Chapter 215 - Tentacles and Ashes VII

“These stupid disguises were entirely unnecessary.”

Clarence grumbled under his breath as he watched the procession from his place in the sky. Marcelle was not the only foreigner present. A more careful look at the crowd, which he had largely disregarded, revealed a number of the adventurers that had been aboard the ship. Some kept themselves covered up, but others were out in the open with their identities exposed, even in the faces of the armed guards that marched by Marcelle's side.

“Oh, come on. It’s a nice change of pace!” said the giraffe ball.

“Maybe. But I’d rather not be whatever this is.” The scalewarden sucked the magic out of the bubble around her and returned to her usual form.

“Boooo. You’re no fun.” Sylvester puffed up all his cheeks. “You’re the one that told me to disguise us in the first place.”

“I know. But at this rate, she,” Claire pointed at the crow, “is going to make us look suspicious. We might as well just be ourselves.”

“I mean, I know he’s weird, but I’m sure he’s gonna get used to it eventually!”

“Is my behaviour really that bizarre?” asked Arthur. “I was under the impression that it was a fair imitation.”

“It’s definitely… a little bit off,” said Nathaniel. “Half the time, it looks like they’re flapping backwards, and the other half, they look like they’re wriggling instead.”

“That’s why I kept trying to tell you that you just needed to let them do it on their own,” said the giraffe, with a sigh. “Come on, Claire! Why do you have to be such a spoilsport?”

“I’ll make it up to you later,” said Claire.

“You will?” One of Sylvester’s faces wagged up a storm as sparkles filled his eyes.

Claire paused briefly, before placing a hand on one of the misshapen abominations’ heads. “Once we’re out of the dungeon.”

“That better be a promise!” Disappointment already completely forgotten, Sylvester rolled atop Claire’s head and sat in his usual spot.

“It is.” The lyrkress prodded what she assumed to be her pet’s main nose before turning back towards the procession. “Does anyone have any idea what Marcelle’s doing here?”

“Who is this Marcelle?” asked Arthur. He extended a tentacle and played with his monocle as he spoke, incessantly adjusting its position.

“The idiot on the throne.”

“You mean Agent Snufflepuffs?” He realised his mistake when only Matilda responded with a look of understanding. “The manatee with a cross on her forehead, yes?”

“Yeah, that’s Marc,” said Sylvester.

“Marcelle.”

“Oh, shut up, Claire! Marc is pretty much just short for Marcelle so it doesn’t make a difference anyway!” He tugged on his mount’s ears, abusing them the same way said mount often abused his cheeks.

“Yes it does. Marc is a name for bald, muscle-brained idiots, not flying sea cows.”

“That makes no sense! Why do you even think that!?”

“It makes perfect sense. You would understand if you knew more Marcs.”

“Matters of etymology aside, I was not aware that Agent Snufflepuffs had another name,” said Arthur.

“Wait a second… You guys called her Agent Snufflepuffs?” Sylvester’s faces twitched. “What the heck! That’s way cuter than Marc!”

“I was under the impression that it was a fitting choice, but she refused to accept it.”

“Made it so we couldn’t register her as a mount proper,” grumbled Matilda. “Not being able to use tamer skills made riding her a pain, but we couldn’t pass her up. She’s the only small mount we have that can fly.”

“Wait a second!” Nathaniel pulled open his notebook with a tentacle and flipped through it. “So this is why you said Marcelle was involved with an organisation that was trying to overthr—” The hawk was silenced with a remote beak pinch.

“Not so loud. Idiot,” said Claire. “Pollux’s men are here.” She pointed at the crowd, or more specifically, at the centaurs standing within it. “They might be able to hear us. They have bards and sound mages.”

“Right…” The bird of prey cleared his throat with a cough. “Sorry. It’s just that things are finally clicking into place. The only thing that I don’t get is why she’s here in the first place.”

The statue of Borbola climbed out of its box and made a series of gestures, but the lyrkress shoved it back into the container before anyone could make sense of them. “Doesn’t matter. Enough complaining. Let’s focus.” She followed by grabbing the hawk’s shoulders and spinning him around so he was facing the cow. “Something’s happening.”

The parade had arrived at a grand temple in the middle of town. Its architecture was completely unlike that of any seen in Cadria or Vel’khan. It was made primarily with sticks like most of the other buildings, but the seams were filled with a blue-grey clay and fired to hold their shape. As a whole, it was a large square chamber topped by a pointed dome. Its base was adorned with flowers, leaves, and bits of peeled wood, nothing unusual with the local standards considered. Its roof, however, had shingles of solid gold. Their shape was standard, and each was almost exactly twenty meters long and seven across. Each contained the image of a bird, likely a past monarch, as well as a bit of illegible, foreign text, accompanied by a series of numbers.

