?}

“Were you really trying to kill me, you evil witch!?”

{So I can make them shears, huh?}

If she was, the action of having brought his head into her lap to rest is odd.

Neither speaks after, though, unwilling to answer the other’s question.

Adris can only cough a few times as he feels his guts starting to settle from Still’s concoction. For her part…

{It was only supposed to be a bluff.}

“Do you offer real, kuh, poison when bluffing!?”

{… It wasn’t… intentional. An empty bluff, for… your empty bluff. Or… so I thought.}

Still strokes his forehead from eyebrows to where his hairline starts, her mesh-covered fingers much more forgiving than her angry punches of earlier.

{A witch’s pact is binding, even if offered outta arrogance. Sucks that… I keep makin’ mistakes, but… there you go.}

“… So… I got you?”

{Hah! Idiot… there’s no way of knowing if even a creature like you could survive exposure… so why risk it?}

(Why what!? What do you mean “like you”!? What did I drink!?)

Adris is about to boil over, but then he calms considerably and simply enjoys her fingers massaging his scalp.

(… This is what I do to other people, huh? Oh… it’s a pretty interesting feeling, running people in circles?)

{Why are you so desperate to make good with me?}

“Because… we’re partners!”

Paralysis still afflicts him, but Adris can offer an inviting smile when Still buckles before he does.

“I demanded that in the first place, why not make you see how much I need you now!?”

{Need me?}

“A man like me isn’t content to spend his whole life dancing without a little commitment, either.”

(From finding me powerless… to finding me trustless… I’ve got to dispel both those things, no matter how dangerous the risk!)

Serras went mad with suspicion and attachments that festered.

If he were to do this to Still as well…?

(Oath or no oath, she will destroy me rather than be “owned” like Lycia feared.)

{So much kick in what you do, like you don’t need anyone… but you want me this badly? Even now?}

“How can you think I’m strong, even now!? I’m lying here… rotting inside…!”

{That’s just a trick you’re playin’ for observers like… all of us do.} Still leans down to thump his stomach with her thumb, sending Adris into a new fit of groaning. {You had that Slayer-killin’ tigress lappin’ from your hand. If you could hoodwink somethin’ felony criminal like her, any Slayer in Petripolis is just as easy a con.}

“Cons are tricks, not real strength like—! Uck!?”

Still’s fingers plug his mouth, before withdrawing and timidly signing a strange question.

{Somethin’ weaker than another don’t gain the same control that you had, no matter how smooth-talkin’ or wanna-be pretty. Real power… is the kind that makes that monster Falke made from poisoning us dance in your waltz.}

“… No, that’s just reflex for that one, sh—”

{Whatever you pulled, you can do it again. It ain’t… gotta be me.}

This sticking point is one Still won’t compromise: her worthiness.

(Serras? She was a product of the most unique circumstances ever! I grew up with her, we gave everything to being together, while hating it the whole time!)

Adris had her as his own because it all added up.

Because it didn’t break until later, when the magic of their story long-faded.

(Why compare yourself to her!? You’re not in the same class! I’m sure not, either!)

“… No matter what you think… Serras was my only real strength on Xin.”

So shocking it is for Still to hear this from his lips, that she freezes completely rather than interrupt. The mists surrounding them nip as he continues, stealing heat.

“Our relationship was irreplaceable. Irreparable. Ruined… by us both, but yes… I was a… traitor to her, over time and indifference.”

(… This hurts!)

Aside from the clenching pain in his throat, begging him not to speak, there’s also the shame of abandoning all mystery for this relationship Still fears enough to question her own usefulness to him.

(I’d rather she… pity me.)

“Serras was everything. Without her, on Xin I would be… nothing at all, ending my life as some psychopath’s subtle dagger.”

With his eyes closed, Adris’ guts churn upon realizing the weakness inherent in that statement.

“… That is… I am still an endless source of mysticism and social opportunity! A master of other’s hearts… a…”

(… “charming man”!? I sound too pathetic! Stars, please make me reborn as something less tragic than me next time.)

