Take Up the Cross – Chapter 97: Art and the Beholders

Chaotic fires are left behind with ample haste; but, the penetrating waters impacting on the closing door leave no chance to take by surprise the occupants of the next jaunt across the villa.

“‘Ungrateful’ birds! Kol’s work brightened up their ugly trees— Nngh!?” Moisture soaks her helmet when deflecting off the door’s edge, causing the small terror to grunt and push harder to slam the entryway shut. “The colors spread nicely! Kol’s first ‘picture’ was good!”

Kol’s slapping hands as she clears off grime merely punctuate the growing threat, for Still’s position is past the narrow entry hall and at the pillars ahead, one hand stroking the thick support as she and Adris quietly observe enemies that both are sure are aware of them.

(They’re too proactive. Too independent. If this were the Castillo gardens, that would be fine, for they’ve already conquered them…)

But within an unnatural, ever-transforming villa that beggars the capabilities of the evil mansion it stands adjacent to, all of the finely tuned preparations Adris made for their conquest are useless.

No information known to him explains this room or its owners, both sorely needed by him in order to lead his subordinates to victory.

From opening voids in the side walls, two running figures charge out into the high-vaulted room built of sparkling, white bricks laid in a Flemish bond.

With stained glass windows high above shining down violet and red light upon the floor such that the charging bodies appear to pick up nightmarish speed while passing through them, the short walls to their sides prove as dangerous as the halls outside with how many hanging racks of armors and various weapons there are available.

Yet, these figures ignore such tools, only seeking the wall opposite them.

Before the figures can reach the center, a streaking shadow pounces upon one as the other witnesses three airborne envoys of death with its last sight.

A head flies off, leaving the runner still charging sans weight as a dashing slasher withdraws a dazzling saber. Pulling into a high guard on long, clawed legs of blue avian skin, he releases a saved breath while savoring the sound of the figure noisily tumbling over itself.

With only one yellow eye showing under a blue turbaned cowl, the stunningly refined man, with feminine white paint applied over his face, lazily watches the other figure headed straight toward him sprout blue trees from its chest, before toppling over and skidding across the solid granite floor.

The saber wielder deftly hops the moving corpse, landing on one foot before spiraling into a bow.

His saber points downward at the floor, in the same direction as Adris.

(A sword user. Pointless flourish, but excellent control.)

So excellent that the plucked head of the corpse is left stuck on the end of the saber, saved from its flight through the air during this motion, finally allowed to plop down to the floor and free him to lift out of his regal, too-defenseless greeting.

Though a head should be a novelty to lose on Zennia, the owner of it is not likely to miss it.

Adris inspects the “corpse” splayed out on the floor, finding the strangeness of its open joints and thin body similar to Neesiette’s hidden constitution. Having no resemblance to a human outside of the shape, its rough existence fades into the floor as if sinking into a swamp.

{It’s only the two peacocks and the six harpies. These puppets have no “cores” and thus can’t challenge.}

Still signs quickly before interposing herself between him and danger.

“Peacocks!? No…”

A timid voice from behind catches one of Still’s gestures, crying out meekly, but with purpose.

“Peacockatrices! Don’t let them scratch you…!”

When two eyes widen in appreciation of the emerald elf screaming behind her comrades, this elf gulps loudly and then withdraws behind a pillar.

“How lovely this girl is, to recognize our worth. Would a better timing be possible for your faultless cut to impress her, capturing the light as it did?”

One voice pipes up, full of dainty, melodious seriousness that far outweighs the physical presence of the bowman that tiptoes forward.

“Yes, a lovely girl indeed to be so well informed. Certainly, my meager efforts could be redoubled to discover a path to your expertise, for I lack the surety of your swift arrows.”

Alluringly sliding to the side of the first speaker, the second sounds just the same while they inspect each other.

Which is easy to determine why when you take in their faces.

“Twins… is it? And not birds of the peacock that I recognize.”

Adris meets the new challenge head on, throwing himself into his role of impressing as he steps boldly into certain danger while striding past a flinching sneak.

{Stay away! Not again…}

When he speaks with his low, mysterious tone, the two taller demi-humans make an “Oh?” of exquisite interest at the same time, before lowering their weapons.

Silk suits under silver plate lack proper form for defending these gentlemen, leaving the silver spaciously covering their chests and one arm each as little more than jangling affectations of status. Fabric clinging tightly to their upper legs and arms is flexible enough, having a green sheen that leaves a similarly resolute impression like Adris’ lamellar armor.

