The Grand Weave

After the girls' reunion ended in laughter mixed with weepy crying, Osilla escorted them to the bedroom, where they could hang out on one of the beds for a moment of privacy.

Poltor had a talk with Basta, and I was afraid I would have to step in, but the large beastkin walked away from the exchange with frightful glances back to the much smaller human man.

I was too far away to hear the exchange, but I was curious as to what Poltor said to cower the smuggler so effectively.

Eventually, Sereza walked up and stared at my chair before sitting down with her back to the wall. She crossed her legs, and her tail wrapped around her waist. When she finished, she leaned her head back and joined me, staring at the ceiling.

There was blissful silence for a couple of minutes till she turned her head away from the ceiling to look at me. "You are an interesting demon, Cyrus. "

"Thanks? I think?" I replied.

She chuckled, and her amber eyes trailed down my face to the chair I was sitting on. "I count four summons. Not just summons, but familiars, if my guess is correct." I said nothing, so she continued. "Throw in the shifting mask and the dimensional storage item; it all points to you being somebody interesting. And as I've said before, I know all the felkins in Solunaria, and none of them look like you."

I silently took off my mask and laid it on my lap. Running a hand through my hair, I rolled my neck to look into her eyes. "You only listed half of the strange things about me, so I think I'm doing good. Keep hanging around me, and you'll find that things get much stranger than that."

She squinted but shrugged a second later. "Maybe. I just might do that. We have fourteen days left, after all."

I smiled and summoned a wooden bowl filled with steaming hot pastries. They were little balls of dough stuffed with crab and fish. Then, to add to the flavour, they were topped with three different sauces that made the pastries spicy-sweet.

I handed over the bowl, and she took it with some confusion. That confusion fell away into a bright smile as she smelled the delicious food. When she looked over, I had already summoned another bowl of pastries and tossed one into my mouth.

The things were good, and I was glad I bought a dozen bowls of the stuff back in Helio. I had to pay extra for the bowls, but that wasn't too much of an issue.

While eating, I was stealing glances at Sereza from the corner of my eye. The most confusing thing I noticed was that, unlike me, she used one of her daggers to skewer the fishballs before blowing on them. She only stuck the food into her mouth after cooling it off.

At first, I thought maybe she didn't like the heat and simply enjoyed her food at a cooler temperature. But that theory was tossed out the window when one of the balls fell off her dagger, and she caught it with her hand. The steaming hot insides of the dough dripped down her hand, and she made an audible wince before tossing it back into the bowl.

The food is too hot? Huh, that's strange.

I barely felt the heat from the food. I recognized that it was warm, but the actual heat did nothing to my skin, so I used my hands to deliver the food to my mouth.

It was easy to forget the passive resistances Cal's perk gave me. The effects were forgettable until I forced myself to watch other people interact with the world.

"Are you okay? Did it burn you?"

She shook her head and skewered another pastry. "Nah, I'm good. Damn thing stung, though." She popped the ball into her mouth and chewed with a contented groan. "Fuck, these are good. Thanks for sharing."

"No problem."

We sat and rested for a while. Eventually, Tilly came out of the bedroom with Mayuma in hand, and they raced towards Sereza. She shot me an apologetic look as she stood up and intercepted the two missiles before they breached my corner of the room.

And like a revolving door, Poltor walked up and replaced Sereza's spot. At least he didn't sit down, not that it would have been a problem.

"What's up?"

He kept his stare trained on his daughter and let a smile settle on his face. "Thank you. Even if you didn't mean to, thank you. It's good to see her happy in this situation."

I waved a hand and pointed to Sereza. "Thank her, not me. She's the one who found and kept her safe. I merely stumbled on where they were hiding."

He tore his gaze away from the children and frowned as he looked down at me. "And you helped escort them across the city. You took hours out of your time to help people find a place to hide and be safe. You helped my daughter reunite with her friend. Don't dismiss what you did, Cyrus. So, please accept my thanks."

I mulled his words and gave them some thought. Sure, I went out of my way, more than I had to, but it wasn't that big of a deal. I would have spent hours returning to this place anyway. And the truth was, if it came to protecting them and my own life, I'd choose mine. Too many people were expecting me to stay alive during this rift to so casually throw it away in some bout of heroism.

Rather than argue my point, I nodded once and then looked at the man. "Thank you, then." I rested my chin on my palm and motioned to Basta, sitting on the other side of the room. "What did you say to him? No offense to you, but he looks like he can tear off your limbs."

Poltor frowned and followed my gaze to Basta resting on the floor. He turned back to me and smirked. "Simple. I said that if he touched a hair on my children's head, I would gut him like a fish."