She thumps him on the forehead, opening his eyes.

{Why the fuck would you think she’s your “everythin’” in being strong!?}

“Huh!? Did you not fight her!? Do you not… comprehend how…”

Even the thought now of truly crossing weapons with Serras, of doing again what he did in the crypt that was fueled by blinding outrage, causes Adris to feebly curl up.

(Ten out of ten times, she’d absolutely eviscerate me before taking her time getting to the castrating!

Then, she’d get really mad!)

“… how scary that woman was? If you want a truth about Xin, unvarnished and as accurate as your ‘sun’ rising every morning, then Serras fehr Almet was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever fought, beside or against.”

Still tilts her head with a rapid lethargy slumping her body, but Adris continues.

“She was… inexhaustible. I used every trick I had gathered over my life… every gap in her training that I missed filling… every mental weakness she never bothered to fix, and it still… meant absolutely nothing.

She painted a wall with my guts, and had presence of mind to lay claim to what we discovered together after…”

(I completely lost. I can never beat Serras, ever. Might as well accept it now and commiserate with Still, since it sounds like Still lost.)

Which brings an odd question into Adris’ momentary mental collapse, one he hadn’t considered until now.

(How did Still and the others survive fighting Serras?)

{Inexhaustible? Describe.} Still immediately slaps his cheek to ask this.

“… Huh? Ah… she was like Kol, except worse. Probably like last night… she never loses an ounce of… Vim, no matter how much she throws at you? I’d call it ‘aura’, yet it’s just ‘the ability to project death’ for Serras.”

{… Do you not… get why she could do that…?}

(Get what?)

Still’s shock continues, her next question confusing for him.

{How can you miss the… crazy things that you can do? What you are, an entity twisted far beyond mortality, something that only… appears human, you can actually become…?}

(Is Still really buying into my “persona” that hard? This is sad, knowing that I roped her in this much, but it’s… safer to just dispel the myth and try to gain some affection!)

“Still, I figured you’d realize this by now, especially considering you’re as smart as I am, most of the time…”

{Realized what?}

The miasma encroaching on them halts its advance, awaiting Adris’ next words as he can only sheepishly grin.

“I’m not actually anything more important than a human, you know?”

{Human…?}

“Yes! I… no, I guess I am different now.” With more strength regained, Adris pats his chest, then reaches up and pats Still’s thigh. “Lycia called me a [Penumbra], saying I was ‘a human that’s gone looking in places he shouldn’t have been’, which is surprisingly accurate…”

(That investiture was my fault. Everything split from “normal” after that.)

“But I’m still ‘Xin’el’ (HUMAN)! I ain’t some monster to be afraid of, at least not by you, given how strong you are!”

{Huh…?}

The miasmic cloud around them dissipates in a moment, revealing the hollow clearly.

“AROOOO!”

A demonic hound snaps its fire bonds, then rushes at…!

“Sh-Shit!”

Adris throws his hands up, but the hound runs past them to slurp up Still’s dropped blade.

When offered the chance, it begins to suck the poisonous sorcery off of its length by wrapping its hidden underside clear around it.

“Can you not kill that thing!?”

{N-Not yet.} Still glances between him and the dog-wearing-monster, an odd tilt given before she continues. {They’ll dry up at the end of the dream. I still got… some learnin’ to finish.}

“I get that… I guess your doppelganger was useful? But, I still need help with Falke! I need a partner that Serras could never really be, at least not with our… history. I need…”

Adris’ hand is grabbed up by Still’s own before he can touch her mask. Rather than squeezing in anger, she seems deep in thought.

{So… I’m needed? What do you need from a stabber like me, I gotta hear? The Craft? Quick feet and hands? My… willingness to do anythin’ it takes?}

“I need everything about you!”

She must be rolling her eyes, because Still’s invisible sight scans the room before returning.

