M.D.Syl
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Chapter 101 colorless
🕑 Added 2023-07-29 17:25:35 +0000 UTCAuthor notes:
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Chapter 101 Hostage Situation.
Saving lives requires payment.
Time, money, honor, and sometimes another life.
But what you buy in return is a whole life!
A person, filled with hopes, dreams, thoughts, and feelings!
Every life matters!
Brigit, the Keeper of Life.
“Husband!” A short raven-haired woman, wearing a revealing sky-blue dress, pushes her way between the soldiers in blue.
“Ah wife, don’t get jealous now. When I said nail I meant for victory, not for love. You can watch if you want,” Luard replies, his hand tracing the scar on my cheek. “Look at her face, I did that! I will do it to her body too.” He laughs excitingly like a madman.
“Oh, I know silly, I’m not jealous!~” she replies in a singsongy voice as she gets closer. She gives him a bright smile that reaches her blue eyes. “Oh husband. I’m so proud of you! You won just like you promised. I just can’t help it, I need to feel you again. Snake me! Here and now!”
“In front of all the soldiers?” Luard asks, dumbfounded.
The woman hesitates and shifts, her arms pushes her breasts inwardly, emphasizing her deep cleavage. “Oh you’re right,” she scoffs. “Forgot about the soldiers, of course. At least let me give you a victory kiss!”
Luard leaves me be, and hugs the crazy woman, kissing her passionately.
*Clack*
The familiar click startles me, but this iron collar locks around Luard’s neck.
“What is the…” He doesn’t finish the sentence, an arrow pins his leg to the ground. A group of soldiers in red charge into Janara's soldiers, joining the melee. An opening is created around the city gates. “Niiighhh!” A massive black horse charges through the opening into the group of soldiers in blue that's besides us. Jerro is seated on the horse’s back, he looks so small in comparison to the rest of the horse. The horse’ eyes glow green, he bites, kicks and whips around with a long whip-like tail. Is that Loyal?!
The few soldiers in blue who manage to gather their wits do their best to attack my horse, but they find that their weapons get stuck to the horse’s skin, and they lose their weapons with the horse’s charge. Some of the soldiers’ limbs get stuck to the horse’s flank, and they get dragged and flapped around by Loyal as he charges forward. None of them can reach Jerro on the nearly three meters tall horseback, and the smarter soldiers simply run out of the path.
“NOOOOO!!!” Luard tries to punch his woman. She dodges him with ease, flowing around him as if she’s made of liquid rather than flesh. An arrow sprouts from Luard’s hand, then from his other leg, pinning him to the ground.
The woman takes a key from Luard’s belt, and pats his cheek with a mad grin. He howls in pain, kneeling on the ground. She leaves him pinned and opens the collar around my neck. “Good to see you again, Mistress. I’m here to report the success of my mission,” she says with a curtsy and gestures at mad King behind her. Sharla…
I resist urge to touch my numb mutiliated face. “Thank you, Sharla, you scared me. Did you have to wait until he started punching me?”
She circles the kneeling King, her pitched giggles sound over his loud bellowing screams of denial. She holds his cheeks from behind and tugs his head backward. "I'll kill you, you rotten harpy! You'll regret betraying the King! You'll..." She covers his mouth to shut him up. He obviously bites her hand hard, but there isn’t a hint of blood.
Sharla grins at me, twisting her head at angle that would be extremely straining for a human, almost like an owl. “Actually, yes, I had to. Luard is a big scaredy boggart, aren’t you my love?” She plants a kiss on his cheek from behind. “Aren’t you a big scaredy boggart? Yes you are! Yes you are!” She talks to him as if she’s speaking to a child, or a pet.
His face twists with hatred or pain when she pats his head from above. “Just you wait, you little…” Sharla drives her hand into his mouth again, shutting him up mid-sentence. He attempts to bite her hand. This time I focus on it and note that her hand just morphs in an odd way with his teeth.
“Only when he was assured of his victory did he lower his defenses,” Sharla continues, an apologetic smile on her face. “He’ll need taming, of course.”
“Or you just enjoyed saving the day for once.”