(Protruding chins… long necks. Too handsome to be called compensating… Arms that aren’t totally avian?)

Clawed, but with opposable thumbs, these long blue hands of theirs field a saber and a bow in their respective grasps. As they put their shoulders side-by-side and take up an aloof pose with upturned hands questioning the kobold clomping toward them, Adris steps back a pace when their lizardlike tails raise up.

“Hm? Kol… feels like they’re not too weak?” The questioning tone she uses turns into an exasperated sigh as she slams down the end of her poleaxe. “Certainly, look weak…?”

(Appearances are deceiving, especially when incorporating monstrous traits.)

While their arms have vestigial feathers poking out decorously from their ruffled finery, the sinewy whips attached to their behinds are arrayed on the sides like a bird’s tailfeathers, bright blue with dark eye patterns. Three large feathers fluff about on the ends as they whip them, leaving Adris momentarily following their trajectory as if by instinct.

“‘A warning for you, then, little eared; for feathered eyes mimic fey or fel when neared’! The elves say that they can addle your mind with the light from them, Adris!”

A calling girl with a scholar’s knowledge slithers to hide behind another pillar, making her way closer with each new hiding spot.

(More mesmerizing tricks like Lycia’s?)

Adding to this display is the ostentatiousness of their attire, for their silk waist suits are of many colors according to each part, while the grace of the men is overly accentuated by tight waists that no man could obtain except through starvation.

(They… use corsets?)

While the bizarre femininity of these two sinks in, a shrieking outburst frays his nerves further.

“Did you hear him? ‘Birds’!? How dare he refer to the masters as such!”

“Cultivators of sword and bow, divine gifts of moving grace that weave through moonlight, and this kid concentrates on the physical appearance!?”

Spectators behind the two tack forward on similar feet, the blackness of their feathers well known to Adris.

While the men are refined, these Page Harpies who tag along to fawn over them with excited wings fluffing about are anything but, despite the jeweled headbands and bangles they wear that show them as much more noble than their sisters.

“Master Kaskin’s cut was much swifter than Nerik’s arrow! A full rotation in perfect timing! As befitting the perfect man~!”

“‘Perfect’!? Huh!? Step over here and say something like that. Master Nerik let fly three with one breath! What can your fop do!?”

Left separated from the other, the two groups of three women interrupt each other rather ominously and aggressively, even as the objects of their affections stay silent toward their disparaging comments.

“A fine display.”

“Agreed, excellent precision.”

Female seeks to fight, while the males only nod affirmatively at each other’s comments.

(I see. Too good to insult each other, so they have their harems do it for them? They’re harridans, but those bodies are much firmer.)

Though he’s not sure if Still has noticed it, these harpies are of a sturdier build, with their feminine curves and bosoms distracting from much more toned muscles. Strange, filigreed harnesses over their torsos and wings also confuse his understanding of tactics, though he can hardly claim to understand half of what is happening.

Something else about the females with silk-veil-covered faces sets Adris’ senses off, but he can’t make out what.

The feeling is of an unknown closeness permeating the air around them, an effect Adris can’t identify as yet no matter how potentially hazardous.

“Master Nerik could put one through Kaskin’s eye before the first puppet fell!”

“I’ll rip out your lying tongue, Seelie.”

“Come then, bow bitch! All you can do is get in people’s faces and annoy them, anyway~!”

Though Adris would like nothing more than to let the ill-composed creatures savage each other, a would-be knight who can’t read the scene hums to herself while leaning over to examine the floor, before tilting back and staring at the much-closer ceiling inside this room.

“More birds? Lame.”

Tramping forward, she stands proudly to Adris’ right side, prompting another to alight on the space to his left with a hop.

“Hmm, Kol likes this space, though…! What about useless Puddle?”

{Fuck off, plant food…!} Still’s gestures are curt, before she raises her short sword almost level to the named targets. Her hand waggles for a second longer, directed now at Adris. {… What is it with you and greeting enemies?}

(You learn a hilarious amount of information about the enemy simply by buying time to observe them.)

This is what Adris forces while keeping calm, but it seems he’s not the only one learning a great deal.

The one-eyed fops flick over Still and Kol’s bodies, marking out strength and weakness before they relax.

“… How strange, to think they made it this far?”

“Yes, wouldn’t they be sorely lacking to have made it past the servants?”

