Stratothrax
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Chapter 163
🕑 Added 2022-02-25 12:00:01 +0000 UTC◈ Chapter 163:
The party.
The welcoming party more specifically, the return of the prodigal son, a momentous moment in the Fenhorn family's history.
A party that they were going to crash.
Lyra bit her lip as she looked over her dress once more in the mirror, a very preggers opal beside her, trying to help by stroking the folds of the dress to make it appear more natural, which helped precisely zero percent.
Lyra looked… Regal, was probably the best word, or divine. Pickle standing in front of her with her hands on her hips looked her up and down and nodded in satisfaction as though she was the one responsible for the dress. She had gotten a gold necklace from somewhere, which she seemed to believe made her an official of some kind.
They were in Warwick's compound making the final checks before getting ready to leave, the sun was slowly setting and night was beginning to fall. Soon the party would begin and Lyra, with Rain as cargo in her woolspace, would have to bluff her way inside.
Her nerves were admittedly starting to get to her.
She turned to see Rain ducking through into the room. He had put on some height since they had started going after the gangs, access to high growth food in levelers tended to cause that. He was now a staggering nine foot nine inches and he had to lean down a lot as his shoulders brushed against the ceiling.
Lya wondered how it would feel to be even more dominated by him, to feel like even more helpless prey, a bigger and bigger more dominant-
She paused. Maybe Opal's obsession with growth was starting to rub off on her.
"We're leaving. They'll have started letting people in by now."
"A Lady is never late, she arrives exactly when she means to." sniffed Lyra, then softening her noble act, "Yeah, time to get going."
Opal glanced up at her.
"Are you sure you got this sheepy? If they realise something is up…"
"I… think so. Pretty sure I've got this, at least."
Lyra gathered her belongings as she spoke, stuffing them into the dimensional bag before affixing it under her skirt from a convenient hoop.
"What's the worst that can happen right? They just won't let me into the party and Rain will have to figure something else out to get at his tormentors."
Opal rolled her eyes, "Whatever, just keep in mind we're relying on you."
Once ready Rain stepped outside and Lyra and Opal hurried to follow.
Outside they found Warwick's family dining at a newly purchased carved oak table, each of them wearing much finer clothing than when they had last seen them.
"Ah! Rain darling, how are you!" exclaimed Velatha, a goblet of wine swishing in her hand.
Rain gave her a blank look, the change in attitude since they had been made obscenely wealthy via a monster was a little jarring to say the least.
"You're acting weird," said Opal, crossing her arms over her belly and glaring at the human.
Velatha had the shame to look a little guilty. "How are you supposed to feel when a monster suddenly makes you rich? Money may not buy happiness, but poverty doesn't buy anything you know, excuse me if it takes a little to acclimatise to being fabulously wealthy."
"Those monsters who made you rich are awesome by the way and you should be kissing and licking my feet in gratitude," nodded Opal.
Warwick stiffened hearing that, struggling to control a spasm of rage.
"I reluctantly respect the big one, but the goblin?" he scowled until Velatha thumped him in the shoulder.
"Don't worry, he's very grateful. Cried his eyes out after you left, made all sorts of doe eyed promises about setting up orphanages, like an angel reborn into the body of a gruff grumpy bastard this one."
"Stop talking woman!" roared Warwick, a little panic on his face.
Rain let out a sigh, was this what he had wanted? He wasn't sure, literally throwing so much gold at a person until their monster biases broke down under the sheer weight of gratefulness was certainly one way to brute force attitude change. But that was only going to work on some and only as long as he had the gold to spare.
In the end though he had just wanted to see Pickle cared for.
There was no guarantee of surviving Brax's welcoming party, purposefully going into a party full to the brim of what would likely be some of the most powerful levelers in the entire city and trying to assassinate three of them? Only sneaking into Wranvyre's mansion came remotely close yet this he suspected would be even more dangerous.
He watched as Pickle rushed out from the building and raced through the grass, clambering up onto the tabletop and trying to drink from a goblet of wine to Velather's shriek of "No Pickle, don't drink that!!"
He left the family to be a family and turned away, following Lyra and Opal as they made their way down stairs, down the double plank steel reinforced steps and out into the alley. There he picked up Lyra and opal and together they slipped into invisibility.
It was dark by the time they reached their destination, Brax's mansion in the noble district, although the streets around it were lit up bright by chains of hanging lanterns.
They hid in an alley and Lyra dropped her invisibility flipping from white wool to black. A moment later Vash plopped out, a singular rat skeleton holding up his skull. The rat had been prior cleaned before being allowed in her wool of course and even then under protest.
