Chapter XXI#
Discussing the Belly#
i really am running out of understandable title ideas
Warning
Chapter illustrations currently WIP.
It really is a miracle we’re not dead already. I’m starting to agree with Dan.
It’s sometime in the early early morning. Somewhere vaguely south of where we were. Small shrubs have begun peeking over the grass – presumably near Troltano, then. I’d probably be able to see it if it weren’t for the fog. Arodorros lit the way with a lantern.
My fingers are still smoking from those enhanced ability casts – the original pain was smothered by adrenaline and now I pay the cost in aches through the forearm. A few more and I might’ve burned as much limb as Lloyd. At least I can handle them, though.
Lloyd is alright, I think. He doesn’t have the same healing factor, but mass blood loss means less at t-seven. Arodorros managed to patch his arm up while running from Grim in a display of the insanity of higher-tier reflexes. Usually, we’d have snatched his arm and reattached it instead of using magic to grow a new one, but that wasn’t exactly my highest priority with a murder monster standing over it.
“How’s your arm?” I asked, strafing to him.
“I don’t seem to have it at the moment,” he scoffed.
“Right, well, you know what I meant.”
“I’m fine,” he shrugged. “It’ll come back in a few.”
“Crazy thing to say about an arm. But true, I suppose”
He laughed. We should’ve done more of that by that stream.
“We should stop,” Arodorros boomed from the front. “Camp for the night and we’ll reach Troltano soon tomorrow.” He picked a tent from his dimensional bag. I retrieved ours and began setting up.
“No fire,” I motioned as Bia retrieved some firewood from the dimensional bag. “Could help them find us. We shouldn’t have been so careless the first time.”
“Oh, but – ”
“It’s also three in the bleeding morning. Exactly what meal are you going to be roasting at this hour?”
“Don’t tell me you ain’t hungry.”
“I’ll eat when we wake up. At a reasonable hour.”
“Unreasonable situations require unreasonable schedules!”
“Arodorros, could you cast that Conversation Lock thing again?”
He shook his head with an amused smile and continued setting up. I rolled my eyes at Bia. “Come on, help me with this pole.”
“There is an opportunity here,” Arodorros said, gesturing through the grass at the silhouette of Troltano in the distance.
“You want to delve back into that hellhole?” I hissed.
“There is something immensely valuable in that hellhole.”
“We just escaped an immensely powerful reality bending demon and you want to head straight into its allies’ home base?”
Bia laid a hand on my shoulder. “Let him finish,” she whispered.
“Shut – ”
“Your father’s notes are very valuable,” Arodorros cut in. “As much as I disdained his… visions… our Matriarch wanted him brought back as well. If he is dead, then the closest I can offer are his written insights.”
“It’s probably all guild paperwork,” Bia said. “Unless you know where his house is.”
“I do,” Arodorros chuckled. “What kind of a spy would fail to find a target’s living place? And fail to notice you’re baiting them seeing as they know you’ve already been to said living place?”
“A bad one,” I said.
“So little faith,” he smirked.
“What exactly would these notes be worth again?”
“Faelorn’s visions are derived from oracle blood. Who knows what miracle predictions could be in them?”
“I thought you didn’t know anything about his visions,” I glared.
“Right,” Bia said. “We’re going to put the whole Arodorros being a lying scheming arse thing and the what the fuck is oracle blood thing on hold and ask the crucial question: if his bullshit was credible after all, what does that say about his views on Dawne?”
“He’s malfunctioning,” Arodorros shrugged. “Diluted oracle blood after all. We have others like him. Descendants not quite so broken, but decidedly less insightful for it.”
I levelled a finger at him, who remained passive. “And you never mentioned any of this when I asked, aye?!”
“Descendants of who?” Lloyd peered.
“Have you heard of the Oracle of Shwombosia?”
Bia ran out of tolerance. “What kind of nonsense word – ”
I laid a hand on Bia’s shoulder. “Let him finish.”
She levelled a blank glare.
“Your family has Shwombosian blood?” Lloyd elbowed Bia with a raised eyebrow.
“What the heck is a Shwombosian?!”