A portly owl stood at the first unblemished shingle. He stole it from its location as the new queen arrived, and with a mighty hoot, leapt from the roof with the giant bar held between his wings. He landed safely in spite of the added weight, his talons meeting the bright blue carpet, and his waist twisting into a grandiose bow. Somehow, his headdress remained stable throughout the process. The eye-catching orange turban budged not an inch, remaining perfectly fixed in place with no clips or bindings to hold it.

He remained in position, his body lowered until the ruler stepped off her seat and flubbed her way across the tapestry. She made a whining sound when they met, prompting the man to rise. He stepped out in front of the crowd and offered his words, cooing, cawing, and squawking at inordinate length. His magic swelled as he spoke, gathering not around himself, but the golden plate still in his grasp. Thick, powerful tentacles grew from his back as his words grew more fervent, carving within the enchanted monument a perfect inscription of the queen, and with it, a singular line of text denoting the monarch’s name.

The golden plate rose into the air when the carving was complete, with the hundreds of others peeling off the grand temple to join it. They were arranged in a line, Marcelle’s portrait at the far end. Each of the golden renditions raised a wing, starting with the first king, his successor, and so on and so forth. When it came Marcelle’s turn, it was not her illustration, but the manatee herself that performed the motion. A piece of the gold peeled off the slab as she did, etching a crown into the metal plate and forming another atop her head.

The previous rulers’ epitaphs whirled a large circle around her. They chanted with booming voices even in death and fired rays of brilliant, multicoloured light. The beams converged and diffused, joining as one to form the jewels that adorned the manatee’s headdress. Bright rubies, brilliant sapphires, glistening emeralds, forged not from the pressures of the earth, but of the magecraft of her forefathers.

When the hat was finally complete, the golden slabs lost their vigour, each drifting to its rightful place in the order that it was removed. The owl was gone as well, having quietly stepped off the stage while the manatee stole the audience’s eyes. But the ceremony had yet to end.

Its next step came after a moment of silence. The members of the audience pressed wings or tentacles to their beaks. Their hearts burning, the citizens closed their eyes and prayed, a cacophony of noise, as the same sounds were made. Quietly at first, but with more ardor and passion each time they were repeated. And it was right as it grew beyond the point of reason that the mountain answered the call.

It almost looked like an eruption. A pillar of light shot from its highest peak. The mountain’s ejaculate formed into a single glob and flew a full circle around the city, leaving trails of silver in its wake before finally landing in front of the queen.

Claire’s lips twisted into a frown as she looked upon the entity called. Its body was covered in layers of gold and silver, a dress as expensive as it was tasteless. Its face was hidden by a veil, but its frame and pink feathers confirmed its identity as the so-called divine protector she had dueled.

Meltys of Arviandor bent a knee before the throne, standing only after having her shoulder patted by the woman she owed her deference. Permission granted, she spun around, faced the people, and quacked at length. It was another fiery speech, filled with passion, but it caught the attention of exactly zero lyrkrian observers. Even the words spoken in Marish were outright ignored, for Claire was focused more on the bird's divine magic than she was the duck herself.

Something about it was wrong. She was unable to determine what it was exactly, but she was plagued with the very same sensation that had gripped her during their first encounter. She had been unable to identify its cause when in combat, and she had been unable to recall the specifics following her escape. Now that she had it in front of her again, she could finally scrutinize it with all the necessary care and attention. And yet, she found herself unable to put a finger on the answer.

She had no idea why it creeped her out.

It just did.

“Sylvester.”

“Mhm?”

“Does something about the bird’s divinity seem off to you?”

“Uhmmmm… her divinity?” The orb propped up one of his faces with two of the others and narrowed his eyes. “Hmmm… Errr… Uhhh… Not really? All I can really tell is that she’s got a whole buttload of the stuff.”

Claire frowned, lowering her gaze from the lingering spell to the podium where the duck stood.

“Is it supposed to be weird?” asked Sylvester.

“It makes me feel sick.”

“What’s this about divinity?” Nathaniel awkwardly flapped his way through the sky and inched over to the half-bred pair.

“The bird has some. And it bothers me.”

“Oh.” The hawk blinked. “Wait, you can sense divinity?”

