DREADWOLF

◈ Chapter 164:

The mansion was a vast thing, as the excesses of nobility were wont to be, the gardens more so, great fountains spewing water dozens of meters into the air, bushes trimmed into monsters, and curling white stone paths illuminated by intricate magics.

 

Lyra's stride slowed to a crawl as she realised she'd actually managed it, she'd bluffed her way inside! Okay admittedly that was with a bit of luck and things hadn't gone quite as planned, but still!

 

She held up her arm and pressed her lips against her wool, sputtering as it got in her mouth.

 

"I did it Rain, we're in," she managed to get out.

 

She quickly lifted her arm and pressed it against her ear.

 

In wool space Rain looked in amusement as an ear poked from the void of the wall.

 

"Good," he said, "Just stay calm and drift around the party until you spot the three. We'll figure out how to get at them once we know where they are."

 

She lifted her arm to her mouth and spoke into it, muffled.

 

"Wait, Rain, I don't know what they look like, you didn't say!"

 

"Is everything okay?"

 

Lyra flinched, pulling her arm from her mouth and turning on her heel to find the black haired elf behind her.

 

"Ah, yes, I'm fine." She sipped nervously from the drink the elf had given her.

 

"Hmm, that trick with the levelling orb was quite interesting, but only a trick."

 

Lyra gave her a blank look. "I have no idea what you mean, I simply touched it and that happened, nothing to do with me."

 

"I somehow doubt that, but that's hardly why you caught my interest. The aura of monsters surrounds and envelopes you, something I've come to see as a summoner who herself is so deeply involved with monsters, yet to gain an aura like your own you would have to be bathed in monsters all day and all night, you would have to be beyond intimate with them."

 

"I… wait what?"

 

"Yes, yet you aren't a summoner, you are an enigma, a curiosity, that is why I allowed you in, to study more of you."

 

"Erm, w-well, that's… nice? But I really must be going. I have someone I promised to meet at the party and I'm already late."

 

Lyra nervously sipped her drink again, turned and walked away. She glanced over her shoulder and really wished she hadn't when she found the red eyes of the elf staring directly at her, still and perfectly unmoving, the strange ball of wings on her shoulder seemingly observing her too, although it had no eyes to do that with.

 

Lyra shuddered and slipped inside the building proper.

 

Her heartbeat slowed a little as she found herself standing in warm golden light and surrounded by people, which felt infinitely safer than being around the unsettling elf.

 

Rain eased back from the wall with Opal.

 

"That elf, she's dangerous," he growled. 

 

Opal nodded her agreement, "Definitely bad news."

 

They pressed back up against the dark.

 

Rain watched carefully from under Lyra's skirt as she drifted around the party, moving from clustered nobles to pockets of high levelers and so on, frequently sipping her drink as she went.

 

Rain strained to see anyone of the three he desired to end, even the slightest sight of them.

 

No luck… it didn't help that his perspective was starting to get a little wobbly, swaying slightly from side to side, footing a little unsteady on the marble.

 

He blinked. Was Lyra… tipsy?

 

He felt her speed up and glanced to see Murmer following her inside, her red eyes looking amused as they followed Lyra escaping into the crowd. 

 

The crowd itself was putting on various magic tricks, dancing flame fairies, rainbows that spanned the hall, anyone with a flashy Class and newly unlocked Skills happy to flaunt and show off their prestige on a vaunted social occasion.

 

Of course, once the elf stepped inside, all attention turned to her. 

 

The crowd drew in breath as they saw her, conversation faltering.

 

Murmer took the crowd in, humming softly to herself as she noted the flame fairies and rainbows. She lifted her hand and lightly gestured. The air rippled and then bulged outward, fringing chromatic as the unseen strained before snapping in a flash of violet black.

 

There was a cry from the crowd as a white and metallic gold snake with a head the width of a coach poured from nothing, from thin air, its enormous head hitting the ground with a glass rattling thump. 

 

The crowd backed up as more and more of the snake poured from thin air, its white and gold body flowing into the room of assembled levelers.

 

"What's a leveler party without a little showing off I suppose."

 

The snake parted the crowd and slithered through the grand entrance hall and back out the main double doors into the garden. There it turned in on itself, slithering up around the outer walls even as more of its seemingly endless body emerged from nothing.

 

Lyra watched in alarm as the great wall spanning windows became filled with white and gold scales as the great snake, its body still pouring from thin air, slithered around the entire mansion.

 

The audience gasped at the sight, and then, as one, began clapping.