“They called them the One Day’s Country” Lloyd said, almost reverently. “Legends say that Autumn once sent them an envoy, who brought back miraculous advancements in technology and really scary prophecies. A few days later the envoy was sent again, only to discover the entire island a smoking ruin.”
“Sounds like fairytale bullshit,” I said. “I don’t buy it.”
“The Hastor Dynasty has had many with prophetic blood in our ranks,” Arodorros brought back a topic. “I can assure you that it is a very real and thoroughly investigated phenomenon.”
“How would it even work?” I asked incredulously.
“How would it work?” Lloyd mused. “Ignoring the energy constraints of a biological body – though I guess rankups would help with that – what would such a sense even be drawing from? Has fate already been woven for us, and they just read off it? Has it got something to do with reality bending and that entire load of bullshit?”
“Mister ‘thoroughly investigated’ should know,” I gestured.
“Thoroughly investigated does not mean understood,” Arodorros said.
“What, so your scientists or whoever dug through the whole thing and found nothing.”
“They tried as best they could.”
“Right.”
“Regardless, your father had this power, however misused it was. His notes will contain valuable insights. Whether you all choose to come or not, I am mandated by the Matriarch to recover them.”
“We’re not coming,” I snarled. “You get your notes yourself.”
“Well – ” Lloyd started.
“No, you idiot,” I jabbed at his lack of an arm. “You’ll get to see those notes either way. Why would we go?!”
“I would like to kick some more cultist ass,” Bia said.
“Those cultists subdued the entire goddamn city in a night. You want to fight people who beat t-sixties?!”
“Well, true, I suppose. But we should get a handle on who we’re fighting, right?”
“It doesn’t matter what strategy you approach someone like that with at this tier. You’re dead either way.”
“I’d argue Grim’s a lot stronger than em and we’re fighting it off fine.”
Everyone became acutely aware of the arm not in the room.
“I think I’d like to go,” Lloyd shrugged. “We’re recovering knowledge here.”
I hissed. “You’d better fucking sit here, drink your potions, and recover your own damn arm. Speaking of, you’re ‘sposed to be taking another right about now.”
“Oh, right,” he fetched one from his dimensional bag. “Thank the trinity for that telekinesis ability.”
“Thank good adventuring fundamentals education,” I said and turned back on topic. “You can’t go, Lloyd. You will die and get more of us killed trying to make you not die.”
“Just don’t try to make me not die, then,” he shrugged. “What’s the matter really? We’re all screwed anyways, according to you. I wanna be instrumental in uncovering the future or whatever.”
“You believe this Shwombosian bullshit?”
“That envoy story may not have been entirely accurate, but that island and those ruins are real. Shwombosia is just what we call them these days – that’s probably not their actual name. It’s all been lost to history. And, the Autumn Kingdom definitely experienced some implausible technological reforms a few decades after Dawne arrived. A lot of modern day myths originated around that time too. You know the whole Sevenshard Cycle thing that’s been in the news lately?”
“The thing from Fireforth?!” Bia perked up. She and Lloyd exchanged raised eyebrows and finger guns.
I shook my head. “You are way too obsessed with that book.”
“Hey,” she shrugged. “Just saying, I knew about Sevenshard before it was cool.”
I snorted and returned to Lloyd. “Right, so some bajillion year old myth proves true in some highly misinterpretable manner and you believe in fortune telling. It was the most obvious thing that could’ve happened anyway – we all knew the Altegan Union was going to beat the shit out of Carioneth at some point.”
“They’re called the Altegan States, in formal circles.”
“This is not a formal circle. I will call those morons whatever I want.”
“Let’s not get political here,” Arodorros seemed tired of the show. “Are you all coming or not?”
“Why ask us anyway?” I snapped at him. “Isn’t your Matriarch’s first priority getting me and the hourglass home safe? Why allow us to put ourselves in danger?”
“A Dawnic adventurer could beat an adventurer of any other country within the range of twenty ranks,” Arodorros said without irony. “A team of Dawnics at your level would easily escape a situation like Troltano right now. A test will be necessary for you all to survive in the war, to decide what sort of training will be needed.”
“Right,” I raised an eyebrow. “And you said Dawne would struggle in a war against the Haelborne?”