Taking their measure of the threat, the peacockatrice twins then eye Adris much more closely, concentrating with wide eyes on mask and cross.

(Dangerous! They intuit a lot.)

{Big words, birds.}

Still flips her sword once, catching it handily as her free hand flicks out abuse. {Though not as planned, those turkeys in the other room burned deliciously.}

“Oh? Delicious? Hmm… Didn’t smell delicious to Kol, though? Maybe if Puddle burned, would smell better? Kakaka!”

Still’s sword sparks off Kol’s neck guard, Kol’s turn quickly intercepting as the kobold anticipates the blow.

{Stick a blade up your diseased cunt!}

“OH!? Puddle… will get it next. Can call this work: ‘Burying the Dead’!”

(Get away!)

Adris is squeezed between two bodies, with a plump one on his backside avoiding a grabbing hand as a grappling steel titan becomes a wall for him to be ground down on.

“… Leave off with dissent! Our foe is before us! Introductions are in order…”

“Oh?”

(If they’ve waited this long, it’s because they want something like I’m offering!)

When Still sulkily turns back and curtly nods, and Kol puffs out her chest and belts out “I am Kol! Let me teach you who you should be afraid of”, Adris concentrates on not outwardly twitching in despair as the twins react.

Each performs an elegant bow with their hand dipping forward, mirroring each other as if in a dance.

Underneath the joined lights of the stained glass above, these men who Adris now understands as proud duelists give polite smiles before beginning introductions by pointing to the other peacock.

“This one’s illustrious name is Kaskin, a name as vibrant as the spring breeze.”

“But this one’s noble nom de guerre (ASSUMED NAME) is Nerik, a sure sign of victory when it’s spoken beforehand.”

The slightest hint of dissatisfaction flickers across Nerik’s face alone, before the emotion passes from mind.

(Do they have dissent, too?)

“Hmm!? Are you going to test them, Master Kaskin?”

“To receive a lesson from Master Nerik is wonderful!”

Fighting ladies flap away from the area with a quick splash of ephemeral sea spray, leaving the two alone as they take up stances.

Kaskin of the Saber steps forward, while Nerik of the Bow drops back.

Not protecting the other, they merely allow an easy avenue as they position opposite Still and Kol.

“Oh? A duel? Kol, approves!”

{Win before approving, mongrel thief.}

(… I read this too easily. Something is wrong.)

Picking them out as duelists of pride now seems too obvious, making Adris second guess his plan to deal with them.

(If these two can beat them, then we’d avoid…)

His thoughts waver as he notices an absent detail.

While the flute music was active up until the end of their engagement with the Page Harpy homestead, within this chamber it has been absent.

(Has interest waned? Are these the owners of the villa? What is going on…?)

A thousand questions bring no further wisdom, for Adris feels quite squeezed by his lack of knowledge.

To charge ahead without it in order to rescue Neesiette was his emotional wish, not his intellectual understanding of the best course of action. Out of the corner of his eye, he finds Still agitatedly tapping her blade.

The source of his existential need to act with rapidity was not born solely of himself.

(But if we reach a threat we can’t face without Neesiette, then she’s just as lost.)

{Oh, so they want to pretend to be gentlemen? Fine, fine.}

Still’s hand dismissively twirls, leaving her flame-bladed sword wobbling as she struts forward on her bare feet.

{These overdressed, painted-up lady killers can’t be half as dangerous as her, so let’s mop these woman-hearted birdbrains up first before I tear into the mongrel’s ass.}

(No, Lycia is not a good indicator of how dangerous they are. That woman had different metrics!)

The target of the bragging blue angel raises his bow, leaving his free hand to begin to curl toward his open quiver with gray arrows stuck in it.

{Just do your thing, Adris, and leave the rest to the cleanup crew~!}

Such a statement from Still should only be a goad designed to antagonize the enemy; but, despite his hopes, Adris notes how confidently her hand sways when she shares her thoughts.

(Relying on me to even everything is improper at its core! I can’t solve all your problems with a wave of my cross!)

Dangers are ringing in his ears with statements from someone self-assured and unusually incautious like Still.

Something is actively going wrong, but Adris cannot intrude on how it develops. Still’s intense guise of feigned indifference as she taunts with fluid body gestures is born of a fear for a close friend, one locked away behind these two’s defense, and personal indignation at Kol’s latest affront.

(If I oppose her now, I only further destabilize her while inheriting that anger.)

