Chapter 76 - The Cursed Effigy VIII

Though they had no business remaining, the half-bred pair didn’t immediately abscond from the citadel. A simple “let’s explore,” from Claire had garnered an immediate cheer of approval from her co-conspirator and sent them on a journey through the city’s back alleys. Looking around the various half-destroyed buildings, they located a cellar bolted shut by an ancient padlock. The aged metal was frail, shattering with the slightest touch to reveal a subterranean space filled with generations of dead plants. It was about the size of a small home, its walls lined with empty shelves.

“Is it just me or is it kind of weird that no one lives here?” asked Sylvia. “Do you think we were the first ones to find it?”

Claire kicked the lid off a box and revealed the void that lay within. “I doubt it. It's already been stripped clean.”

The only things left behind were old pieces of wood too frail to serve as anything but kindling. Claire was tempted to order her horse to eat them, just in case there was some loot left behind, but gave up on the idea after realizing that she would have to taste cobwebs as old as her great uncle. It wasn’t as if she had anything against the thousand year old man, who was surprisingly kind and looked nowhere near as decrepit as his age would have otherwise suggested, but she couldn’t help but feel that his many long years came hand in hand with a lack of sanitation. She had no intention of ever performing his funeral rites, even if it was explicitly requested of her.

“Awww… Maybe the next house will have something better.”

Following Sylvia’s lead, Claire climbed out of the basement, left the ruined building, and continued through the alley she had found it in. Wandering through the back streets, they came upon a number of similar vaults, none of which had anything of value; they clearly hadn’t been the first pair of prospective treasure hunters to think of raiding the citadel, and there was no doubt that they wouldn’t be the last. Their exploratory trek eventually led to a large plaza. The square was a bit of an odd location. It was isolated from the city’s main road, connected instead to a series of obscure alleyways. The only thing of note was a statue, an effigy made of polished stone sitting smack in the middle of the otherwise empty court.

“Claire?”

Her heart accelerated as she eyed it. Slowly, her feet pushed forward, even though she had refrained from providing them with any instruction. Her eyes were just as insubordinate, refusing to budge when she tried to tear them away. The collapsed drunkard she inadvertently stepped on was noticed only in passing. She knew that he had groaned when crushed beneath the weight of her body. But she couldn’t bring herself to care. Not with her senses overloaded. The thumping in her chest was too loud for her to hear, the dry discomfort in her throat too intense for her to feel, and her rapidly flicking tongue too insensitive for her to smell.

“Umm… Claire?”

Her lower body tingled as her ears fluttered. Quickly enough to blur.

She felt the urge to run.

Away, and at it.

A set of thoughts she could hardly process robbed her mind of its function.

“Claire!”

Because it was a catgirl.

A statue of a catgirl, intricate enough to be mistaken for a real person.

Her hands were curled as if they were tiny little paws and her eyes were narrowed joyfully as if to match the way her lips were twisted into a toothy, fanged grin. Her tail was standing, half stretched out, and her ears were raised to express the full extent of their beauty. The clothes she wore made her look like a server at a bar. An establishment that would see the lyrkress’ patronage, time and time again.

“Come on, Claire! Snap out of it!”

Even uncoloured, a bland dark grey, she was tempting enough to smother.

“Claaaaire! Oh, screw it!”

There was a whistle followed by a dull thunk and a crack. Suddenly, the world started to rotate. A full ninety degrees. Everything pitched as she crashed into the floor, her head ringing.

Her head cleared as the pain finally registered. Sylvia had hit her. Hard. Waves of anguish pulsed through her spine. Pain flooded her system. Every last nerve in her head screamed and wailed. It was almost as bad as the time Shoulderhorse had failed to eat the pyramid. Still breathing heavily, Claire closed her eyes as she pushed herself off the ground. Her body was finally her own again. And that was precisely why she kept her eyes off it. She knew she couldn’t look, not without falling victim. Fortunately, she had the perfect solution in mind. Because as Sylvia had proven, violence was always the answer.

Shoulderhorse? A familiar sensation appeared on her shoulder as she summoned the phantom pony. Eat it.

She couldn’t see or hear the oddly-shaped equine. But she could feel the joy it relished as it devoured the effigy that had activated her curse. With another few deep breaths, she finally stood up and opened her eyes to find the world dyed a deep shade of red. Blood was running down the side of her face, and a copious amount of it at that. Looking at her health provided an explanation. Nearly half of her life force was missing.

“Did you need to hit me that hard?”

“Whew! You’re back!” Sylvia breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes! I did! I hit you lightly the first few times, but you weren’t responding, so I had to give you a good smack.”

“Oh…” Claire brought a hand to her face. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome! It’s all Al’s fault anyway. Stupid pervert.” Sylvia began humming a tune under her breath, one that soon enveloped both their bodies in a golden light. “There, all better.”

Nodding, the lyrkress got to her feet and trudged her way over to the nearest building. She collapsed as soon as she arrived, her side slumped against the wall. She shook her head side to side as she tried to rebuff the cold sensation that welled up from within. But it refused to leave her alone. The urge to vomit grew with every passing moment. Every breath it took made it worse. The freezing air that entered her lungs made her shake and tremble, like a foal lost in an icy storm.

“Claire?”

“I’m okay.”

She wanted to retch, to scream and reject the impulse that had overcome her.

Because it wasn’t a part of her.

She refused to believe that the burning desire that had plagued her mind was something that could have possibly belonged to the lady raised as Claire Augustus. There was something else inside of her, something foreign lurking in the back of her mind, threatening to consume her.

“Are you sure?”

Blinking back tears, she hugged her shoulders and took deep breaths. “Yes.” The crystal in her chest tore through her arms, but the pain was hardly noticeable with her self-loathing dialled to eleven.