My mouth fell open, and I stared, shocked. Hearing such bloodthirsty words come out of his mouth was not what I was expecting to hear. I was guessing somewhere along the lines of him using me as a threat, which I wasn't opposed to. But to gut him like a fish? That was shocking.

"You are a surprising man, Poltor."

He shrugged. "When you have kids, you'll understand. They mean the world to me, my lovely wife included. If I had to throw myself before a monster's claws, I'd do it willingly. It's my duty as a father, and I wouldn't have it any other way."

"Fair enough. Was there anything else you needed?"

"Yes, actually. Did you happen to check out our house when you left? We aren't low on food, but having more would be better, and our coldbox should have been stocked."

"Oh yeah, I did. Osilla made sure to ask me to check it out. I have the coldbox, so just tell me where to put it."

"Wait. You have the coldbox? The whole thing?"

"Uh, yes? It wasn't that big, so it was easy to grab."

He looked at me with a face I was all too used to seeing. It was a nice bit of familiarity amongst the chaos, so I inwardly chuckled.

After getting over his initial surprise, he directed me to the back end of the room, and I promised to drop off the coldbox the next time I got up. With a final thanks for my efforts, Poltor took his leave, and I finally got time to myself.

The night passed easily, and I took the downtime to get some sleep. I didn't rest too long, barely more than four hours, but it was enough to keep me going. I would have rested longer, but I was worried about the rift pulling something at night.

And I was, unfortunately, right. Once the system clock reached eight p.m., chaos and madness began to echo across the city. Minor seismic quakes could be felt under your feet, and I joined the rest of the cellar's inhabitants inside the main room.

Together, we waited in silence as more and more of the monsters around the city seemed to finally wake up from their slumber.

At one point, there was a loud banging sound from nearby, followed by shattered wood. I glanced to Sereza, who returned my gaze, and we both nodded and rushed towards the stairwell.

We pushed past the illusion and gathered at the foot of the stairs. Together, we crouched low and kept our eyes focused on the cellar doors.

Another slam pounded the outside of the door, and I raised my spear. Over the next dozen minutes, the cellar door continued taking a beating. I was honestly impressed with how resilient the wood material was. Some of the hits sounded heavy like they had a lot of force behind them.

In the end, the door stayed standing, and the metal bar continued barring entry into the cellar. The hefty thumps from outside grew distant, and I lowered my weapon.

"That was rather unpleasant. You?" Sereza asked as she resheathed her daggers.

"A little, yeah." I leaned against the wall while keeping my gaze facing the stairway. "I was afraid something like this would happen. Stupid rifts and their dumb night-time attack routine."

She raised an eyebrow. "Experienced this kind of thing before?"

I flexed my fingers in frustration. "Yes."

She didn't question me further after that, for which I was thankful,

We eventually returned to the main room after half an hour of relative peace. Monster screeches echoed in the distance, but everything nearby fucked off. We could have stayed guarding the door all night, but we both needed sleep if we were heading out in the morning.

With a weary goodnight, I borrowed one of the beds and settled in for the night. Not wanting to repeat the mistakes of my last rift, I closed my eyes and began a round of meditation.

My mana channels welcomed the rift energy like a moth to a flame. The energy made the widening process easier while I used the excess energy that bled off to reinforce the newly carved pathway.

Inside my soulspace the wisps that represented my familiars danced in and out of the streams of energy entering the mana pool. It looked fun to be so free and untethered to the world around you. But I was happy to watch them play. My work would benefit us all, and that was the only motivation I needed.

After all, I had a promise to keep.

-----------------------------------------------

Morning came, and like the day before, it was peaceful in the eerily silent and strangely calm sort of way. I slept much longer than intended, but it was too late to change that. It was only when I saw the family of four split between two beds that I felt bad.

As I got up, Osilla raised her head, and I gave her an apologetic smile. She snorted before laying her back on the pillow and adjusting the blanket to cover her son's shoulders.

Not wanting to disturb the much-needed sleep for the family, I tiptoed out of the room and resealed it. When I searched for Basta, I found him awake and watching me from the corner. His eyes tracked me as I moved, and I realized I had taken off my mask before falling asleep.

Returning his stare, I approached as he sat up from the corner wall he was lying against. "Couldn't sleep?"

He growled and glanced towards the illusion hiding the stairway. "No. Wasn't tired."

I shrugged and summoned my chair. "If you say so." I then summoned two large bowls of soup and handed one to him. "It's not poison, I promise."

He stared at the bowl for less than five seconds before sticking his muzzle in the bowl. He ate loudly but must have been starving from how hungrily he devoured the soup. The potion's nutritional toll on the consumer's body was no joke.