“Proud words from a proud girl. Please, share with me your source of such pride, my wonderful intruder.”

A slight smile on Nerik’s face matches the gentle one painted onto Still’s mask, though Adris knows by how her hidden sight is tightening that she’s about to kick off regardless of pleasantries.

“Ah? Kol, only gets one? Haaaah…”

Contrary to Still’s intentional psychological stab at the enemy, the bravest girl in the world levies an unhappy grunt as she creaks forward. Rolling her shoulders before whipping around her poleaxe with inhuman strength and composure, her tired display earns a whistle of appreciation from the saber-wielder who drops into a low stance.

“If nothing else, you are strong.”

Quite lithe and hardly rippling with muscle, Kaskin reads more to Adris as an outfighter when his bent knees bounce ever so unnoticeably to less tactically inclined warriors.

“But, do you find that strength is beauty?”

At this question which would normally earn swift dismissal, the lazy knight abruptly stops to ponder it with uncommon seriousness.

“Hmm…? Before meeting Boss… Kol would’ve said ‘yes’?”

Slapping her chestplate, Kol brings the man’s eye to her tabard.

Mercifully intact after the blazing death of the harpies, a black cross is still proudly worn.

“But, now, Kol understands: there’s power in more than strength of muscle!”

Her thick voice full of confidence gains its own panache that matches Kaskin’s own, filling the room with charisma she rarely demonstrates.

(… Really?)

Even Still flinches at this statement, losing her razor-sharp concentration as everyone pays heed to the kobold.

“Oho? Then…?”

“Kol, has come to understand after tasting it on her own, with her own action this time!”

Kol’s hand lifts to the heavens, offering succor to the stained glass above.

“‘Passion’! ‘Ambition’! ‘Achievement’! Feelings these are, and ones Kol always felt, but never understood! After that night against that old lady, Kol really gets it, what it means to ‘feel’ things for real!”

Like on that night, something overtakes Kol’s thoughts.

A darkness born during that battle left certain ideas behind when it left, giving a new vibrancy to a girl that always seems to catch Adris’ eye.

“Kol says, it means ‘art’!”

When she speaks of feelings so boldly and proudly before a foe…

(I don’t know what to make of you, but you sound appealing!)

“… Do you claim to understand something of yourself through your study of the beauty of art, then?”

After her words, the self-absorbed man gains a twinkle in his eye. A vibrancy she exudes invigorates him, leaving his voice cautious, but enraptured.

“Hmmm… Kol, cannot say that she studies? After all, Moon says that Kol is bad with studying…”

Rather than studying, hands which grip the shaft of a poleaxe so harshly that it should crack grant it a terrifying existence that rises with the heat wafting from her small body.

Eyes shine pink as the festive mood overtakes her, leaving her tense with an ecstasy waiting to unshackle.

“But fighting and winning, Kol is a student of! When Kol torched birds’ big tree a little while ago…”

Like a bestial predator she dips forward, becoming a living pyre consuming around her as that rich voice she owns exults a discovery.

“Kol thought, ‘Oh, so that’s what it needs to feel like! Not enough to just win! If you want them to remember the pain of challenging you…!’”

Darkness floods out before Adris can raise the cross himself, leaving it filling the room as his arm raises up with its force.

With its arrival, the taunts and questions which tear through the illusion of certainty join in with a chorus.

(“Will… you make it this time”!?)

Like always, the void that his sight becomes flows back to the figures which shine.

Black is his friend, while purple is his foe.

At the center of smaller storms of the energies from beyond they glow, before proud purple shatters and shining black swells.

“‘Real, good art is breaking what the enemy loves the most, so that they fear you the most!’

BLOOD AND STEEL!”

Kol lunges forward, stabbing straight toward the now grimacing birdman’s face. Her hungry heat haze rushes ahead of her strike, enveloping him to disallow escape. Locked within her aura, the saberman’s body subconsciously leans forward to force him into conflict.

A truly depraved sneak wastes no more time on words, either, simply whipping her free arm around like it has no bones within it in order to take advantage of the distraction.

With a line of dirks flung out and seeking to cut off angles of avoidance, she springs forth to follow them like a living missile.

(They’ve got them this easily!?)

A terribly short distance between the attackers leaves little room to flee.

Though like a slug in comparison to most fighters, Kol is unstoppable in a forward charge.

The reach of her poleaxe comes into play when she activates its mechanism on the stab, shooting it forth to cancel a foot and a half of length in a moment.