“That is because the Haelborne have yet to deploy their full forces. The cultists that took Troltano and the cultists you have fought are dirt recruited from this world. They will have brought better than that, for tasks greater than the securing of some low tier city.”
Lloyd budged in. “Well, I’m going.”
“Agreed!” Bia grinned.
“...you are all stupid,” I sighed.
“But you are coming,” Arodorros guessed.
“Someone needs to keep this moron safe,” I pointed at Lloyd.
“Mean,” he teased.
“How are we supposed to sneak in?” I queried Arodorros.
“Simple,” and he pulled what was probably another bullshit technology device from his bag. A white sphere, filled with swirling pale grey leaves and other… shapes.
[Arodorros Nayirah] has cast [Invisibility] on you.
“Again with your Governance manipulation thing,” I noted. “Is that not expensive to run?”
“No, it’s all quite efficient,” Arodorros conjured a weapon – a large, simple spear. “Barely any mana really – it’s all drained from the device itself, which recovers naturally.”
“Genius,” Lloyd said. “How does it recove – ”
“I can’t help but notice we’re not invisible,” I pointed out.
Arodorros gestured the device at me.
[Arodorros Nayirah] has removed spell [Invisibility] from you.
The others disappeared.
“I see.”
“What?” Lloyd asked.
“Rather, you don’t see,” Arodorros was presumably grinning.
“Oi, good one!” Bia cackled.
“Ah, I see,” Lloyd said. “So she can’t see us – ”
“No shit, genius.”
Arodorros recast the spell on me and we started moving in. This will not go well. My friends are fucking idiots. Arodorros is probably not a fucking idiot. The Matriarch is telling him to be. My distrust in Dawne has been reinvigorated.
“How long does this spell last?” I asked him. He’d also cast his Conversation Lock thing as well, so we’d not be overheard. We were approaching high tier earshot from Troltano.
“Lasts as long as the device gets mana, which should be all the time.”
“How exactly does it collect mana again?” Lloyd asked.
“Sucks it from the metasphere,” Arodorros replied. “Same mechanism higher tier bodies use to sustain themselves. Governance enhanced bodies are really a wealth of knowledge – it’s just that it takes guts.”
“What d’you mean?”
“Guts in multiple meanings.”
“He means they’re cutting people open,” I said bluntly.
“Ohhhh,” Lloyd said. “Are they willing or…”
“Deathrow.”
“I see.”
“To be fair, there are still a lot of countries doing that,” Bia said. “You’d think they’d have thrown it out with slavery but I suppose not.”
Troltano’s towers loomed closer. The city gates were definitely not on this side of the wall, however – Arodorros planned to climb over. I did not have faith in Bia making it over without slipping, falling, and causing a ruckus, but it was better than trying to sneak through the front door.
Miraculously, we passed over the wall no problem.
The city within had not been cleaned since the cultists took over.
The three of us tried to ignore the sight, thankful for the spell silencing our coughing and other instincts. Arodorros showed no such fallacies. He simply sighed and walked forward.
“I trust you remember where his apartment is,” Arodorros said.
“I am having a bit of trouble recognizing the streets in this condition,” I sniffed. Bad decision. The coppery smell was invasive.
“Around this way,” he pointed to the right.
We dodged around more cultists. Higher ranked, more ornaments on their robes.
“Why has nobody been sent to clean up this mess?” Bia asked. “They must’ve noticed communications weren’t coming out of Troltano already.”
“It’s Haelcrien,” I scoffed. “Slowest administration in the history of organization itself.”
“It takes time to amass a force capable of defeating what captured an entire city,” Arodorros said. “I imagine they have already sent scouts. Or perhaps not. There are plants all over the governments of this world.”
We stalked through the streets in silence, despite the spell already covering our bases. There were few as high rank as Arodorros around – presumably meaning there weren’t many who would see through his Dawnic devices either.
A few steps later and the apartment spire came into view. No guards studded its front door – why would there be for such an unremarkable place? I suppose the Haelborne didn’t know about Faelorn’s notes. Or perhaps they knew better than to waste their time on them.
We waited for the surrounding streets to clear and pushed through the door.
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