Chapter 232 - Horses, Goats, and Basements V

Claire clenched her remaining fist as she stomped her way through the snow and approached the nearest door. When she turned it, she abandoned the fake’s body immediately, escaping into the void and beyond her father’s reach. She was fed up; she had always thought that it would be worth giving him a piece of her mind, that overcoming her fear of the man that had raised her would finally bring her solace. But even having punched him in the face, she felt nothing of the sort. Everything about the interaction had ticked her off. She hated how he had suddenly decided to face her with mock sincerity. She hated how he had acted like he knew how her mother felt. And most of all, she hated that he had acknowledged her.

Log Entry 34928

Your disownment has been overturned. You have reprised the family name “Augustus.”

Log Entry 34929

You have been titled “The First Princess of Cadria.”

The goddess’ voice did little to appease her rage. She wanted nothing more than to scream in the void, but she stopped herself short when she realised that the darkness was coming apart. It was shaking, almost violently cracking apart at the seams. When she blinked again, it was gone, replaced by a blurry fox with a pair of equally blurry paws.

“Claire? Helllooooooo? Claaaaire?”

“What?” She extended an arm and pushed the fuzzy critter away.

“Well uhmmm… it kinda looked like you were having a bit of a bad dream, but I couldn’t really wake you up, and peeking in your head just gave me a really garbled mess.

“I’m fine.”

“Mmmmnnn… if you say so.”

Sylvia gave her a bit of a concerned look before silently curling up in her lap and returning her eyes to the arena. When Claire followed suit, she found that the lobster and his chair-shaped coconspirator were gone, replaced by a pair of humanoid crocodiles, each wielding a pair of giant sporks. It was a ridiculous, low-leveled fight. But some part of her was relieved, thankful even, for the change of pace.

Her mood gradually brightened up over the course of the day. None of the fighters she watched had been particularly skillful, but their matches were not without suitable value as entertainment. The caveat was that she had to enjoy them in a manner unlike that of which she was accustomed. Cadrian arena matches were dishes to be savoured, slowly digested and broken down like works of art. Vel’khanese duels were closer to plays than they were real fights, and as such, were best observed with disbelief suspended and undue analysis cast aside.

“That wasn’t anywhere near as bad as you made it sound.” Sylvia paddled down the street, slowly navigating the underwater world in one of her everything-but-divinity-proof bubbles. “I know they were pretty weak and stuff, but I had loads of fun!”

“It was better than I thought it’d be,” agreed the lyrkress.

They had just departed from the oversized arena. It was roughly one block behind them, its massive figure still present in nearly every reflection. Above the surface, the sun was lightly dyeing the heavens in a mix of oranges and blues, but its colour was hardly relevant to those that lived beneath the waves. The city streets were over a hundred meters below sea level, and with the ice and snow piled up above, the glowing ball in the sky was invisible at nearly every time of day. Replacing it as the main light source were the many magical lamps scattered all over the city. They were built into every building, suspended along every major pathway, be it on the seafloor or well above it.

“Is Cadria’s really that much better?”

“A hundred times at least,” said Claire. “The fights aren’t scripted or choreographed, and the crowds care a lot more about the results.”

“Hmmmm… I guess that does sound a good bit more fun. The only other arena I’ve ever really seen was the one run by the borroks, but it was always kinda weird and boring and stuff.”

Recalling the same cetacean-burned structure, the lyrkress turned her eyes on her shard and began changing its shape. “Do you think they rebuilt it? After I made the volcano erupt.”

“Mhm! I’m actually pretty sure Borrok Peak reset like the day after you boomed it, ‘cause everything was a mess. It was an instance anyway, and Al doesn’t even acknowledge their civilization. They’re kinda just there to give torches levels.”

“That doesn’t surprise me in the slightest,” said Claire, with a small smile. “Alfred has no respect for anythi—”

She shut her mouth and cut herself off when her ears caught a familiar voice. Following the sounds, she looked down the street to find a pair of winged centaurs slowly walking across the sandy sea floor. One was a large, bored-looking male with a lute on his belt, and the other a tiny female with a reputation that preceded her.

“Uhmmm… Claire? Is something wrong?”

The lykress placed a finger in front of her mouth. She used her ears to gesture at the incoming horse people while she sucked her lower half back into her tail and assumed a humanoid form. As far as she was aware, Mariabelle and the marquis were the only two that knew she could speak fox-free, and she wasn’t about to let the orange cat out of the bag. Even if she had just spoken aloud to her father and his men.