She smirks and cocks her head. “That too.”
“How did you manage that? He said he caught you. And Jerro’s letter said you were wounded?”
“Oh?” She looks at me with confusion. “Oh, that! Yeah, he did. He’s not a typical man, way too paranoid, can’t let go even in his sleep. He caught me alright, but you know… it’s best to double-check when you try and kill a shifter, we’re very good at faking our deaths. And dear?” She circles the fallen king and looks him in the eyes, her hand still stuck in his mouth. “Remember~ Cold Iron doesn’t eliminate the magic of the fae, it only work on you, stupid mortal mages.” She slaps his cheek lightly, in an almost endearing way.
She giggles, tugs her hand out of his mouth, and turns to me, twirling on a single leg. Her body shifts to that of a young teenaged girl, her voice raises into a very high girly pitch. “Then, our big scaredy boggart arrived at a new city, where he met a young girl named Leafa, and her big brother Berthold. They instantly fell in love! They were so happy together!” She squeals with her hands on her heart. “The brother was more than happy to wed his virgin sister to a powerful sorcerer such as the big scaredy boggart. Isn’t that right my love?” She shifts back to the raven haired woman form, a vicious grin etched on her face.
Lurad lets out a frustrated grunt.
Why is he still alive? “Why did Berthold not aim for this monster’s head? What’s the value of capturing him alive?”
Sharla shifts back into her original fae form dressed in her autumn leaves dress, and bows deeply. “The value is to you, Mistress. Luard is a half Marrid, a water fae. You can drain his soul slowly, slightly similar to the way you would drain me. He could aid in your advancement.”
“So Jerro didn’t say to keep him alive?”
“He did not.”
That’s all I need to know. I’d like to torture him, it’d feel good… but keeping someone alive to torture them is inviting them to flip the tables. Both Oshi and Janara tortured me just now, Luard did too… and Lezere did say that torturing a wolf is a bad idea… I will not make that mistake. I pick an axe from the ground. I’ll kill him just like how he killed Lezere… poetic justice.
“W-wait!” Luard gasps and shouts as I approach, “I-I can give you knowledge! I know many spells I-I…” This is for Lezere! I push him down to the ground, and place my knee on his chest. I land the axe on his healthy wrist with all of my strength. Metal meets bone and flesh with a sickening splash.
My strike meets much more resistance than I anticipate, and my attempt is with my single healthy hand. Needless to say, the blade doesn’t fully go through, and his hand hangs by a few strands of meat and skin.
The man scream from the top of his lungs, he twists violently under my knee, squirming in pain. He does his best to push me off, but his other hand is pierced by Berthold's arrow. “Please, I’m worth more alive! I have spells, a lot of spells. Spare me! Please!”
“I don’t care how many spells you can offer me, you’re too dangerous to live,” I say dryly. I savior his screams and bring the axe down on his left elbow. This is for everyone he ever tortured!
This time the axe goes fully through the bone, and the forearm detaches from his arm. He jerks around under me, trying to struggle without hands. He gasps, tears fall down on his tanned temples and turn into odd milky pearls. His eyes flicker and flash blue a few times, and his breath releases something that looks like odd vapors, but there aren't too many of them.
Let's end this. “And Lezere would say it’s foolish to torture you… she’d call me a foolish chief if I did.” I chuckle mirthlessly. Wherever you are Lezere… I hope you’re satisfied with this… I bring the axe down on his throat.” This is for myself and everything you did to me. The blade pierces his flesh, but I do not manage to cut his head cleanly. His head hangs on by his spine. He gurgles, choking. I can’t stop looking into his pleading blue eyes. No mercy for this monster. He tortured and executed hundreds. He had women naked in cages in a rainstorm. He had women lined up and raped for his mere statistic pleasure. He deserves this, and more!
“But Mistress, it’s a waste!” Sharla protests.
“Maybe. I’m sorry to throw away your efforts like that. I know you worked hard on capturing him alive, but I can’t keep him alive; I owe Lezere that much. She’d say that being cruel to a wolf is dangerous, and I happen to agree. I can’t give him the chance to recover. As for the power, I’ve hunted a an alpha worg on the way to the orc camp and already consumed its soul on the way back here...”