"I'm not sure how helpful you can be, Vash, but if you insist."
"Letting my prized brute just wander into danger without aid would be quite pointless. I will be sending rats to help scout."
Rain nodded at the skull before crawling into Lyra's wool, Opal hopping in behind him.
Once inside of woolspace he found Red, the kobold lazing on a pile of gold and snoring faintly. Opal skipped across the treasure pool and found a chair, dragging it over to the vanta black entrance wall to perch on its edge next to Rain as he pressed up against it.
He pressed his head carefully against the impenetrably dark surface and carefully peered back out. He found himself much like when he had first entered the city, peeking from Lyra's wool with a single yellow eye. His sight was very close to the ground and slightly hidden by the edge of Lyra's skirt, he was peering from her thigh and he had a view looking down at Vash wobbling about on top of his rat skeleton.
"Just scout around and make sure we don't get caught out by anything, okay? I don't want a million guards coming down on our heads." said Lyra.
The rat skeleton gave a clumsy salute, nearly dropping Vash's skull in the process and needing to stagger to keep upright.
"Quite."
Lyra nodded and then stepped from the alleyway and onto the main thoroughfare.
The street was filled with incredibly ornate coaches and Lyra slunk around them until the entrance was in view. The great gates of the estate were swung open allowing guests past the heavily enchanted and otherwise entirely impenetrable walls.
There was a crowd there who didn't notice her as she first approached, but as one turned, so did others until hundreds were looking in her direction and she was feeling awkwardly self conscious.
She almost shied away until she recalled that she was supposed to be playing the haughty noble. Her stride became more confident and she put on an air of looking down her nose at the peasants.
Inside woolspace Rain peered from beneath her skirt at the guests trying to get in. It was quite crowded, a sign of how important a social event the party was. He spotted ankle length dresses absolutely everywhere which made Lyra with her thigh high dress stand out rather a lot. He wondered if that had been a mistake considering the stares she was getting.
Lyra ignored the stares as she marched up the entrance where a number of guards were letting people pass through a roped off section. Without hesitation she approached.
"Ma'am."
She paused as a guard stepped in front of her blocking her path.
"Uh, h-hey. I mean, uh, You dare step upon my chosen path you sub-sapient worm?!"
Rain screwed his eyes shut and cringed. Sometimes it seemed the sheep girl needed a few minutes to get into her acts.
The guard gave her a startled look, the clipboard drooping in his hands slightly.
"Do you even know who I am? Just looking upon my stunning beauty is enough to put your job in great peril."
"Uh, s-sorry ma'am but you need an invite or-
"Do I look like the kind of leveler who moves at the beck and call of others? That I need 'permission' from those below me to do as I wish? What kind of a world do you think we live in? If I don't get what I want then I will simply kill all who deign to have the arrogance to step in my way."
Lyra lifted a hand, motion smooth, fingers rolling as though she was about to unleash some horrifying magic upon him and melt his flesh from his bones.
"-O-or a b-being vouched for by another guest w-will-
"Your shrivelled corpse shall be my invite if you wish to press your luck human. Remove yourself from my grand entrance or suffer agony and ultra death."
The man cowered in front of Lyra, clearly expecting to be publicly killed by a particularly powerful and mentally unstable high leveler.
"B-but j-just a vouch-"
Lyra narrowed her eyes.
"Anyone, will anyone please vouch for her?'' screamed the human, turning and staggering to look over the crowd.
No one replied at first and the man's face became pale as a sheet.
That is until a hand rose from the back.
"I don't mind vouching for her, this one is quite… interesting."
The sense of relief from the human was enough to make his body sag, knees turning inward. He looked up, smiling to see his saviour as the crowd parted for them.
An elf stepped through, an elf wearing a slim black dress, a strange feathered creature perched on her shoulder.
The smile of relief dropped from the human's face so fast that it practically bounced.
"L-Lady Murmer," he choked out. "W-we weren't sure if you would-"
"Yet you delivered an invite to my door all the same. I thought it might be amusing to come see what all the fuss is about"
"A-ah yes, of course."
Rain peered at the woman from under Lyra's skirt.
She was elegant, even for an elf, with long straight black hair and luminous red eyes. Her dress was slender and marked with complex patterns in various shades of darker black. What was most eye-catching was the thing on her shoulder. It appeared as a ball of snow white bird wings curled over each other, but there was no head for the thing, or tail; it was simply a dozen plus wings shaped into a ball. The thing was clearly alive with the way it shifted around, its four bird legs clutching at her shoulder.
"Odd…." he mumbled.
Opal pulled back from where she was peering through the dark.