“You’ve gotten the truth from me, more than the others. You can handle it, it doesn’t ruin our goals. Plus, I am not myself without someone of your caliber to keep me ‘honest’.”

{Charmin’. I’m gonna keep you honest…?}

Still drops Adris’ head to the hollow floor gently, before dusting her lap and standing up. He has a moment of staring up her dress into the darkness beneath before she’s to the slurping dog.

“AROOOO!? WAAAF?!”

A quick punt launches the misbegotten creature at the giant, who slams a fist around the creature to capture it.

Still hefts her blade up, twirling it once with a crisp cut to launch the smoking slobber off.

(I… did I get through to her?)

Allowing so much weakness out at once, Adris wonders if it’s accomplished the opposite of his goal.

Without comprehending completely why given her relationship-long incredulity, Still has figured him some greater entity like Rantil once thought, too.

(Would that have been better, to not ruin that illusion?)

“Still… I will deliver you to her.”

{Her?}

“That Golden Bitch that put this… thing inside my heart that just ‘saved’ me! Revenge has many occasions! I’ve got my motivations, despite you thinking otherwise.”

{… Go on?}

Still turns back, folding and stowing her blade with a snap of her arm so quick that Adris can’t comprehend where it goes even now. It’s like it just vanishes up her doublet’s sleeve.

“I’m a human, it’s true, but that doesn’t make us unequal because you’re undead. If anything, equality is what I want between us, even between myself and the rest!”

A step forward and one last heartfelt appeal, all of the bad feelings be damned, Adris has to reach Still with this truth.

“Can I be with you… something more than just a clever asshole that you rely on only some of the time? If there’s misunderstandings, why can’t we just clear them up if they’re impediments to our goals, like…”

The next words have to carry his true feelings, or he knows they’ll never reach.

“… real partners would?”

(Like I always should’ve with Serras, but never did, always complacent and arrogant… unwilling to give even a single bit!)

Before his ascension, this position of weakness is one he’d never willingly enter into.

Before Zennia, the option of identifying all his hidden tiles, of betraying where he hides them both on and off his person, would’ve been a sick joke he’d tell to someone before stabbing them.

(Change is the only absolute if you plan to become superior to what you are now! An ascended being wouldn’t be as juvenile as I am when change comes!)

{Ahhh, so you were just a lame ass human the whole time!?}

“L-L-Lame!?”

(What?)

Like a precocious brat, Still rapid fire throws gestures at him while hopping merrily.

{I bet you just fuckin’ found that cross, didn’t yah!?}

“… Discovered! In… an incredibly dangerous place! Spoils of war, all mine… ah… and… Serras’…”

{Lame.}

Adris instinctively grasps for anything nearby to hurl at her.

(IS SHE MOCKING ME!?)

Face on fire, Adris gets up and leans aggressively, ready to chase her.

{All human, all the time, nothin’ more, a uselessly complicated guy with a bit of a badboy streak, huh!? That’s all you ever were, the whole time!?}

“The fuck does that even mean!? You’re assuming a little much about how much mojo I have up my sleeves! Badboy? I’m wanted in every major city on Xin! Compared to you, I still have plenty of—!”

A dangerous taint flows into Still when she contorts up for a moment. This predatory rush to her feels just like the sadism that fuels her ambushes, like a heartless animal just discovered Adris is made of meat.

(Calm… calm down!)

Blue becomes a blur when she stoops forward, Still’s legs kicking out faster than human reflexes can respond to.

Adris’ enhanced ones are still insufficient, leaving his front leg pointlessly raised when Still’s hands grip his throat and cup his crotch like they’re weighing a treasure. It throws off his whole balance.

(That’s… kinda fast…)

When Adris freezes in compliance of his caught status, Still raises her head to run the brim up his face. When hers is shown, a cheshire grin is painted.

“Do you… khk, feel something… you want…?”

Slowly, she removes her grip on his throat to make sensual gestures.