Sharla sighs. “You should consume Luard's soul then. His soul worth as twice or even triple of some worg’s soul.”
I pull out the axe from his throat, and blood sprouts from the arteries in his neck. He’s still alive somehow, twitching under my knee. I can’t help but take great satisfaction from talking about the fate of his soul near his dying, aware mind.
If he’s a half fae and his soul is so powerful that he can be drained slowly like Sharla’s… maybe I should consume his soul… Monsters like him deserve such fate… Doesn’t make eating the meat any less disgusting… But it’s a lot of power… I won’t eat his body… just the soul…
Why do the hag eat the bodies anyway? The power comes from the mana in the soul after all and there wasn't anything about it in the book… Either she’s twisted… or there’s some reason I don’t know about. I wish I could ask her. I should try consuming the soul without the meat, see what happen...
I can’t let his soul go to waste… even if I won’t eat it, I can try and make a potion out of it, glitter for Salik… I take out a glass bottle. I can see the horror in Luard’s blue eyes, he knows what’s coming next. I can’t help but smile at him as his life fades away from these blue hated eyes. You got what you deserved, monster!
I press my ectoplasm bottle against his mouth, and channel the bits of mana I recovered in the past few minutes into the diamond stopper. I watch the bottle slowly fills up with a blue swirling gas, the gas turns into a clear liquid with a silver tint after a few moments. It feels wrong, I shouldn’t do it to another intelligent being. I hate him! I hate him so much! His soul don’t deserve to survive!
The diamond stopper heats up and I know the bottle is filled to the brim, I have to use four more bottles before his soul is drained entirely. That’s a very large soul… I’d really like to consume it… If Sharla went to such lengths to keep this guy alive for me, I bet his soul is beneficial. He is a monster, I can eat him without feeling guilty…What about the meat? I can’t eat that…
I don’t have to, I bet the meat makes the process more efficient or something, I can pass on that efficiency… what if it does more than that? If that’s the case, I’ll make a glitter potion for Salik, but I’m drinking that soul. If I make a glitter potion, I’ll need the heart…
I wince, hesitating to cut up the corpse in such a manner. What am I hesitating for? He did those things to living people!
Ugh, fine!
I draw my dagger and stab it under his rib cage. I dig through flesh, fat, and organs with a grimace. I have only one healthy hand to work with and carving out the heart isn’t the cleanest work to do. I take out the dagger and push my hand into the warm body, sensing around where the heart should be.
I gulp when I lift the heart out of Luard’s body. blood dribbles down my wrist and clothing, the gory mess I leave behind me wouldn’t shame a professional torturer. He’s the monster and the torturer! He deserves this end!
“Maybe he was perverted beast, but no one deserves to be defiled like that.” Janara says from the side, still encased in ice and an iron collar around her neck. “You’re a monster, Inara…”
I shake my head, wrap the bloodied heart in a piece of cloth and squeeze the soft object into one of my spell material bags, to keep it fresh. She’s right… I’m a monster… I’m going to use this thing to make a snaking potion! It’s disgusting! I’m disgusting! It’s not like I’ll succeed on my first attempt, this is way more complicated than a healing potion, I'll need the training… And she’s the one to talk about being a monster, huh?
“No, Janara. You’re the monster here. How many innocents died due to your pointless vendetta? How many of the common folk—people who used to be just like you before the tower—died?! Did you count how many people live in this city? What their lives were like before you brought your armies here? And what about your soldiers? How many young men did you enlist and threw forward into this war just to avenge Purson’s death? Just to avenge Rushmia’s death… Rushmia! Do you even remember how she treated us?! All I do is to curve out a man’s heart. Not just any man, someone who tortured and executed innocents weekly, and you call me a monster. I’m ending you right now!” I limp toward her, lifting my bloodied dagger.
The loud cheers around me cause me to look around. The orcs are howling wildly, ramming their axes and spears against their shields. While soldiers in red round up the ones in green and blue. Luard didn’t bring too many soldiers here, but Janara’s soldiers are still more numerous than my own, I can’t understand why they stopped fighting.