“Inarticulate.”

A bored look on the man’s face seems out of place with how violent his surroundings are. Even as the environment burns with phantasmal flames, he just mildly steps off Kol’s axis while flowing steel streaks.

“UGH!?”

Sparks glint off of Kol’s shoulder when the untraceable blade is kept from aiming straight for the weaker mail between plates at the back of her neck.

“MINE!”

A last minute, instinctive turn leaves it scraping off with chips of black armor flying, leaving Kol free to reach in with a grasping hand.

(… Ah, just like…)

Just like in a previous battle, Kol’s slowness is easily taken advantage of.

Her left hand grabs onto an arm, yanking at a fine cloth sleeve with a vacuum of air pulling with it.

“NGH!?”

Uselessly, with intention, this hand pulls back with the slick sleeve when it tears away. The violence of her grab unbalances her center, leaving her stumbling a step back.

The proffered arm is withdrawn with the trap sprung, allowing two hands to grip the saber. A calm, yellow eye narrows as he finds his mark, aiming the saber’s sharp point at Kol’s hips where the plate is currently shifting.

“GAH!”

Though indestructible normally, knees lowered now uncoil the energy directed from the earth through his limbs to the sword’s point, utilizing a master swordsman’s understanding of leverage and body mechanics to produce a far more devastating blow.

Even though it catches only briefly on her armor, his quick thrust wakes up the proud kobold, though not in time to respond before he fades back to the edge of her burning aura.

(He’s… precise. The worst for Kol.)

Brief thoughts on this go with a simultaneous struggle unraveling to his left.

Though the sudden line of dirks would menace the average warrior or at least distract them, the non-combatant Nerik immediately retreats with confidence. As he steps back, his bound bow made of gray material curves in front of him.

Lining up exactly with Still’s fan of blades, he sends them clattering away with the fastest movements Adris has seen yet on Zennia. As though he grips a close-in weapon, this artistic swing is flipped back into a drawn bow in mere moments.

Unable to tell when he drew the arrow, Adris watches in horror as it’s loosed before Still can even close to stab him.

A hole is ripped through her steepled hat by the sharp death piercing it.

Out the other side it flies, angled so that Adris must drop fast to avoid suffering the same fate as it whizzes by.

(How!?)

Eliminating the boundaries of physics is how Still dodges, contorting her head so that it lays behind her as her entire upper torso follows in mid-run. Impossible acrobatics ensue, for two more arrows are loosed at the same time as the first passing by.

Her side shifts inches to the left while in mid-air, with only the dueling jacket ripping as the arrow nicks it.

The third arrow is not so easily juked, shooting straight for her raised right foot that’s uselessly kicking toward it.

With a sound like steel striking steel, the arrow snaps and bounces away.

Though it should’ve cleared the soft flesh of Still’s sole to lodge into bone, she’s instead rocked back by the concussion of contact, though without any apparent harm.

(No, she’s staggered!)

Her leg wobbles for a moment, leaving her to recover her balance.

Taking advantage of the pause, the man she pursued at a pace far faster than he could beat gains fifteen feet and knocks an arrow once more.

(This was only a test.)

Within less than a minute, the difference in skill is readily apparent to not only Adris, but also to the enemy.

(Just like me, they were…)

“Fine instincts, young girl. Though you are talentless and untrained with your weapon, you show great battle cunning.”

A twirl of his saber goes along with his compliments, before Kaskin takes up an effete pose once more.

Kol’s aura flickers out with her concentration being broken so quickly, but she shortly levels her poleaxe for a swing that doesn’t follow.

“Nah!? What… what did…?”

Not only this one is shocked.

A blue angel makes space and takes up next to a pillar, eying her target with naked uncertainty.

“Quite an interesting body you have. While lacking nothing for appeal, you also understand how to subvert the attention of the enemy with its great agility.”

Still’s opponent slowly moves back to the room’s center, setting him nearer to Kol than her.

Upon seeing the situation devolving, Still abandons her protection to run forward on swift feet, launching another dirk at his face as she joins at Kol’s flank.

This dark blade comes within feet of it, before its momentum is stolen.

“An agile body chooses such dark colors, even for the blade?”

Holding it up to inspect, Nerik doesn’t comment on how his blur of a clawed hand picked it out of mid flight like Adris might pluck a flower to give to Ave.

“… P-P-Peacockatrices are notoriously swift in action, if not fleet of foot!”