"Magnificent! From where did you capture this remarkable specimen?" came a cry from a particularly old and wise looking mage. 

 

"From the bottom of the dungeon."

 

A flinch washed through the crowd hearing that, their clapping faltering.

 

"Y-you've been? To the bottom?" the mage managed to choke out.

 

Murmer didn't reply but the air rippled around her and figures began to step out of nothing. Dozens of the wooden butlers, each carrying trays of drinks, although different drinks from the ones that had been served to Lyra and herself, they nonetheless appeared very fancy.

 

This pleased the crowd who went right back to their chatter. 

 

As Lyra drifted around the party like a leaf floating on a lazy brook, Rain found himself looking at a pair of legs next to Lyra. There was…. something strangely familiar about the legs. They were very long and the heeled boots and skin tight leather trousers they were sheathed in were hardly fitting for such a prestigious party. There was also some kind of metal blocky thing hanging down on her opposite side.

 

Suddenly feeling concern he pulled back and randomly picked another part of the wall, peering from the black.

 

His point view appeared from Lyra's arm and to his shock he had a direct view of Inquisitor Baera standing right next to Lyra, and worse, she was staring right at Lyra.

 

"Y-yes? What is it? Do I have something on my face?" said Lyra.

 

"You seem vaguely familiar somehow, did you ever visit the town of Lynthia by any chance?"

 

"Town? what use would I have to ever visit some town when Florens has all a girl could ever need."

 

"Hmm. Perhaps I'm mistaken-"

 

She was interrupted however by a tall male human with long wavy black hair, an attractive heroic figure that drew appreciative female attention from the other guests, and sometimes appreciative male attention.

 

For Rain it caused him to start trembling with anger. It was all he could do not to reach through Lyra's wool and haul Brax inside to kill right then and there.

 

In fact he knew he wasn't going to make it, that dark watery place at the back of his mind was pulling him in, drowning him, restricting his breathing, choking him, the claws that picked and plucked at his mind in a constant unconscious low buzz becoming painfully noticeable.

 

"Don't do it," whispered Opal, one hand on a paw raised to plunge through the dark and grab hold of Brax.

 

"I need to."

 

"Wait. If you go for him in front of every leveler you'll scare away the other two. Got to be stealthy."

 

With difficulty Rain managed to pull his paw back, blood pounding in his ears so strongly that it felt like his head was being struck like a bell with each pulse.

 

He swallowed noisily, mouth dry.

 

"I can't live like this forever. It needs to end, I need what I got from ending Adlen, the Relief… The freedom."

 

He shuddered as the words left his lips, just recalling the experience of ending Adlen enough to send pins and needles up and down his body. It had been indescribable, like becoming more sapient, more conscious, less animal, the impact of such a change enough to make him sleep an entire day, the dark scratchy clawing things that lived at the back of his head muffled.

 

He steadied himself and peered back out. It seemed like the inquisitor was very interested in Brax and was already leading him away for a private word. Perhaps for the best.

 

Lyra lifted her arm to her mouth and awkwardly spoke into it, voice muffled.

 

"Uh, I think that might have been the birthday boy, birthboy," slurred Lyra.

 

"Is she…drunk?" mumbled Rain in disbelief.

 

"How much of a lightweight is she?!" hissed Opal.

 

An ear appeared from the wall and Rain leaned down.

 

"That was him, but we should find where the private rooms are first. I can't grab him in the middle of so many people without causing a scene."

 

The ear was removed and Rain's sharp ears picked up the sound of a slurred "Yeah yeah boss."

 

He peered back through to find Lyra moving, shifting through the crowd. 

 

The trouble was that Lyra attracted rather a lot of attention, more than once a male lapine came up to clumsily flirt, only to be rebuffed by a tipsy Lyra claiming she already had a boyfriend thankyou.

 

The mansion was a vast thing with many great halls, and Lyra drifted through its ornate gold trimmed passages between each before she finally found something of interest.

 

Rain didn't have to wait long though as he soon spotted Eliza. The water mage was showing off for an audience, a statue constructed from water of what appeared to be a large wolf monster. He released after a moment that the crude approximation was supposed to be him.

 

Lyra seemed to have twigged that the water mage was the target as she started to drift toward her, tottering slightly. 

 

Eliza let her statue splash down into a pool of water and stepped back, smiling faintly as her audience gave cooes of approval and polite applause. She slipped back into the crowd and Lyra followed after, like an inebriated leopard stalking her prey.