“No! You’re the monster! You’ve killed…"
I reach Janara and lifts my dagger to her throat. She shuts up and eyes me with her big green eyes.
“Inara, stop!” A familiar pale woman calls out to me just when I'm about to sink my dagger into Janara's throat and slit it. The woman's wavy dark hair hangs on her back. I only recognize her because of the dark circles under her blue eyes.
Tiara. Even back at the tower we didn’t talk much, but she was friendlier with Janara. Her brown robes hide her curves and from how clean they are I can guess she avoided the battle entirely.
I hold my dagger to Janara’s throat. “Hello, Tiara, give me one good reason to not kill her."
"Kolag will die if you do," she states calmly, crossing her hands on her modest chest.
She has Kolag... What is she even doing here? I need to understand her motives better before I negotiate for Kolag's release. I doubt she's here out of loyalty to Janara of all people.
"I didn’t think you’d join these two.” Unlike Oshi and Janara, Tiara only liked her studies, she shied from conflict.
Tiara's thin shoulders move with her heavy sigh, she massages her temples with a wince. “Not by choice, a powerful arch-mage forced my master to send me here with these two, she also said I have to help Phoebe…”
I switch to Toml’a. “She? Was it an old lady? Black robes? Gray bun? Golden eyes that make you feel all fragile and vulnerable?” Was it the hag?
She grimaces. “That’s the one. She said that if Phoebe dies, I can stay on the Gray Islands since I won’t be leaving the place alive.”
So the hag sent them here… meeting Janara here wasn’t a coincidence, it was planned! All this snaking war was planned from the start. The location I teleported to. The city here. Everything! Even the ring Janara has, is enchanted with defensive gravity magic, Janara’s elements are earth and wood. I bet the hag gave it to her, as a reward for me… a reward for beating Janara…
Was Luard planned as well? How many of these obstacles have the hag’s claws in them?
“I imagine you’re here to ask me to let Janara live…” That’s the only conclusion.
She gives the collared Janara a tired side glance and rolls her blue eyes in annoyance. “Yes. I don't have much of a choice.”
“Where is Kolag?” I ask, doing my best not to let fear into my voice, but I can tell that it’s shaking, I’m shaking. I can’t lose him too! Not after everything!
She shrugs like it doesn’t matter, and shifts her focus to her nails. “We have him, he’s alive and well.”
I need to see him! I can't trust her word! “Bring him here then,” I demand.
She fidgets, hesitating for a moment. “You’ll have to hand over Phoebe in exchange.”
“I might. First I want to see Kolag. And if you won’t bring him here, I’ll just kill her. Don’t test me.”
She folds her hands on her chest and lifts her thin chin. “Don’t test me either, I’ll kill Kolag if anything happens to her. Even if it’s the last thing I do.”
Focus! Stop shaking! I can’t show her a weakness and I can’t give in to her demands! Besides, Kolag is very hard to kill. “Good luck with that, Kolag is impossible to kill, I saw him surviving a spear in the face. The only reason he’s still a prisoner, is that he doesn’t want to harm your people, and freeing himself involves unleashing a demon. Now, bring him here before I lose my patience.” My voice is steady this time. I have the upper hand here, she represents the losing army, remember that! The only reason we’re even talking is because she thinks she has a hostage, once she realizes how…
Her words disrupt my line of thoughts. “We have Kolag on a boat, we’ll throw him into the river. He may not die, I don’t know if he can survive drowning, but he’ll still be stuck underwater with that metal armor of his, and you won’t know where to find him.”
Tiara frowns at the half frozen Janara behind me. “My survival depends on Phoebe’s life, I didn’t come to these islands to stay here, and if you think I didn’t come prepared, you’re sorely mistaken. I will not give up my only leverage and hope for your goodwill, I’m not an idiot.” She raises her fist above her head. I know it’s a threat, a supposed signal for her people.
Fuck! “So I should just give you Janara and trust in your goodwill, is that it?”
*~*~*
Power level: 3rd stage apprentice.