{Now you say that!?}

Ave blanches at Still’s counter signs, finally making her way to Adris’ side with a green whip at the ready.

Nerik remains locked within range of Kol’s aura, waving impishly toward his twin to join him.

“This one’s passion doesn’t match mine, for her art is too brusque and up front.”

“Nnn!? Bird, saying that you know better!?”

Ignoring the situation, Kol charges once more, slamming her poleaxe’s hammer into the ground with a clumsy miss.

“Hah, forcing me to twirl so that you can see me from every angle…?”

The lazy peacock keeps his distance unchanged, but his eyes shift when Still’s hand twitches.

Smoke explodes into the room, booming with a thunder as the wave of it blows straight into Nerik’s sight line.

“Oh!? Hack!?”

While the bowman cries out before coughing, he can do seemingly nothing as his opponent leaps into the air with catlike grace.

A grim smile is painted on a white mask, with the body wearing it twisting as she jumps into the heat haze imprisoning an alternate target.

With his options limited, the weakest becomes fodder for the not-so-picky huntress.

“… Superb.”

Nerik lowers his guard, though, refusing to meet her diving short sword. He just catches the sky dancing Still in his eye as she falls.

“DODGE, PUDDLE!”

{!?!?}

A bizarre order from a mortal enemy sends Still contorting in mid air.

Somehow her lower body provides leverage as the rest fluidly flexes, sending her into a strange spiral as whistling sounds scream out.

Two blurs pass by her, but the third leaves Still writhing on the way out when she lands ungainly on one foot.

A burst of blackish-red, mistlike Vigor out the back of her right thigh evaporates while trailing the arrow. Clamping onto the gaping wound in her mesh, Still falls onto her back and rolls like a wheel just before a streak can take her neck.

“HAAAAAAAAAH!”

The shining saber pulls away as Kaskin dances back to avoid a lunging spike, followed by a wild swing with all of Kol’s strength as the kobold becomes a barrier to pursuit.

“‘Our path is through clear air, our breath the purest of all.’ [Cleansing Way].”

In the aftermath, the smoke filling the center swirls like a whirlpool into a single drop of moisture, revealing the bowman Nerik to hold it on the tip of his finger.

Three arrows are missing from his quiver, now lodged in the walls.

“Shared sight! What one sees, the other does, too!”

Adris cries out too late to stop an ambush, but his senses wicking over them detect a similarity which far exceeds mere physical reality.

“… Their… their inner worlds are intertwined! More than just sharing of sight, there’s more, much more!”

Just as with them, something about the maidservants who calmly watch the unfolding fight matches these two men.

Subtle streams of false pseudo-aura and the stuff of pure aura, darkness itself, resonates between bodies.

(Rather than eight people, it’s like four doubled!)

“This one is…”

“… an actual danger.”

Both men regard Adris with hands stroking their pointed chins, before they tilt their heads in a twirling manner.

(A signal!?)

Adris’ eyes dart around for the called-for action, and find one harpy extending her clawed foot to poke at the floor.

“… Get out of the center!”

His roar is heard, but…

“Can win!”

Kol steps forward instead, ramping up her spirit and flames as she closes the distance.

Still makes no motions, just clutching her shaking leg as she struggles to keep standing.

“Then win, noble invader.”

“But do so with flair!”

Both cheer merrily, their voices carefree and dramatic as they invite Still and Kol with open hands.

White bricks fall apart when the walls crumble.

Everything solid becomes a chaotic mass, squirming and undulating as the noises of its change assault the mind.

Adris watches the room shift at the speed of shining light as he’s pushed toward the high ceiling with its stained glass.

“ADRIS! The material was commanded to…!”

(Change into a new place!)

Gray smoke erupts all around them, obscuring his sight while the gurgling of the room finally begins to ebb.

Adris and Ave clutch each other to keep from being separated, facing the unknown change when the roars around them start.

“ACTION!”

“Finally, let the fight begin!”

“Wreck them and give us a show! Fuck them good!”

Calls for blood are spoken in many tongues and tones, joined with by the stamping of feet on sculpted steps.

Hundreds of gray puppets fill the stands, blankly witnessing the oncoming struggle.

Two teammates look on with blank horror at the ancient stadium they now stand in the raised seating of.

Spectators without desire, the true show spoken of is beginning below.

At the bottom of this small coliseum are the four combatants chosen to take part.

