Grimmy stared down at the unconscious girl who was lying by his front paws. He was looking at her, but his mind seemed to be elsewhere. A few moments later, he blinked before yawning, his tail stretching and arching as it rose off the ground, piercing the ceiling. With a crash, his tail hit the ground as he smacked his lips a few times. He turned his head to the side, dropping down and resting one cheek on his paws, nearly crushing the armored girl underneath. “When’s she going to wake up?”

“Why would I know?” Lindyss asked. She was running a brush through her hair as she sat on a stump. It was light out, the sun barely peeking over the horizon. Beside her, two phoenixes were huddled against her waist, shivering in the breeze. A frown appeared on the cursed elf’s lips as she lowered her head and glared at the two trembling birds. “How is it that you two are cold? Aren’t you phoenixes?”

“I’ve been stripped of my down,” Emile said. “It’s only obvious that I’d be cold!”

“I have to pretend to be cold or Emile will strip me too,” Susan said. “I’m actually very warm.”

Lindyss’ expression darkened as she moved her hair away from the two birds. The ends were curling from the heat coming off of them. “Since it was your down, you should know when that girl will wake up.”

“I don’t know…,” Emile said as he followed after Lindyss’ hair, walking across her lap. “You beat her up pretty bad. It’d be normal to never wake up again after that, you know? If we weren’t around, you’d be a murderer.”

Grimmy snorted. “She’s already a murderer, one more body doesn’t matter.”

Emile’s eyes widened as he froze midstride. He trembled as he tilted his neck up, making eye contact with Lindyss. She smiled at Emile, causing a few feathers to fall off of him as he trembled. “Calm down,” Lindyss said, reaching out to pet the poor phoenix. Emile tried to dodge, but Lindyss’ hand flashed and clamped down on his skull, preventing him from moving. “Grimmy was just joking. Does someone as sweet as me seem like she’d be a murderer?”

“No, of course not,” Emile said, his voice stiff.

“That’s right,” Lindyss said, her smile widening. She turned to face Grimmy as she released Emile. “See? This phoenix knows…. Are you stripping her?”

“Yup,” Grimmy said as he used the tips of his claws to pry off Mary’s armor. “If you won’t let me play with her sword, I’ll take her armor.”

“Is her armor even special?” Lindyss asked, raising an eyebrow. “I thought it was her blood.”

“She’s only been imprinted by a turtle,” Grimmy said as he slid a second gauntlet off of Mary. “That won’t make her blood resistant to magic. It’s the armor and sword that have built-in null-magic effects.” He pried off Mary’s sabatons and raised one of them up, bringing it to his eye. He blinked and placed it down. “It’s really been a long time since I’ve seen blood magic like this. There used to be a bunch of lunatics on the southern continent that loved this kind of stuff. The head of that cult probably fled over here. I always wondered where he went, but it seems like that mystery’s cleared up.”

“You don’t believe the natives of this continent independently developed blood magic?”

“Nah,” Grimmy said, shaking his head as he dug the tip of his claw into the crack by Mary’s waist between her upper and lower armor pieces. “I recognize these runes because I taught that crazy fellow how to make them. He wanted power and I thought it’d be interesting to give him something like this, but he ended up hating me for some reason.”

“For some reason,” Lindyss said, rolling her eyes. “I wonder why.”

“Probably because he needed the blood of a relative to draw them,” Grimmy said with a shrug. “Hmm, that’s weird. This armor won’t come off.”

“Don’t shrug off something like that,” Lindyss said, her expression darkening. “What do you mean blood of a relative?”

“Ah, you know,” Grimmy said, waving his claw in the air. “You can’t have power without sacrificing something. It’s just not right, so I added a condition to his strength. Every so often, the runes would try to suck out all his blood unless he gave them similar blood to drink. Looks like this girl’s been doing fine by replenishing her blood with that turtle’s imprint though.” A low chuckle escaped from Grimmy’s throat as he smiled with his teeth bared. “His descendants must’ve gone crazy looking for a way to preserve themselves. Seems like they found one.”

“Preserve themselves? The runes are hereditary?”

“Of course,” Grimmy said, eyeing Lindyss. “What, you think the power to slay dragons comes for free? Think of what your boyfriend Vincent had to give up to put Nova to sleep.”

“Shut up,” Lindyss said, her expression turning dark. Emile and Susan stiffened and inched away from the shadows that were creeping out of Lindyss.

“Mm? Are you going to start hating me too?” Grimmy asked, raising an eyebrow. He grinned at her. “You know you don’t want to do that.”

Lindyss sighed as the shadows crawling out of her were sucked back into her body. “These runes you created,” she said, gesturing towards Mary, “what else do they do other than null-magic? You said they were strong enough to slay a dragon, but null-magic alone won’t do that.”

“They can do a lot,” Grimmy said, “but it seems like this girl hasn’t learned it at all for some reason, or the knowledge’s been forgotten since a really long time has passed after all. If she could use the runes to their full potential, you might’ve been the one lying on the ground right now. Well, I can’t blame her, really. She’d have to sacrifice ten relatives or die ten times over to truly bring out the runes’ power.”

“Other than telling me, ‘look at how damn awesome I am for creating these super-powerful runes,’ you really haven’t told me anything about what they can do,” Lindyss said.

“Well, yeah,” Grimmy said. “It won’t be fun if you’re already prepared for the next fight between you two. That’s like watching a rigged fight. Boring.”

“Why am I fighting her again…?”

“You think she’s going to give up once she wakes up?”

Lindyss’ gaze shifted onto Mary. “You’re right. As long as I have her sword, she won’t. What a pain.”

Grimmy chuckled. “Maybe she’ll make a new one. That crazy cult leader must’ve left behind a lair somewhere with all his information.” He picked Mary up and manipulated her limbs as if he were playing with a doll. “I wonder if she knows where it is. Oh. That’s why her armor wouldn’t come off. Looks like she fused it with her spine. Neat.”