“Ohhhhhh…”

Centaurs had never been an uncommon sight in Vel’khagan; there were a few forest-dwelling species indigenous to the area, and the Cadrian warship had brought thousands of visitors along with it. But even then, the thrice-ascended Lieutenant Silvanus and her dumb-looking aide stood out like sore thumbs. Most horse people stayed out of the water. Some of the maids and other non-combatants would occasionally don respirators and head below the waves for one chore or other, but the ascended hated the way the water logged their wings. It was not moisture itself that was problematic; they could fly without trouble even in heavy rain, but the salty sea washed away the natural oils produced by their flight feathers. Even a quick dip ensured that they would require an extended break to regain their ability to fly.

“G’evening, Lady Augustus.”

The lieutenant spoke through her respirator as their paths crossed. It hadn’t taken much for the officer to spot the Cadrian royal in the crowd; she was just as much of an outlier, given that they were surrounded almost entirely by fish.

Keeping her mouth shut, Claire nodded at the saluting soldiers, moving only her neck to show respect but no deference. She would have gladly shifted into walking away right after, but the tiny, child-sized officer continued before she could.

“Mind if we chat for a sec? It’ll be quick.”

Claire tilted her head, as if to silently ask what the other woman needed. Internally, however, she was fuming up a storm. The last thing she wanted, right after dealing with one obnoxious Cadrian, was to immediately subject herself to another.

“It turns out that elvish rat escaped, after you went through all the trouble of catching her for us,” said the vertically-challenged horse. “We’ll whip the men into shape for next time.”

Claire smiled and nodded, as if to say that it was no problem at all.

Unlike her countrymen, the lengthy moose knew the exact details of the elf’s fate. She had gone back to retrieve him and his skeletal lover following the warship’s departure. Because they hadn’t been teleported, the Cadrians had presumed them both dead at first. A sane person in his situation would surely have leveraged the opportunity to flee the country, but he purchased himself a respirator and committed to taking jobs under the water. She had caught a glimpse of him again just the other week, and though somewhat overworked, he was otherwise doing more or less alright. Alas, she was not the only one to have detected his continued existence.

“Oh, yes, and speaking of animals…”

The horse looked just behind the moose, where all three critters were casually floating about. Sylvia was more or less participating as a listener, while Boris and Marcelle were staring off into space. From an outsider’s perspective, it looked as if the latter two were drugged. Only to their closest relations was it clear that they were engaged in another one of their contests. Specifically, they were playing a game where the first to react to any external stimulus would be crowned the loser. They were not even moving on their own; Sylvia was dragging them along with a pair of vectors.

“Is it just me, or do you like collecting the weird ones?”

Claire took a moment to observe the mare’s knowing grin before responding with a nod.

“You’re in luck then,” said the lieutenant. Her subordinate jabbed her in the side when she started to speak, but she caught his elbow and continued without pause. “You might want to check out the northern wharf. There’s a store called the Red Spider, and I hear it’s stocking some pretty fun creatures out back. Might be discounted too, since they can’t get ‘em anywhere with the sea as hard as a rock.”

The blueblood lifted her skirt and performed a brief curtsy.

“You’re welcome,” said the mare, with another grin. “Now, we’ve gotta be going. Me and the kid here are in the middle of chasing down a knife-ear.”

Claire nodded again to bid the saluting soldiers a silent farewell and immediately continued on her way.

“Are you insane, Lieutenant!? What’s wrong with you!” The aide began to shout after just ten paces, his voice more than loud enough for any would-be naive noble ladies to overhear. He made no attempts to hide the fact that he was trying to get her attention, his eyes constantly shifting over to check if she was listening. And it was precisely because he tried so hard that she pretended not to notice.

“Nothing, kid,” replied the spinster. “You just have no idea how the world works.”

“Don’t pin this on me! You’re the one that just told the god damned general’s, err, former general’s daughter to deal with a group of outlaws!”

“Bah, they’re just pirates. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Oh, I don’t know? Kidnapping? Rape? Murder? I swear to Vella, Lieutenant! Our heads are going to roll if the king of all fucking people has to pay a ransom!”

“You’ve been reading too many novels lately, haven’t you? Trust me kid, those books’ll have your head spoiled rotten.”

While the two military officers bickered, Claire began rising through the water with her eyes due north. It was everything the ensign had feared; his boss had sparked her curiosity, and she had immediately set off to speak to the outlaws in question. She hadn’t had any other destinations in mind, and a curious pet shop sounded like plenty of fun.