Mana pools status:
Crown-knot: Affinity 10: connected: 1 gem replenished per minute.
Neck-Bridge: Affinity 6: formed: max amount of gems drained per day: 73
Abdomen-storage: Affinity 5: formed: 11 gems. Conversion ratio: 6:1
Air: Affinity 4: formed: 22 gems
Fire: Affinity 2: formed: 11 gems
Light: Affinity 3: formed: 16/17 gems
Water: Affinity 6: formed: 33 gems
Earth: Affinity 1: formed: 5 gems
Wood: Affinity 2: formed: 11 gems
Gravity: Affinity 9: formed: 46/50 gems
Cantrip known:
Air: Shavi’s Breeze, Shavi’s Sword. Shavi’s Hair Dryer, Aria’s Enhanced Hearing. Aria’s Sonic Scream.
Fire: Nuriss’ Flame. Effrat’s Firefly, Effrat’s Fire Breath. Sorladika's Lesser Heating. Nuriss’ Ignite. Oniga's Soap Creation.
Light: Noxi’s Light. Lako’s Blinding Light. Rika’s energy hand.
Water: Water Evocation, Water to Ice, Ice to Water, Water to Vapor, Vapor to Water, Mayan’s Icy Spike, Ayla’s Water Jet. Ayla’s instant freeze. Ayla's Flowing Shield. Ayla’s Freezing Vapors.
Earth: Alice’s Oil Summoning, Reiko’s Acid Spray. Alf's Copper Bolt
Wood: Arigor’s Lesser Vines. Kolosu’s Vegetable Summoning.
Gravity: Lumina’s Kinetic Burst. Tukado’s Repulse. Tukado’s Lesser Shield II. Imari’s Minor Telekinesis. Imari’s Jump. Leo’s Pull. Leo’s Grounding. Alino’s Light Body. Alino’s Heavy Body. Alino's Orbiter.
Transmutation: Oniga's Laundry.
Spells known:
Light: Rika's Electric Channelb1
Gravity: Alino’s Weightless Bodyb1x2. Imari’s Lesser Flightb2.
Life: Brigit’s Lesser Cure Poison.
Focus capability: 17 patterns.
Social status: The Queen of Red Cedar City. Shaman of the Twin Moon Tribe. Inara, Daughter of Mysteries. Apprentice to the Maven of Mysteries. Sorceress.
Personal Wealth: 1665 Magic Gems. 136 Diamonds. 1420 Golden Peas, 45 Silver Scales, 32 Copper Bits.
Personal Items:
Magical necklace. Contains 100 gems of general mana, can be drained like a mana pool. It’ll recharge by itself at the rate of five gems an hour.
1 potion of lightning body.
1 potion of mana, medium grade.
1 potions of Lesser Healing.
4 potions of Pain Tolerance.
An enchanted belt with eight pouches, the enchantment keeps the pouches’ content fresh. Each pouch may contain 10g of petals or six potion flasks.
Fresh rose petals, 6g
Fresh lavender petals, 10g
King Luard's fresh heart.
10 soul bottles-5 filled with Luard's soul. Glass with a diamond stopper, put in scaled leather wrapping.
The Great White Egret grimoire. Dedicated by the Maven of mysteries to Inara. 26/100
Present Companions:
Sharlafyn Nettledew
Jerro
Berthold
Loyal
Languages:
Toml’a <People’s tongue> Fluent
Sinteo <Speech> Fluent
Myrsha <Gravity> 8/10
Felul <Wind> 1/10
A'arkalu 1/10 <wolf tongue>
Injuries and scars: Melted skin; face, upper chest, chain scar. Left wrist broken. Bruises. Cuts on the face. Broken ribs.
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Kingdom’s treasury: 8,438 gold coins.
Kingdom’s citizen: 5,898 humans, 2,251 human children ?. Twin Moon Tribe: 1,243 orcs. 294 orc children. 164 sheep-slaves.
Kingdom's army: ?
Notables at Court:
Tasiya Keyholder
Jolla SilverQuill
Talbot Bookkeeper
Marasi Chef extraordinaire (spymaster.)
Old Gardner Tiom
