Sworded Affair

Chapter 152: Baby, Baby, Baby, Oh

Emma turned around, expecting to see the riflemen from before; maybe one had found a hidden child while she’d been examining the locked rooms? Instead, a skeleton lay sprawled across the carpet, more powder than bones. There was no sign of his clothes, nor the rifle he carried, so Emma was only able to ID him based on approximate location. An infant crawled through the mess, clearly distraught given the volume of his wailing.

Emma stared at it, even pinching herself to check she wasn’t caught in an illusion.

[-10 Anima]

She wasn’t. Next, she did the obvious thing and reached out with Eden’s Echo, intending to put the baby away safely, only to find that it had no effect at all on the crawling child.

[Bucket stored.

Bucket withdrawn.]

The storage item wasn’t broken either, it just wouldn’t affect the baby. By now rather creeped out, Emma decided to not to try picking up the baby herself, and summoned Sir Bearington instead.

Bring the baby to the convoy.

A simple enough order, and one Emma could observe from her position at the back of the church. As such, she got to watch in real time as her summon shrunk with every step, until it resembled a tiny bear cub barely larger than the infant it was sent to retrieve.

[Sir Bearington defeated.]

He fell over and disappeared moments later; on the plus side, Emma could see the new, 10 minute cooldown take effect, but that was a very small silver lining to the whole situation. The Earthbound Immortal was up next, and unlike Sir Bearington, it didn’t have to get close to the source of Emma’s growing headache.

The baby and the skeleton, out the door. Gently.

The ground rumbled beneath the targets, smoothening into a ramp with infant and skeleton at the top, rolling them slowly but inexorably towards the door. The baby grew with every inch traversed, by the time it was halfway to the door, a young teen was aware enough to protest the intrusion. By the time he was thrown out, he was old enough to smoke. Regrettably, this sudden resurgence was not accompanied by a change of clothes, so the unfortunate rifleman ended up giving his colleagues quite the eyeful.

[He got ten years of youth back, I’d call that an even trade.]

“The skeleton is still there though,” Emma pointed out: there had been no change to the pile of bones besides its location.

[A bit of fiddling with human age is one thing, revival from true death is considerably more difficult. To be frank, if this distortion were capable of doing the latter, all of Oxfordshire would already be under quarantine. That’s the sort of thing where Paradox needs to intervene.]

Emma paused, considered that, then decided to exit the church posthaste. The remaining rifleman was thankfully already dressed when she reconvened with the convoy, courtesy of a few donations from his peers.

“The entire church is cursed,” Emma declared, drawing all eyes to her. “Don’t go inside unless you want to die. Hurry out of this town and don’t look back; assume anyone else you encounter is hostile, and shoot to kill.”

Sir Bearington was still out of commission, so Emma made do with the Earthbound Immortal. Riding on a floating block of earth was far less comfortable, but it was a suitably impressive exit; one that almost made her forget she was leaving more or less empty handed. Still, it wasn’t all bad; while Emma had hoped to find a clue to the spacetime distortion in the Church, her level up made her a lot more resistant to magic in general.

“This time, I’m getting inside that damn palace,” Emma swore as she departed the scene.

—

Mr. Fox barked happily, pointing his nose down at the moist patch of earth. Anna snapped her fingers before pointing at the same location, ordering her strongest pet to work. The massive, man-sized badger wasted no time, his paws carving through the ground faster than Mr. Fox could ever dream of accomplishing. Less than five minutes from start to finish, and a big hole had been cleared, opening up into an underground cellar.

“Good work,” Anna praised, petting the badger as it backed out of the tunnel, allowing her entry into a packed pantry, filled with canned goods, bottled water and pet food galore.

This was the third cache Mr. Fox had found today, his Thief class proving unparalleled for finding juicy targets.

“Good work to you too,” she cooed, rubbing Mr. Fox behind the ears just how he liked it.

Behind them, the rest of the menagerie milled about, forming a loose perimeter around the block they occupied. Half a dozen wolves, all well accustomed to fighting as a pack and sharing the unnatural intelligence of enlightened animals, even if not to the same degree as Mr. Fox. Together, they represented a formidable fighting force; Anna was strong, Mr. Fox realised, stronger than he’d ever be in direct conflict.

But that was fine, because she didn’t need another fighter; she needed a scout and surveyor, someone who could find what the others could not, and keep them all alive to fight another day.

“Sun’s going down,” Anna noted. “Alright, fan out and see if there’s anything worth hunting. Stay within a mile of us, I’ll be bedding down in the cellar tonight.”

Six howls of affirmation later, the pack went on the prowl.

—

[Oh no.]

Saint paused, her ears prickling as she awaited the words of the ancestor. It was rare for her to sound worried, so Saint knew this was likely the prelude to something big.

[The timetable has changed. Start imbuing the soil around the Potted Hydra with your magic. Don’t waste time hunting rats anymore, Noah will be ordering cuts delivered straight from the butcher. Create servitors if you need to, but make sure that feeding continues every hour of the day.]

Sure enough, the instructions received completely upended prior orders, but Saint knew the ancestor wouldn’t do this without a reason, so she headed to the plant pot and began her work without complaint.