I waited until he finished before I retrieved another bowl. He hesitated but ultimately accepted the second serving of food. He consumed The second bowl much slower, so by the time I finished my food, he had swallowed the last of his soup.

He handed the second bowl over, and I stacked all three to the side. From the corner of my eye, I could see he wanted to say something, so I remained silent till he was ready.

I pulled out a flask filled with ice-cold water and took a swig. After I tossed him the flask, he finally broke and leaned forward. "Why? Why are you being friendly?"

"Because I can? That's a stupid question."

He let out a low growl. "No. I mean, why are you being friendly now? You spent yesterday acting like you disliked me, and now you're offering me a hot meal and a fresh drink. Explain."

"Ah, yeah, I suppose you're right," I said as I leaned back in my chair. "Probably because you seem like the kind of person who'd toss me into a monster's jaw if it meant securing your escape."

"And would that be wrong? A stranger's life for my own, you would make the same choice."

This time, I stood up and tried to wrap my hand around his neck. However, his neck was so thick that my fingers struggled to secure a decent grip. Luckily, if the wolfman noticed, he was too scared to do anything about it.

Pushing the sharp end of my nails into his flesh, I pulled him closer. "And who the fuck are you to say that? How would you possibly know what I'd do?"

It was funny. Even in my rage, I thought it silly for the short fuck that I was to be intimidating this big, bad beastkin. And the hypocrisy of what I was getting angry over was not lost on me.

Yet, I didn't care. I thought back to Andrew and his group, to the time I had to heal Melena despite her endless tirade of insults. This idiot didn't know me; he didn't know what I'd already done or gone through. And even if he did, fuck him. He wouldn't be alive if I hadn't decided to help him.

The anger inside me scratched its cage and surged through my blood. It called to me, demanding I spill blood no matter how petty the reason. Because of it, I felt half-tempted to summon one of my familiars and merge with them before I felt a hand grab my shoulder. I turned and saw Sereza giving me a weird look.

"What?" I asked.

Sereza half-turned her body to reveal Tilly staring from the otherside of the room. She wore confusion and fear on her face, and I could see her tremble.

With a growl, I released the beastkin and shrugged off Sereza's hand to flop back into my chair. It may have looked petulant, but I had to cross my arms. Otherwise, lashing out and doing something stupid would be too tempting.

Sereza turned to the wolfman and lightly kicked him in the leg. He yelped like he had been stung by something before he recovered his cool and glared daggers at the felkin. "Go and watch Tilly for a moment. I need to talk about something, and you're not invited."

His eyes slid over me and the little girl before focusing on Sereza's serious face. He growled again and got up while grumbling under his breath.

Sereza watched him leave and waited until he sat beside Tilly before turning to face me. She raised an eyebrow and plopped down on the edge of the large crate Basta had been using as a seat.

She stared at the empty bowls, and I rolled my eyes before summoning another one and handing it over. She smiled and sniffed the soup. "Thanks, smells delicious." As she consumed a generous amount of soup, she wiped her mouth and lowered the bowl into her lap. "So, I'm guessing you're a child of wrath, then?"

I smiled at her directiveness. "Yep, you?"

"Lust."

"Lust?"

"That's what I said."

"Huh."

"Indeed."

There was a pause, followed by us both snorting loudly. We both chuckled, and I felt the anger drain away.

I bet you looked like the edgiest little shit for a moment there, Cyrus. Sam would call you cute.

"So, what's it like? I think you're the first wrath-born I've met." She narrowed her eyes and examined me from head to toe. "Another thing that points to you not being native to Solunaria. Curious."

"Before I answer that, how did you know I wasn't simply angry? Basta could have pissed me off enough."

She snorted and finished the rest of her soup. "Damn, that's good. You should give one to Tilly." She then changed positions so that her head was resting on her knees. "To answer the obvious question, it's because you didn't seem like the type to get irrationally angry. So I figured it was because you're a felkin and made the appropriate guess."

"Huh. And sure, Tilly can have a bowl, but that's my last one."

She smiled and swung herself off the crate. I summoned my final bowl of soup and passed it off as she walked by.

When she was gone, and Basta scurried away to hide in a different corner, I let out the sigh I had been holding in. People were exhausting. I would much prefer speaking to people through the thought-speech like the one I shared whenever I interacted with my familiars.

Still, complaining would do me nothing, so I stood up and tapped into my manapool. Chomperz appeared and sucked in the chair along with the stack of dirty bowls. When he finished, he flew close to my face, loudly chomped, and dived into my chest.

I chuckled and extended my arms into a stretch. It was time to see what day two would bring.