“Mhm! Both of us can,” said the orb. “I think it might be more surprising that you can’t. Divinity’s really in your face and kinda annoying.”

“That is because it is the power that holds the very world’s fabrics together,” said Arthur. “As commonly said among those of the church, it shall remain ever present once you have opened your eyes to it.”

“Wait, you can sense divinity too? Why am I the only one left out?” grumbled Nathaniel.

“I am one of the few priestesses to the goddess of the moon that has been fortunate enough to earn her favour,” said Arthur. “I awoke to the ability to see it upon the receipt of her blessing. Perhaps the same could befall you, if you were to dedicate yourself to her worship. I am sure that she would appreciate a subject so capable.”

“Leave the solicitation for later.” Claire jabbed a finger into Arthur’s face and moved him half a meter away. “I have my plan.”

___

The group joined in the celebrations, eating and drinking until the night fell. Some of the locals, like the owls and the nightingales, were still out and about even in the wee hours, but most of the city’s residents had retired with the sun. It was incredibly quiet, the only sounds coming from the wildlife that lived in the surrounding forest.

Insects and predators made up most of the calls they heard, but both groups shied away from the town. The bugs were food for the birds, and knew better than to stay around, while the predators steered clear of populated city centers in general. Tough and monstrous as they were, their pack leaders knew that the arviads were simply too plentiful—the same reason that Claire had given up on their complete and utter extermination.

Her breath attacks cost anywhere between ten and fifty thousand mana. Even at their weakest, she could use them no more than thirty times before running completely dry. The rapid pace of her regeneration allowed her to nock another shot once every two to three minutes, but such an interval was unlikely to suffice with a massive horde bearing down upon her.

In such a situation, a hit from the divine protector could send her on a downward spiral with her demise as its final destination. She had gained too many levels; she was no longer capable of killing a few stray locals and regenerating as she had in their first encounter. Hence the more subtle approach.

Their destination was twofold. First, they would stop by the new queen’s chambers and question her. And then, they would move atop the mountain and challenge the divine protector.

Perhaps because all of them, including a less-than-willing Clarence, had been re-disguised as locals, intruding upon the temple palace was a much easier task than expected. There were dozens of soldiers spread throughout its premises, patrolling the skies and ground in tandem. The group was spotted on more than one occasion, but they were ignored, just like every other group of drunks on site. Still, the defenders were removed. One by one, the tawny owl paralysed them with his eyes and ripped them apart with his vectors. Their corpses were left in the building’s shadows, to be discovered the following morning.

There were a number of rear and side entrances available, but the not-lyrkress went through the front. It was hardly a reasonable choice, but neither was it entirely irrational. The number of guards stationed outside the front door was no greater than the number stationed outside any other exit, and he was confident that the forward approach would lead any potential investigators to assume it was the result of a drunken rampage.

When he crept through the entrance, the owl found himself in a beautiful atrium. It was almost completely empty. There were two men standing in the foyer, but a swing of the lizard statue silenced both before they could cause a commotion.

The layout was not an intuitive one. There were three hallways shooting off in different directions, alongside a grand staircase leading up to the second floor that featured a similar split. Guided by his detector skill, Clarence walked up the stairs, took a sharp left, and made straight for the end of the hall. The guards standing outside the manatee’s chambers resisted when he froze them with his eyes. The paralysis barely worked on them, lasting a fraction of a second before breaking. But before they could act, both men were subjected to a ruthless choke. He applied a trio of persistent forces to their throats, pinned them against the wall, and squeezed their necks with enough pressure to crack their spines.

In spite of their wounds, one of the men tried pounding on the door, while the other began to cast a spell, but Nathaniel dashed forward and, with his rapier in his beak, slit both their necks before they could follow through.

They waltzed straight into the room soon after and found the familiar manatee plastered on her bed, sound asleep with a bottle of wine tucked under each of her flippers.

“How shall we awaken her?” Arthur walked to the curtains and flung them open.

“I have an idea.” Clarence retrieved two of the bottles and popped off their corks. Their sweet, tangy scents wafted through the air until their openings were obscured, plunged inside the sea cow’s nose.

With his tentacles, the abyssal horror lifted the lard ball’s neck and tasked gravity with his dirty work, the world’s natural forces directing the fluids down pipes they were never meant to explore. Marcelle’s eyes shot open a moment later. She coughed and sputtered as she waved her flippers in front of her face, but the tiny limbs were unable to reach the bottles stuck in her nostrils. When she tried to lower her head, she met a rock hard resistance. Clarence kept his tentacles, and the manatee, perfectly locked in place.