The meter-thick blanket of ice that covered the ocean parted when she approached it, opening a valley just large enough for the lyrkress and her entourage to squeeze through. Even for the qiligon and her telescopic eyes, it was difficult to spot the northern wharf through the storm. The calming flurry had grown throughout the afternoon, slowly picking up in speed and power until it was turned into a roaring blizzard. There was so much snow twisting through the air that all three of the group’s unbubbled members were immediately covered in a thick white sheet of sleet.

Claire was tempted to turn around and head right back down into the water. She had known that it was precipitating, and the ice was fairly see-through, but the snow piled up on top had prevented her from judging the downpour’s ferocity. Spotting the giggling fox, however, led her to immediately close the rift behind her.

“Uhmmm… I know you have that whole ice resistance thing going, but are you sure you’re not cold?”

Sylvia blew away the snow that covered the other girl’s head and rested her bubble on top of it.

“I’m sure.” Claire raised her tail to her face and wiped it clean with the tentacle’s fluffy, brush-like tip. “But Marcelle might be.”

At a glance, the manatee seemed fine. She was hovering in the air, the same way she always did, but her body had started changing colours, going from a neutral gray to a deep, frosty blue. It looked like Boris was on track to win the contest by way of outside influence, but she was somehow hanging in, refusing to lose consciousness even with the light faded from her eyes.

“Oh crap!” Sylvia scrambled out a tune and expanded her bubble to encompass the whole party. “Sorry Marc, I forgot sea cows only liked warm water.”

“Not Marc, Marcelle,” said Claire.

“Same difference!”

The blubbery ball in question recovered quickly in the warm, enclosed space. Her fins regained their usual colour, and her eyes, while still dumb and clearly lacking in thought, once again began to house at least some degree of sentience. Once convinced that the flying sofa was suffering no more, Claire resumed walking her way towards the shore. The ice was quite slippery, given the smoothness of its surface, but the snow that coated it left it easily traversable, even without her talons.

One might assume that, with a barrier around the city, the blizzard could easily be repelled and made a moot concern. And while that was certainly true, it was not an approach that a smaller nation could afford to select. Those that happened to be built on natural veins of magical energy could easily pull the feat off without incurring any costs. Ley lines, however, were not by any means commonplace, and few of them provided the right conditions for use. Most, like the vein in Farenlight’s Den, were placed within dungeons whose monsters would disrupt their installation and maintenance. The pipes had to be made primarily of living matter for them to avoid being absorbed, and the commonly used tube-worms were sure to break if assaulted by anything over level twenty.

Those without an unlimited supply of ether would have to resort to powering the barriers with batteries, the creation of which was a budget-breaking expense even for the richest municipal governments. Storms were particularly draining due to the sheer weight of all the piled up snow and the number of tiny projectiles that made contact with the barrier. It made far more financial sense to allow the ice to sweep through, especially for cities like Vel’khagan, which had so many of its districts located well beneath the waves.

It didn’t take long for Claire to grow sick of walking. She spread her wings after about five minutes of ploughing through the chest-deep snow and soared straight to her destination. Even flying at a leisurely pace, she reached the northern wharf in no time flat, but realised as she looked down upon it that she had no idea where the store was meant to be.

The dock was a large piece of land that jutted out into the water; there were dozens of ships moored outdoors, and even more of them sitting inside the roofed docks that lined the pirate-infested peninsula. Of course, not all of the vessels that passed through the dock were operated by criminals, in fact, the grand majority was standard civilian traffic, but that was precisely why it had been made the outlaws’ wharf of choice. They could easily blend in with the various ships that came and went.

On a drier day, Claire could have easily asked a local for directions, but there were hardly any of them out and about. The storm was much heavier than what the Vel’khanese were accustomed to, and as such, the vast majority of the land-dwelling population had sought shelter indoors, overcrowding the taverns and eateries to the point that they were ready to burst. There were plenty of people to ask underwater, given how deep the seas were in the dock’s immediate vicinity, but Claire chose to wander around instead.

There was something magical about navigating the empty streets, especially knowing how busy they normally were. It almost felt like she and her pets were all that was left, a feeling that she was happy to embrace.

Eventually, after making a dozen wrong turns and leaving her footprints all over the snow, the lyrkress arrived in front of the store in question. It was a small, brightly lit shop with three stories to its name. Its entrance was half buried; she had to dig it out in order to access the door.

But even then, she found that it refused to budge.

Confused, she pushed and pulled on it again, but it never once abided by her orders.

It was only when she looked at it again, and carefully observed the sign, that she came to understand the reason behind her predicament.

The door was locked. Because the shop was closed for the next day and a half. All on the grounds of poor weather.