Chapter 40 - Edge of the Abyss III

The pair set out early the next morning, almost immediately after sunrise. For once, Claire had managed to sleep through the entire night with not a single lucid dream or vision of the past. Better yet, she had awoken naturally. Her face was nowhere near the floor and her nose was safe from any would-be assailants. All the signs seemed to say that she was sure to be well rested. But she wasn’t. Her neck was killing her; its right side screamed whenever she moved, no doubt in part because her arms were far from serviceable, as far as pillows went.

Why didn’t it hurt any of the other days?

Attempting to solve the mystery only served to highlight another equally obnoxious problem. Her head was aching. The dull, pounding pain in the back of her skull refused to leave her alone. It wasn’t crippling and it had been slowly getting better over the course of the morning, but it was still obnoxious and omnipresent.

“Are you sure you’re okay, Claire? You look really pale and your legs seem a little shaky.”

Sylvia looked back as she poked her head out of a short thick shrub. There were a few leaves stuck in her fur, but she didn’t mind, or notice for that matter. Such was the norm for a creature that wove in and out of the undergrowth.

“I’m fine. Stop asking.”

Claire nudged the fox as she spoke, magically prodding the side of her face so that she would stop looking back.

“Okay, okay, I get it! You don’t have to push me! I was just worried!”

“I know.”

“Then why are you still pushing me!?”

“Practice?” said the rogue, in an uncertain tone. The truth of the matter was that she wasn't quite sure herself.

“You’re so mean. Can’t you be at least a tiny bit nicer? It doesn’t hurt to say something like, ‘thanks Sylvia, I’m okay,’ does it?”

“It doesn’t,” admitted the bluescale.

“Then why aren't you? I thought nobles were supposed to be good at pretending to be nice to people! Dad always says that they’re fat two-faced jerks with promises as empty as their hearts.”

“Only the ones with less power and influence.”

“Oh… Well it doesn’t matter! I still think you should be nice to people. Everyone will be nicer to you if everyone knows you’re a good person! I swear it works! Everyone back at home is always super nice and it makes me want to be nice to them too,” said Sylvia, as she stopped in front of the tree house.

“Am I being nice to you?”

“Well...”

“Exactly.” A smug smile briefly appeared on Claire’s face as she reached for the two dimensional door painted on the tree’s trunk. “Wait here. I’ll be out shortly.”

“You’re not going to hurt him, right? I know you probably won’t but I just need to make sure because he’s really old and gets hurt really easily. I don’t think he can grow his tails back anymore either.”

“No. That would be unproductive.”

Taking a deep breath, the bluescale crouched under the open doorway. It was time for her to negotiate with an obnoxious old fox, in a way that only a perfectly reasonable person could.

___

A few minutes later, Claire emerged from the plant-based home with one less runecloak on her person.

“Wow, that was quick!” said Sylvia, who was curled up by the door. “Both of you are really stubborn, so I was sure you were going to scream at each other for like an hour! Did you give up?”

“He said it’ll be ready by the time I’m done with my quest,” said the rogue, as she took a seat next to the door.

“Huh?” Sylvia blinked. Thrice.

“Let’s go. Hurry up.”

“Wait! Wait!!” The fox pushed her tail into Claire’s face and started waving it back and forth. “How did you get him to listen to you!? Grant hates torches. He probably hates you even more because of what you did to his stuff.”

Claire shrugged before grabbing Sylvia by the feather duster and putting her back on the ground. “He listened to me because I’m reasonable.”

“Umm… if you say so.” The fox turned her eyes away. Her ears drooped and her tail fell onto the grass beside her. “So are you ready to go to Borrok Peak now? Or do you need to do anything else?”

Prompted by her guide, the half lamia gave all of her gear a final once over. Her club was present and mounted on her back, her daggers were strapped to her thighs, and a pair of antler blades hung from her waist. Her shoulder bag was missing, but that was because she had intentionally left it in the den.

“I’m ready.”

“Okay! Then you might want to eat some of these before we head out.” Sylvia walked up to a bush and picked a cluster of dark green berries.

“Why?”

“They’ll make you feel much better. They taste really bad, so they might be a bit tough to swallow, but they should fix you right up, since you probably don’t want to fight when you’re not feeling so good.”

Claire reached for the cluster, but stopped short of grabbing it.

“This is another prank, isn’t it?”

“O-of course not,” said Sylvia, as she took a small step backwards. “Why would I ever do that?”

There was a brief moment of silence, during which the force mage slowly raised the hand she had under her cloak. She was confident that she had the other girl in her grasp, but a musical note got in her way the moment she tried to reel her in. The spell detonated as it made contact with her face, exploding into a blast of water big enough to soak her through.

“Gotcha!”

Shouting gleefully, the fox darted off into the forest at top speed. None of the bushes or trees in her way mattered to her. She phased right through all of them, her body turning translucent the moment before impact.

“Get back here!”

A less-than-thrilled Claire begrudgingly chased after her. The rogue was well aware that it was just another one of the fox’s games, but she played along either way; she knew that the vixen was still leading her in the direction she needed to go.

More importantly, the four-legged fluffball made for the perfect practice dummy. The freshly crowned force mage was going to need to be able to hit fast moving targets if she wanted to use her newfound magic in battle, and the fox was far quicker than any of the swamp-meadow’s other monsters. Bolstering her elusivity even further were the spells she threw into the mix. She didn’t just phase through things. She also created an endless number of floating platforms shaped like musical notes. They didn’t support Claire’s weight, but the fox could use them to run through the air.

