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Weeaboo Chapter 34- Mad as a…
🕑 Added 2024-04-04 16:05:01 +0000 UTCFleeing the squeaky voiced metallic tree stump, we ran into the next room on the right.
“The Steel Egret?” I read the sign over the door.
“There’s another sign here- Hattie’s Hat Shop.” Versai pointed.
“Let’s start with The Steel Egret.”
We walked into what I can only describe as a hat-universe. A tiny sealed dimension that consisted only of women’s hats and means to display said hats.
Shelf after inescapable shelf of little fascinators or sombrero sized hats decorated like a mountain surrounded by forests. There were hats made to look like the Tower. Many hats had a military theme. There were feathers beyond counting, buckles and buttons and straps and gold piping and drop down goggles galore.
It was dizzying. I could feel my already shaky grasp on conventional sanity starting to slip as I tried to parse just what I was seeing.
“Ah, the Tower Master, at last.” No squeaks this time. A rather sober female voice, polite but no nonsense. I almost sobbed in relief. At last, an anchor in the sea of brimmed madness!
“Yes, I am he. I’m sorry, where are you?” I looked around, seeing only hats, displays for hats, and a statue of the store’s namesake.
“Directly in front of you.”
I blinked. The statue of the Steel Egret blinked back. My sanity decided to go out like a man, not one finger at a time but violently flinging itself away from the cliff face.
“You know what? Sure. Why not? You are the owner of this shop?”
The bird just blinked at me. Right. Right. The store interfaces were at One-Star-ish levels of intelligence. Such fun. Such, such fun.
“What do you sell here?” He said, because really, who could even guess?
“Hats. We sell hats for women. However, all our hats are custom pieces. Not just anyone can wear one of our creations. In fact, they fit only one person. We therefore cannot provide you with a hat without a Millinary Order.”
I nodded at this. Who the order was from never got a mention on the orders. Nor to whom. Just that there was an order, and a person was getting a hat.
“Understood. So I can’t buy things with Rune Bones?”
“Certainly not! Though we do have some very special, limited availability, seasonal items that may be purchased with Frozen Diamonds.” I don’t think I had ever seen an offended bird before. And now I have. Who says video games aren’t educational?
Just going to skate right past the whole “Frozen Diamond” thing. The Premium currency screw job was likely inescapable. It could be earned in-game. This was far from the worst I had ever seen.
I took a quick shuffle through my millinery orders. None for any characters I had summoned. Shame.
“I don’t suppose I can buy Millinary Orders here?”
“Orders, Tower Master, come from the top.” And that was apparently all there was to say about that. I shrugged at Versai, who shrugged back. We made our way through the bewildering mushroom-forest of displayed hats, and back to the intersection.
“Hattie’s Hat Shop?” Versai asked.
“Sounds good.”
We went through the door and into… I don’t know what. A fitting room? Measuring room? There was a little platform hemmed in on three sides by mirrors. The walls were covered in dark green velvet curtains, so dark they were almost black. Thick oriental rugs covered the floor, muffling the sounds of our steps.
There was a single plushly upholstered leather armchair near the platform. It was subtly rounded, though its low back gave it a more modern appearance. The whole space smelled of wood polish and worn leather, lit by a single brilliant spotlight on the central platform.
Versai and I looked around in confusion.
“Are we… supposed to stand on the platform or something? Maybe ring a bell for help?”
She shrugged. “No idea. I don’t see a bell though, Tower Master.”
“Don’t suppose I could get you to call me Liam?”
“No chance. Sorry.”
“Don’t be. Not your fault.”
“Oh I was just being polite.” She flicked her superlative fingers at me.
There was a long beat.
“I guess I will go stand on that thing, then.” I said, desperate to break the awkwardness that clearly only I was feeling.
I stepped over to it. And… nothing happened.
“Well that’s anti-clima….” A smooth, slender white hand traced its fingers along my head. Another appeared, and they grasped my head between them. I could see them in the mirror. Arms, slender and pale, came over my shoulders, emerging from the darkness. I tried to turn my head, but those soft fingers turned to iron bands.
“No, no. Now you are in Hattie’s world, Tower Master. Ah! But you come bearing gifts, so Hattie appreciates you. Yes, aaaahhhh. Yes. Hattie appreciates you.”
The voice was low, soft, female.
“Do you know, Tower Master, what the most seductive part of the skull is? It is the zygomatic arch.” Her fingers started tracing across my face, over to the side of my head. “A thin span of bone, linking the zygomatic bone, crossing over the greater wing of the sphenoid, before plunging into, unifying with, the temporal bone.”
Her long, cool fingers traced along the side of my head, ending just above my ear.
“An ossified orgy of utility and aesthetics. All ending here, just above the external acoustic meatus. That… lesser penetration, juxtaposed with the great receptive orifice here-” She tapped my jaw. “The mandible. Hanging from that sensuous arch, providing a savage, primitive frame for the sloppy meat hole.”
One hand ran through the hair on the back of my head, slowly closing and making a fist. Holding my hair hard, but not painfully. The other traced a cool index finger from my jawline along my throat.
I whimpered.
“The frontal bone is so crudely jutting forward. But we need that crudeness, don’t we? To bring out the spice and subtlety of the details. It must be present, but restrained. Are you capable of restraint, Tower Master?”
I shivered, trying to speak but incapable of making words.