"Isn't that a monster on her shoulder?"
"Yes, but clearly not a physically strong one, so it can't be for the social status."
Back outside Lyra lifted a respectful eyebrow in the elf's direction before taking a step toward the gate.
But she was blocked yet again by the simpering human, who practically shrieked as he cowered.
"Th-there needs to be a check of your levels! No low level charlatans allowed! We know the level of the invited already but-"
Lyra practically growled, giving a not half bad impression of Rain's own growl.
"You want to do what?"
A shaking trembling gloved hand darted into his pocket and produced a black marble.
"Y-you just need to touch it!"
"'I just need to turn your skin inside out' is what I'm hearing from your lips. Oh well if you insist."
"Ah, as I am vouching for you, you are my responsibility," said the elf, stepping forward.
She casually waved her hand in the air and to Rain's shock the air rippled and two strange monsters made of grown wood and wearing what looked like butler uniforms stepped out of thin air, their faces featureless wooden surfaces.
They each carried trays with glasses on which they brought over to Lyra and the elf.
Lyra stared at the drink, it appeared as liquid gold flecked with pink and glowed faintly.
"A beverage as expensive as an entire ship. Perhaps this will momentarily assuage you while your level is checked, I promise you you won't find such a thing within these walls, few here could afford it."
Lyra glanced between the elf and the drink being held by the butler in surprise.
"I… suppose this is acceptable."
Rain really did not think so, taking strange drinks from strange monster butlers hardly seemed like the wisest of moves but then rejecting it might cause more trouble than not judging by the reverence the elf attracted. Trouble they wanted to avoid.
Lyra seemed to have made a similar calculation and plucked up the drink, holding the glass stem daintily.
"Fine, do as you wish with your pathetic level check."
The guard nodded furiously and then came forward, hand extended with marble to touch her hand.
At the last moment Lyra shifted and the man's hand plunged into the wool of her forearm causing him to unbalance and stumble.
Rain was taken by surprise as the hand plunged through the wall, the marble it held striking him on the nose as it passed by.
A moment later the hand was withdrawn.
Rain had a sudden rush of dismay. If that thing were to actually read his current level, well, he doubted it would be impressing anyone considering he was currently a lower level than Lyra.
"What are you doing, you clumsy oaf!" hissed Lyra, kicking at the man as he stumbled past, which with her hooves hurt rather a lot.
Practically pissing himself the guard turned back to her.
"I- I'm terribly sorry I didn't mean to- to touch-"
He paused as he noticed the marble in his gloved hand starting to heat. He held it up, blinking in surprise. The crowd's attention was drawn to it too as the numbers rolling across its surface started to flicker, jumping rapidly from forty, sixteen, five, nineteen, thirty-six, the numerals curving, becoming fang like.
“Not a leveler,” hissed Opal, eyeing the orb from within woolspace. "It lies!"
A moment later smoke started to wisp off the black orb’s surface and the fang numbers spun by ever faster, more teeth, then a flickering maw appearing as the orb began to glow red raw with heat, a faint whine emantating as it started to vibrate and shake in the guard's glove.
A sound that twisted into a scream came from the orb and the guard dropped it with a cry of fright. It struck the white flag stones and rolled several feet before sinking down, the stone bubbling around it as the heat massively increased, the stone cracking in spiderwebs around as the temperature fluctuated. Spots of magma began oozing around it, then a puddle of half molten lava, heat radiating from it in waves.
The orb continued to scream, the blurred shatter-star teeth within falling in on themselves, teeth within teeth, concentric maws, serrated white teeth starting to emerge from its surface, a mess of violent motion that slowly slipped from view as the black marble gradually sunk into its own molten lake, creating a hole that went deep, deep into the ground, a hole without bottom, for who knew when the marble would stop screaming.
The audience of aghast and open mouthed guests stared at the melted hole in the ground, sputtering magma across the nearby carpet and setting small fires which the guards hurried to stamp out.
"If you wish to know my level then you are quite welcome to find out. Simply collect that level orb… from the bottom of the dungeon… and see for yourself."
Lyra turned on her heel and strode through the entrance leaving the guards leaping to get out of her way and a crowd of wide eyed guests and hangers on staring at her back.
---
Vash didn't have any hand with which to clutch his head in distress, as it was he gave two rats either side of him the assignment, their skeletal paws placed on his bone forehead as he stared down at the entrance from his elevated position on one of the nearby buildings.
His eyes weren't directed at Lyra as she strode into the estate, no, his green flamed gaze was affixed solely on the black haired elf.
"It can't be, it can't be her, how is she still alive after all this time," he hissed.