Still, the urge to vomit grew stronger with every passing moment.

It felt like she had been violated.

She wanted to scrub herself clean, to wash her insides with soap and purge the thing inside of her. But she had no idea where to start. And more importantly, she didn’t want to face it. Even if she needed to stare it down to ensure it was thoroughly removed.

“You don’t look okay…”

“I’m fine,” she said, suppressing a whimper. “I’m fine.” Claire grabbed a half-broken windowsill and used it to pull herself to her feet. “Let’s go. Back to camp.”

The shame and revulsion were still there. The awful taste in her mouth refused to leave. She tried rinsing it out with stale water, but it didn’t help. If anything, she felt like it was growing more intense. She didn’t know how she was supposed to make it leave her alone. But evidently, remaining by the statue’s remains was not the right answer.

___

Claire continued to be plagued by the catgirl’s curse, even after returning to camp. The sand was comfortable and its malleability allowed her to lay down without having to worry about her side, but she was barely able to get any sleep. Malefic visions ate away at her mind each time she closed her eyes. She wanted to rest, but drifting off to dreamland seemed more like a risk than it did a chance at respite; losing her consciousness meant losing the ability to resist.

She had to hug Sylvia to calm her frayed nerves. Knowing that she was feeling under the weather, the fox didn’t protest or try to break free, conducting herself as would a stuffed animal through the night. Still, she woke up soon after each bout of sleep, her dreams afflicted by the same haunting delusions that tormented her in her bouts of insomnia. She suspected that the phantom would have helped to solve the problem, but the one time she wanted to see the strange man was the one time he refused to show up.

Come morning, the eyebag-laden lyrkress was only as rested as a soldier on night duty. She was still awake when the sun rose above the horizon and dyed the sea in its light and glory. Groaning, she slowly sat up, directed her gaze off into the distance, and stifled a yawn. There were visible bags under the former ritual mage’s eyes. Her breaths were still ragged and laboured, but at the very least, she was no longer trembling and had much less difficulty directing her mind away from the intrusive thoughts that threatened to overwhelm it.

Maybe doing something will help.

The first idea that came to mind was to visit the cat-sith and ask him to teach her his skills. Having forgotten to ask him for their names, she wasn’t sure of their value, but she doubted that obtaining them would serve as any sort of detriment. Even if they were useless, like lashing tailstrike and quadrupedal bloodrush, they could be ignored until absorbed into something more valuable. But she didn’t want to go back to the citadel. Not yet.

Killing things seemed like another decent use of her time. She was going to have to gain quite the number of levels if she wanted to become strong enough to take down a lord by herself. Thankfully, monsters in dungeons respawned; she had all the resources she needed on hand. All she needed to do was invest a few days in self-improvement. The slaughter of mindless beasts seemed like something that would likely help her take her mind off her worries, but she dismissed it in favour of finding a cow. If anything could make her feel better, it would be a perfectly seared steak, one of the few foods she had always enjoyed.

“Are you up?” she said, to the furball in her arms.

“Yup! Good morning Claire, hope you’re feeling better.”

Giving the fox one more squeeze, the bluescale set her down and stretched her arms. “I am.” She summoned a stream of stale water and quickly washed her face as she spoke. “Can you take me to the cows?”

“Sure!” Sylvia also did a bit of a stretch and stepped towards the beach, a bubble wrapping itself around her body before she touched the water. “They’re actually pretty close, since they like to hang out in the shallows.”

Claire raised a brow. “The cows can swim?”

“Yeah! And it looks like they’re really good at it since some of them are moving really fast. You might not even be able to catch them.” Sylvia’s voice remained crystal clear, even as she was fully submerged.

Shrugging, the lyrkress followed the fox into the sea. The sensation that came with entering it was one she basked in. She could feel the flippers on her legs opening, even without her input. Thinking about it, her newfound body was just as foreign as the catgirl curse, but she didn’t mind it nearly as much, if at all. It was something that she had chosen for herself, with the goddess present to guide her. Not a foreign invader that threatened to cast aside her dignity and make her something she wasn’t.

“There’s one right there.”

Sylvia pointed at a strange four-flippered animal after a few minutes of walking along the seafloor. It was a brownish grey in terms of colour and hadn’t a trace of fur.

Claire frowned. “That’s not a cow.”

The way the obese, eggplant-shaped creature was loafing around and staring off into space did somewhat remind Claire of a living steak, but it wasn’t by any means the same thing.

“Yes it is! It’s a sea cow,” said the fox.

“I don’t think sea cows are cows.”

“They totally are! It’s kinda like how palm trees are still trees, and seabirds are still just birds.”

“Sure.” Claire rolled her eyes.

Rather than fleeing, the curious lardball swam over to the two terrestrial creatures. It even raised a fin, as if to say hello as it approached. Contact, however, seemed to be made entirely on its own terms. It shirked away from Claire’s hand the moment she extended it, darting through the water with the speed and agility of a fish a hundredth its width.

The lyrkress tried chasing it, but had no luck. She was able to boost her velocity by galloping through the sand, but the manatee still outpaced her. Even if she was faster, she likely wouldn’t have been able to catch it. Unlike the half-cervitaur, the sea cow could turn on a dime and boost off in a random direction. Adding to its mobility was its ability to float. It wasn’t bound to the seafloor, and though the water was relatively shallow, some parts were deep enough for it to shoot over her head, outside the reach of her arms.

Claire tried pulling it, but force magic proved fruitless. It was so heavy that it didn’t even seem to notice the vectors she applied to it.

If she wanted to turn it into breakfast, she was going to come up with a more creative solution.

And it just so happened that she had one in mind.