It took her a solid minute, but she eventually broke free by raising the back end of her body into the air and dislodging the bottles with a shake of the head. Once liberated, she turned towards the uninvited guest and greeted him with an angry drum of the belly.

“That was for ignoring me when you saw me in the crowd earlier.”

Marcelle took a moment to stare at the mysterious man, focusing on his face for a solid five seconds before tilting her head in confusion.

“...You are even dumber than I thought.”

“I don’t think she’s going to recognize you with your disguise on,” said Nathaniel. “Manatees don’t have anything that’d help them see through it.”

“She should still be able to tell.” Grumbling, Claire slashed the bubbles with her tail, draining their magic and revealing the group’s identities.

Marcelle opened her eyes wide before turning on her back and slapping her sides.

“Who else would I be? Idiot.”

The manatee squeaked and squealed, huffing and puffing as she placed a cup over her spout and ejected the liquid that filled her lungs.

“What responsibilities? All you’ve done is get drunk all day.”

Voicebox still whirring, Marcelle stood up on her rear fins and placed her front ones on her belly.

“Right. I’m sure,” Claire rolled her eyes. “Now explain. Why are you here?”

The sea cow was despondent at first, grumbling about something or other, but soon broke into a lengthy explanation, stringing together sentences that included every sound a manatee could produce. She looked at Claire when she finished, roughly two minutes later, an expectant glimmer in her eyes.

“Are you stupid?” But it was met instead with a tail-prod to the face. “I didn’t catch a word you said. We don’t speak the same language.”

The manatee tilted her head and laughed, only to be prodded again.

“It wasn’t a joke. I’ve never understood you. You’re just easy to read.”

Marcelle groaned and lowered her head, curling it inwards so she could roll around in the air with her fins on top of her skull.

“Geez, Claire, you’re being too mean. Stop bullying her,” said Sylvia. Leaping onto the not-bovine’s head, she cleared her throat and stood up on her hind legs. “What Marcelle meant to say was that she has no idea what’s going on. They suddenly decided to do all this weird stuff to her because she beat a tubby seagull in a race. Oh, but she likes the wine and all the other stuff that they’re giving her.”

There was a moment of silence. The lyrkress looked on expressionlessly, while the cat scribbled away in her book and the vampire raised a brow. Matthias didn’t even bother participating. He was standing by the door, his scythes prepared in case of intrusion.

“Warp her somewhere else.” Claire eventually spoke, her eyes a miffed glare. “She’s just going to get in the way if she stays here.”

Marcelle clapped her fins and shook her head.

“You know what? Fine. You can stay, if you want,” said Claire, with another tail poke. “But it isn’t my problem if you get caught in the crossfire.”

“Wait, what crossfire?” asked Lia. “I thought you said we were going up the mountain.”

“We are.” The lyrkress turned her face and evaded the catgirl’s stern, accusing gaze.

“Claire? What are you hiding?” The book-obsessed feline moved to the other side of the room and entered the longmoose’s field of view.

“Nothing.”

Again, the lyrkress turned away, and again, the cat chased her eyes.

“Claire?”

The lyrkress breathed a sigh when her name was called again. “Well, we’ve got to come back down the mountain eventually…”

“That doesn’t mean you can blow up the city!” cried the cat.

“Pollux’s men will do it even if I don’t. I’d rather keep the experience myself, even if there isn’t much of it.”

The cat sighed. “That doesn’t mean you have to kill them. Can’t we have Marcelle make a royal decree and have everyone evacuate?”

“There isn’t anywhere for them to go.”

Claire walked to the window and looked outside. “They might be able to scatter, but I doubt they’d live for long. Most of them are civilians, too weak to handle the monsters.”

“And that is disregarding the obvious conclusion that the populace is unlikely to obey,” added Arciel. “Perhaps it is not this way in Paunse, but it is not uncommon among avian species to develop inseparable ties with the lands of their birth. I do not know if the arviads are as the tribes of the rainforest, but I suspect that they would choose to take up their arms over resorting to a migration. Still, I do not condone their slaughter, Claire. If they are to die, then let it be by the Marquis’ armies.”

Claire looked between the two before lowering her hood further over her head. “Fine. See what happens for yourselves then.”

Pulling her ears back, she assumed her true form and shot towards the summit. The guards tried to stop her, but she ignored their efforts and upped her speed, her tail flickering and her mood as sour as a pickled plum.