The game of tag lasted much longer than the thirty-odd minutes that Claire had expected. They spent several hours navigating the woodland. Passing through the veabers’ territory, the two arrived at a region that featured nothing but evergreens. The tall but thin conifers were difficult for Claire to climb, and Sylvia stayed far out of her reach until they made it into the next area. That, however, wasn’t to say that the fox had gotten the better of her. What started as a game of tag soon devolved into a pine cone fight, courtesy of the bluescale’s less than perfect temper. Claire was confident that she had come out on top of that particular encounter; she landed at least twice as many hits.

Next was an area populated by nothing but large hills on both sides. They moved in opposite undulating patterns. While the two worlds never met, they came close on several occasions. Many of the forest’s hills were so tall that Claire had to duck to stop herself from getting a facefull of marshwater. Likewise, many of the meadows extended so far that she had to crawl to get underneath them. The few trees that were around grew straight into the swamp. Their canopies were buried in the muddy lake, but somehow, they were unaffected. It was almost like they didn’t care that they were more than half submerged.

The sheer number of tight spaces meant that the shorter Sylvia once again had the edge, but Claire still managed to catch her, albeit only once. Her ability to squeeze through tight spaces had thrown the fox for a loop. Literally. The four legged critter had spiralled out of control after being tossed through the air.

Area five was a calmer district with little to no life. The woodland was nothing but waist high shrubs, and all of the trees that did exist were dried-up old husks. The hollow blackened trunks sprang not from the forest, but from the marsh. And it was there, on the edge between the fourth and fifth areas, that Sylvia finally stopped. Claire slowed her pace as well, coming to a halt right next to the canid, who had risen to her hind legs.

“We’re here! This is where Mirewood Meadow ends. Oh ummm, actually it’s only one of the places where it ends. There’s a whole bunch of them, but this is one of the far corners. No one really comes here unless they really have to, and I think that’s probably why the borroks live here too.” Sylvia turned to face Claire. “But before we go into any of that, how was that game of tag? Fun? I know you enjoyed it!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Claire crossed her arms and turned to face the other direction.

“And you’re probably feeling a lot better now, right? It looked like you weren’t feeling all that great at the start, but you’re not looking nearly as pale anymore.”

The rogue rolled her eyes as she sat down next to the fox. “Yes, I am feeling better, but it has nothing to do with running around chasing you.”

“Uh huh, I bet,” said Sylvia, with a light giggle. “Now look up there, at the swamp. You see where it drops?”

Claire followed her guide’s paw and directed her gaze upwards. Though it was a bit hard to make out at first, there certainly was a place where the marsh came to an abrupt stop. Several places, in fact, none of which were all that far away. But even as she stared, she couldn’t figure out exactly how the ground ended. It just did. Looking down, she realized that, while it was a bit harder to tell with all the greenery in the way, the forest was the same. There was a point where it just suddenly ceased to exist. The only thing that lay beyond, in the empty space between the two, was an endless sky.

“Why isn’t any of the water flowing off the edge?”

“I’m not really sure. That’s just how it’s always been. Kinda neat, right?”

Claire frowned, but she didn’t bother pursuing an answer. There was nothing to be done if the fox had no idea.

“Where’s Borrok Peak?”

“It’s right there.”

Claire squinted her eyes as she looked in the direction of the paw.

“I don’t see anything.”

“That’s just because you’re too far back. You’ll start to see it if you move up a tiny bit.”

Claire furrowed her brow, but abided by the fox’s suggestion. Standing up, she took a hesitant step forward.

Her field of view changed inexplicably. A rocky structure appeared where there had been nothing before and extended the path forward. Two massive sloping ramps, made of dark grey stone, grew from where the marsh and the forest suddenly ended. Each was curved inwards to form a towering spiral, one akin to a ram’s horn with the end bent so far that it faced forward. Only at their pointed tips did the two nearly parallel slabs finally meet.

Taking another step forward caused the structure to move further towards completion. Two additional walls suddenly appeared to its left and right, closing it off from the outside. A third step caused the world around her to turn a shade of grey, while the previously monochrome structure took on a rusted, irony hue.

“This is as far as I can take you. It’d count as cheating if I did anything else,” said Sylvia. “But I want to ask you something before I go.”

“What?”

“What do you plan to do when you leave Llystletein?”

The question stopped Claire in her tracks. Her hands dropped to her sides and she closed her eyes, only to slowly open them again as she shook her head. “I don’t know. At least not yet.”

“Huh? Then why’d you come to the library? Aren't you here for power or something?”

Again, the half lamia shook her head. “It was the only way for me to get away from my father.” She took a deep breath. “He wanted to use me. As a sacrifice.”

“Oh…” The fox’s ears bent forward. “Well um… I have to go now. I’ll be around when you’re done.”

“How will you know?”

“Trust me, I just will!” The fox, whose orange fur had been dyed a shade of grey, vanished as she took a step back, leaving nothing but her voice behind. “Don’t die!”

Of course. The only time she actually shuts up is when I want her to keep talking. Claire huffed to herself as she looked towards the colossal horn. After slowing her breathing and crouching to keep herself out of sight, she moved her hands to the weapons strapped to her waist and frowned.

She had no idea where her targets were, or how she was supposed to vandalize the massive tower of iron, even rusted as it was. But one thing was clear. It was time for her Force Mage class to gain its first level.