Statues of armored warriors, made in the style of insectoid carapaces serving as their protection against all the world, ring the arena.

They allow no other entry except by air, thus proving a single, lingering burden for Adris’ invasion plans.

“Adris… they’re going to…!”

“Force a fight on their terms!”

Atop the statues rest the six harpies, eagerly eying the racks of weapons and armors which have shifted to the statues’ legs.

(This wasn’t a duel! It never was! It was an observation and their trap.)

“Hahh, we have much work to do as yet, so let’s not prove me inelegant by battering through a blackened cage, Nerik.”

“Likewise, there be no beauty in constant failures to strike the apple, so the dancing bluebird with no wings should go to another, Kaskin.”

The twins cross paths, then walk away from each other.

Rather than continue the festivities with the same partner, they search for a new woman.

“Huh!? Kol, agreed to fight shitty saber flicker! Not bow!”

{Shut up, inbred wolf! This isn’t a duel!}

“Nah!? They said, it was a duel!”

Left out in the open stage of the tiled arena, nowhere remains to hide from view.

The spectators above, humanoid puppets that stomp and cheer, mark it as not a duel, but…

““““““Kyahahahaha!””””””

Noisy maids take flight, soaring down in a circular spiral of ocean spray to land on perches before the racks of fighting tools.

Two spread their wings, allowing heavy, segmented plates that move on their own to wrap around and lock onto their harnesses. Helmets and segmented chest pieces clamp around them before they hop off to strut forward.

Two more grab up heavy maces with their taloned feet, which lace around their legs and give them the potential to wreck a man with a single swing. Adding to the danger, Adris feels invisible tethers of pseudo aura drawing the maces to their feet.

(They’re going to fight as two forces!)

When they take flight, they’re joined by the last with scintillating scepters and gilded tomes, who pronounce repetitions of musical tones and archaic mystical words as the air around them shines blue.

“… This? Not a duel, indeed! For when was it ever claimed to be one?”

“Do you serve terms of honorable combat to home invaders? Do not thieves deserve execution?”

The stars of this combat become constellations when four of the Page Harpies hurriedly join at their sides.

Kaskin points his saber with the flying mace harpies at his back, swimming behind him as he starts forward.

Nerik raises his bow as the armored harridans interpose between him and danger, creating a pocket of eternal safety for him to excel in.

“Cheap! SHITTY BIRDS! This, isn’t art, to fight like trash!”

{It… doesn’t matter if they’re trash… or not…}

Still retreats back, unsure of what to do as her sword wavers between targets.

Like her, the kobold’s wolf head helm turning from enemy to enemy begins to shake with her growling increasing.

“Ave, we have to get down there.”

“How!? I can’t… I can’t call a wind to carry us there! … At least not in one piece…”

The two weave through the noisy, thronging crowd, searching for steps that aren’t guaranteed to even exist.

“… The moment they were in the center, alone, was…!”

A quick chop and turn, and Kaskin remains pleased with his saber’s balance.

“Though that boy’s extravagant splash of black dulled the magic of Master Kestner’s blade, I suppose swift arrows prove they can still cause harm?”

“Indeed.”

Claws drag the floor as the bird legion approaches, leaving Kol and Still outnumbered, as well as…

(This is the difference between skill and raw power! The cross can claim the later as victim, but never the first! Because…!)

“Though it’s unfair, it’s meant to be. For…”

“… those who intrude on an old gentleman’s time with a beautiful female warrant no fairness, only pain.”

Gussied up peacocks hiss out their true thoughts with crippling sneers, before returning to their all-smiling, genteel selves.

Of all the things that Adris has ever accepted in his life as worthwhile, “hard work and results earned” are two of the highest of his values.

A black cross, despite being touched by the Beyond and seemingly able to grant desires, can never invalidate anything he accepts.

“Puddle! Fight, not lose!”

{Shut up and survive, you idiot!}

Two bickering girls already fracture, leaving harpies to laugh at them.

“Survive!? Nobody is gonna harm you…”

“Unfortunately, you two will get to taste perfect pleasure like we have.”

“Which one will cry, though?”

“I wager the kobold!”

Saber flicks, drawing a gentle arc as feet kick off to pursue a limber sneak who begins flinging sharp knives in haste.

“Experience…”

A bow knocks a glinting arrow, aiming down an armored, unmoving recusant before it’s released with a twang.

“… true art!”

Characters:

Glossary:

Chapter 96         Table of Contents          Chapter 98