{You’ll never be quicker than me. Not with pretty furry boots, not with enough training, never, ever.}

“So… so I see.”

{Remember that, sweet thing, keep it reaaaaal close to you, and I might just choose to sleep on you one night.}

“… Looking… forward to it.”

{And… remember this.}

“Ahh!?”

Getting real close and pushing her delectable cushions into him, Still strokes his cock before gripping firmly on the whole package.

{The next time you stab me with any spear other than this one, I’ll lop both their heads off… get my point?}

“Ah… yeah, sharper than Kin’yi-shanto’s Skyspire!”

{Huh?}

Still seems amused by his response, because she lingers long enough to hug him tightly to her.

Whatever warmth he’s regained from her medicinal care seems to be equally shared by her greedy embrace.

“… I—!”

Before he can speak further, her mask is off.

Wine-colored eyes flash at him, soft with lust and hard with intent. Her plush lips purse before she swoops in for the kill.

Adris has never once had to tilt back to be kissed like this, an arm around his back instead of his around hers. Still slurps at his tongue, demanding his surrender to the dance she leads.

Ice cold, hers makes his mouth lukewarm before withdrawing.

(… She’s… always… trying to get one over on me, and I keep letting her…)

Forced to bask in Still’s satisfied smile, with that heart-shaped face of hers drunk on her plunder, Adris’ baking brain speaks the wisecrack he’s been dying to let loose.

“Huh… of course I can’t be quicker than you, Still.”

{Hmm?}

“… If I was any quicker, I wouldn’t last long enough to enjoy it with you thirsty and grinding on top of me.”

{Little horny bastard.}

“Your little horny bastard.”

Still pushes him from her, oh-so very lightly, and then struts back to her work as if nothing happened.

(Haha! She wants me, doesn’t she!? She’s just dying to ride me again.)

When she reaches her pack, she rummages through it before seemingly and slowly withdrawing a golden sewing needle from hidden depths.

{Take a gander at this while you explain your punch out with Falke.}

Still tosses it to him, with Adris ripping it from the air to study the interesting tool inches from his eyes.

— AUTHORITY OF ETERNAL JOINING —

(What is brought together by this can never truly be separated!? Just… just what sort of immoral creature makes shit like…!?)

{[Partingways] are the shears, [Joiningways] is the needle. Made by an… immortal hag of immeasurable reach over the world, she existed in the Second Age.}

“O-Oh… really? And… now?”

{Happily, she ended her life then, too. Means I can keep souvenirs without being turned into soup~.}

(She’s sharing information? About something close to her…?)

“What a choice for names. It’s like she thought she could usurp fate itself by making these?”

{Absolutely correct, high marks.}

Still “laughs” at his assertion before passing the tome, too. Paradoxically waterlogged in pages and bone-dry in cover, the words written to explain how the shears work are unforgettably vile.

{Take a look at both entries. Consider what you read. Then…}

Timidly, Still’s hand takes his by the wrist. His hand comes closer to her, stretching open at the last moment to close onto something soft even through her thick protective doublet.

{Let’s exchange opinions and… favors like equals~. I’ll make sure you feel well enough to speak plainly…}

(Oh? Oh!?)

(Something about this… and Still’s sudden care seems reaaaaaally unstable, like a bridge of tiles about to drop… but…)

A detailed examination of the creation theorems of these tools in Still’s company leaves Adris more full of doubts than certainties.

The fact that he’s expected to keep one hand to his work and the other exploring “wild frontiers” heightens his concentration. After Adris’ gaze lingered on her bosom, she unbuttoned the front to snare him within and press solely against the mesh underneath.

It takes all of his care not to rip it.

(If she wants to play nice, I’ll just ride this high until it goes low!)

While Still lewdly squeezes his trapped hand between her rolling tits, Adris reads with less than thirty seconds given to almost black pages.

“I understand why it won’t work for you.”

{Fast on uptake.}

“No, it’s just… the writer is…”

(It’s impossible not to understand, and understanding is the worst thing!)