“Come to me when you are ready to have a hat made. For the crude, ordinary things, I will take those silly runed bones. But for my best work, the things that will make you a better man, I need diamonds. Frozen Diamonds, and if you are very lucky, special materials. Then, Tower Master, I can make you something. Very. Special.”
She breathed the last few words into my ear, somehow never appearing in the mirror.
The hand holding my hair nodded my head.
“Good. And for my very, very special customers, I might even let you see me. If you earn it. But I am quite... demanding. Goodbye now, Tower Master. Your purse is a little too light to buy even my most common goods. Come back when you have more under your belt. But do remember- I am very demanding. And worth it.”
The door shut, and somehow we were on the other side of it. “Hattie’s Hat Shop- Closed. Unless You Can Show Me Something Worth Opening For.”
It seemed the Tower Master could change the signs after all. I needed a minute. And an adult.
“Your hat! Your hat changed, but I never saw her touch it.” Versai gasped.
I blinked and pulled my Robin Hood hat off my head. It was from Hattie’s Hat Shop originally- a newbie gift. Green, pointed, with a long red feather. The hat looked the same, but the feather had been replaced with something sleeker, and more interesting.
“Is that a… pheasant feather? Or Patrage or something?”
“I don’t know. We always hunted deer or boar. Looks good though.” Versai shrugged. I was about to put it back on, when I checked to see if the description of it had changed.
Provides a +.005% bonus to draw higher rarity Awakened Souls, and to complete sets.
I blinked and looked back over at Hattie’s. On the one hand, you couldn’t get me back in there with a pointy stick. On the other, long, cool, sensious hand…
No. 2-D all the way! Never give up, never surrender! The stat bonuses would have to be much, MUCH higher than this to lure me back to that dark, mysterious, seductive, place…
“Let's go to the next room shall we?” I said,
“Yes… yes. Lets.” Versai wasn’t meeting my eyes for some reason.
The second to last room was labeled Made To Measure. Costumes for the summons. I actually had some orders I could cash in here, though again, I don’t think any of them were for Awakened Souls I had summoned yet.
This room was refreshingly recognizable. It was a women’s clothing store. Lots of mannequins. Lots of pictures on the walls, and an aggressively Kawaii clerk in a pink confection of frills, ruffles, lace, and ribbons. Technically she was wearing a dress. Practically, she was wearing the shop’s entire catalog.
“Hey! Welcome to Made To Order! We are so excited to have you here!” Her voice was cheerful, upbeat, and in no way threatening. She was instantly my favorite.
“And what is your name?” I asked. She just blinked at me. Right. Hattie was a late addition per the note on the notice board. Much more work was put into developing her, apparently.
I am going to do unspeakable things to Rosalia’s soul. The whole dev team, in fact, but I’ll start with her and work my way down.
I had a look through my Made To Order receipts, and, to my quiet surprise, found one for a character I actually had. A recent addition. Had a fancy brass border to it.
“I have a receipt here for Pomoroi?”
“Oh yes! The Steelheart uniform! I will bring it at once.”
A little status screen popped up. There was a picture of Pomoroi, wearing a uniform similar to what she had now, but with a lot more gold braid on the epaulets and a fist sized medal pinned to her chest. It was shaped like the head of a lion, connected by a silver chain to a button on her jacket.
She looked sharp. If you were into that aesthetic, she was downright killing it. Hard to appreciate the fit, though, because of the expression on her face.
The look in her eyes was hard enough to shatter stone like glass.
There was some flavor text beneath the picture-
Captain Elizbet Pomoroi earned the title Steelheart for her unflinching defense of the village of Germain St. ‘e -Ventqui, fighting to the very last moment rather than retreating.
Orders came from the Emperor that the Fifth Army was to fall back in good order, taking care to preserve as much of their strength as possible.
Captain Pomoroi concluded that her cannons would be impossible to evacuate in a timely manner, and any attempt to do so would hinder the Army’s retreat to a fatal degree. Indeed, even if they abandoned the cannons, the Army simply could not outrun the monsters.
Captain Pomoroi concluded that her battery could dig in and stop the advancing monsters long enough to let the main body of the Army escape intact. So she did exactly that.
“My orders are clear and my duty is clearer. It has been my eternal honor to carry the Emperors’ commission. Death holds no terrors compared to disgracing his trust. Therefore, this Pomoroi, by Imperial Decree, shall hold this ground until my last breath. I shall stitch the firing lanyard of my canon to my hand, so that even in death, I may kill my Emperor’s enemies.”
It is said that when the Emperor heard the report, he wept, and ordered her name and likeness enshrined in the same Imperial Orphanage she was raised in. Honored with the name Steelheart, and her epitaph written by his own hand.
All Empire of Gaspee Artillery +30 Damage, +20 Defense -50 movement rate when deployed with Steelheart Pomoroi.
I collapsed against a wall. Sinking down until I was on the floor. An orphan. God only knows what it took to get a captain’s commission in a feudal army like hers. God only knows how hard she fought to keep it. Frozen out by the officers above her and the enlisted below. Isolated. Frustrated. Disrespected by everyone except the only person she ever gave a damn about.
Pomoroi, by Imperial Decree.
Comments
Lazerus56
I'm not crying, your crying. Warby I'm sending you the dry cleaning bill for my once immaculate shirt.
phantom
I am not fond of hats. That said she is totally worth it.