“Her evil is plain as day, and also her insanity. Just listen to this… telling bit:

‘By accounting for all friends, associates, lovers, and bonds, she who sews the patchwork quilt in place of their pudgy fingers is also the genius that dictates the final design, all without need to alert them to any disappointment overt.’

… By the stars, if I had discovered this… grimoire, I’d have burned it and then hunted the author down, killed ‘em, and chopped ‘em into pieces to bury in a deep, dark hole.”

(Alchemaster be damned, I gotta rank this psychopath almost as high!)

Still’s body jumps when he speaks ill of the writer, but then settles.

“This psychotic bitch really thought she could control people, a world full of them, from birth to death, and even beyond!”

(Even the ascended didn’t interfere this constantly, this… obsessively!)

{… She could control you… you know?} Equal parts mirth and offense, Still’s signs are also prickly. {Probably after death, too.}

(She… did Still care about this monster!? I met her!?)

It prompts Adris to respond like clockwork with his own lesson when perceiving Still’s tension.

“‘Never let a misstep, heeeh, leave you out cold from turning up the heat with an apology, heeee!’”

Still flinches when Adris changes his voice to sound as girlish as possible.

“Your… instructor wrote this tome, right?”

Still nods once, sending Adris into a fast laugh.

“Then that was the advice of mine! A total psychopath he was. Also ball-less, dickless, and… barely escaped me being who killed him!”

(That would’ve been a fine graduation!)

The intensity causes Still to lean away, because his voice is almost a roar by the end.

(Ah… Ah!)

“… Sorry, I’ve… never spoken much about Fatso to others. I learned a lot, not by choice…”

The sneak releases his hand from her bosom, quickly grabbing it with her own when he blinks.

Unsure what to do, she just holds it.

{And… I can’t reproduce these shears solely because I’m not ‘evil’?}

(Unpleasant topics should be passed up, is it?)

“No, the real problem is that [Partingways]… the sorcery seems to be based on the absolute belief that you have the right to deprive others of connections, for any reason at all. You’d have to have a god complex and a trail of bodies a mile long to duplicate them.”

{You already get the way sorcery works!?}

At Still’s rocking gestures, the straw doll starts swinging its arms wildly, a most insulting comment…

(“She should’ve turned his useless bits inside out and used him in—?”)

It “dies” again when Still kicks the shears further into its guts.

Squeezing her fists tight, Still then seamlessly seats herself with feminine grace.

{… Could you recreate it… since you seem… very…?}

(I’m not a mass murder—!

Ah…)

Still flinches once more when Adris’ expression changes without his permission, but he shakes once to right his smile.

“No, even I’m not that much of a bastard.” Still’s head tilt at that claim is infuriating, but Adris keeps composure with a smile. “But, a genius like you could change the rationale for how it functions, from ‘severing to deprive of connections’ to… I don’t know, anything you actually believe depriving from others is justifiable for?”

In deep thought for a moment, staring at Adris’ face as if he’s a shining sun, Still then jolts to turn back to her pot.

She picks through her reagents, then drops a nut and a fig leaf in.

{That’s… that’s good! That’s good, gooooood!} When the bluish-green liquid gains a fuzzy orange glow on top, she squeezes Adris’ hand hard before releasing it. {I’m in love~! Such a great idea… the needle I mesh with a bit, and it can be used for “good” very carefully, but the shears… oh, now I have options!}

Pleased with him, Still blows a kiss…

{Nice job, partner.}

… and then starts writing down her own “theorem”.

(It’s strange how sorcery is so much about “intent” in comparison to other magic? I don’t understand their illogical bush mysticism.)

“Glad to help! Now, partner, about Neesiette!”

{It’s an excellent plan, as all of your plans are, so go have fun getting it done.}

“You’re not gonna jump in?”

Still points at the straw doll, which Adris notes has much less greenish goo coating it than when he’d first entered.

{One last chance to steal her secrets, you see? I’ll never have this tome again, nor the gallery of idiots who understood her most wicked works.}

At the end, Still’s gestures change intensity and mood, a sure sign that she’s shifted thoughts.

{… I ain’t backin’ outta this one, Adris.}

“More important than Neesiette this is?”

{No, never, and don’t think not jumpin’ in means he ain’t gonna pay up.} Still leans forward, opening her legs on the stool as she does. {But… you can save her just fine. If it wasn’t your plan, I’d just activate the poison and bring it all down. But… since it’s yours, I don’t need it.}

(Did… did she just say… that she…!?)

“Consider my trap sprung and Falke defeated, my reclusive, ambitious lady.”

The bravado of a false god is easy to reclaim when Still is the one believing in it. With his hand over his heart, Adris bows.

{So manly~. Were you only here to pick me up? Need something else~?}

“Yes, actually. The miasma… what gathers here, it’s by my design but… not according to my understanding at all times. Something essential has lured me to you, and I think it has to do with this crypt’s inhabitants if you’re sitting out.”

Musing for a moment, Still acts far less surprised by his claim than he’d consider normal. She finally uncovers her mouth, revealing a knowing smirk.

“… You know what it is.”

{A bit? Clairvoyance works through the [Veritas]… ah, the poison, but I’ve had difficulty locating you. I’ve sporadically seen you at Falke’s luncheon, then with a small bird-tufted female pawn and Kol, and then with the ghoul, but only at strange intervals between and after?}

(She doesn’t know about Authentic Fiction? It can hide me even from witchcraft?)

{Are you using some… new disguise Talent? No, your spirit feels different, now that I think about it?}

Before her dangerous curiosity can stab him, Adris tufts up his own hair as an example.

“Do you know something about the her, Miss Birdlike? She’s coincidentally the key to my plan. Somehow, she has the ability to alter this manse itself and obeys my orders implicitly.”

{The fuck? How!? Are you overwriting their—!?}

“I didn’t…! Well, I did do something, but not like you probably think. I don’t have time to explain now, so wait on a full one.”

Still fumes while crossing her legs, looking him up and down before shrugging.

{Then… if it’s about that pawn, you’ll want to check over here. It might explain a lot, might not. Depends on how smart you really are, I guess~?}

Patting his hand, Still then struts past the tin giant on guard for her. Only for this one does she bother to pat its bleeding plates, earning a deep grunt that rumbles out of it.

Past it and behind, Still throws up a clear ball that sprouts a cold blue fire inside and hovers.

Adris gets up, approaching at a quick clip before the weight of the air drags on him. The miasma that ceased to assail them thickens as he walks toward a covered casket and portrait.

(This is… this is a change in the…?)

An alteration of this “tale of poetic revenge” is near, the cusp of revelation almost like chains as Adris rudely brushes past Still to yank at the portrait’s cover.

Desperate to end the torment of this wait!

{Explain anythin’, shovin’ shrimp?}

Mildly peeved, Still joins him to inspect the three figures on this portrait where others contained only one.

Larger, too, this portrait is younger.

Instinctively it becomes apparent that this casket was the last to be interred in this crypt. Its roots will accept no other, for the portrait speaks of “the Last and Greatest”.

(It makes sense… but it doesn’t. None of it makes sense… but, it’s all coming true, revealing…!?)

What’s revealed causes Adris to suddenly want to run.

Like so many times before when “fate” seems to become dictated for him, this time is worse than all others because it isn’t fate that dictates, but…

(Some Talent, some part of me I can’t begin to comprehend, sent me to discover this from the very start!)

“I… I have to bring her here…”

{Who? Hey!? What’s come over you!?}

“Fehr… the servant girl… pawn… she has to see this…”

— PRECIPICE OF THE CLIMAX —

— When revealed, all will irrevocably transpire to the conclusion. —

(And when she’s here… it will.)

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Chapter 126         Table of Contents          Chapter 128