Novel Full Chapter 2226 Recovery Step 2
--- Lily ---
Seeing as nobody was awake that didn’t know she was a person, Lily transformed and decided to just ask. "Hey... so I didn’t quite manage to get my tail when I was using that healing potion, could I have a bit more?"
"Wait you’re a person?!" said Vanilla in the most deadpan voice possible. Lily glanced over at her and raised an eyebrow. "What? Maryland here is actually injured! My worry is going to that."
"Didn’t you sign up for this?" asked Lily.
At the same time Appoline said, "She’s been healed, stop fussing and let her rest."
Vanilla sighed, "Yes we did... and I’m sure she’ll be fine but well," Vanilla chewed on a few words. "I’m limited in what I should say Lily. So, yes we did sign up but also yes I’m still worried."
"Fair enough. I’m worried about Kat even though she’s technically fine," sighed Lily.
"Wait where IS Kat anyway?" asked Vanilla. As this was happening, Appoline handed over another bottle of healing potion and Lily started to gently drip it onto her tail as she massaged the liquid into her fur. She could see a few spots that were less ’fur’ and more ’charcoal’ but it was all black so she was currently ignoring that to focus on everything else.
"Kat is currently trapped in some sort of spatial prison in Brook’s... room? In the room she was working on. The current worry is that if Kat just smashes her way out bad stuff would happen, from her getting banished to the void, or perhaps the void getting loose here in the basement."
"Oh yeah that w-" Vanilla paused. "I mean, I wouldn’t know anything about that. I’m just a humble guard,"
"Right," sighed Lily, but she decided not to push. It was hard to know how intentional the ’slip’ was... nor what it was meant to be. Was it ’would happen’, or ’wouldn’t happen’ or some other W word? Considering she had no idea how the translation worked, it was possible that W wasn’t even the correct letter, just the most similar sound to whatever was correct. Lily didn’t know... so she decided it was best not to think on it.
"What’s the plan for now then?" said Lily as she tried to control her tail. It kept wanting to flick around but now that she was healing it, she found that not only was the skin scorched but apparently the damage was deep enough to get into the muscles. Lily barely remembered the impact, but she supposed she hadn’t properly curled her tail up when the light grenades went off.
Appoline tapped her foot on the ground. "I’d really like to take a trip back to the greenhouse for ingredients. Even just for more healing potions. I’m not completely out but more than half of my stock is gone now. Everyone here seems fine, and the poison seems to have just been a knockout drug, a fairly weak one considering that nobody at Rank 2 was effected... but once it becomes clear Brook failed, it might lead to another attack. There is also the fact that Brook isn’t actually Brook,"
"Wait what?" asked Lily. "What do you mean she’s not Brook?"
Appoline glanced over at the table. "Do you remember that rather unique potion I was investigating when you and Kat snuck into my workshop?"
Lily glanced at the ceiling. "I admit nothing." Even as Kat transmitted the potion in question to her mind... which gave her a rather annoying picture of what’s going on. "But... are you saying they managed to brew that potion?"
"Maybe. I might also be my copies of the potion. I had my own version, as well as two that were sent along for study. One was mostly used up, one was still completely full... and I made a number of less effective failures that might also have been grabbed for this purpose," explained Appoline.
"How can you tell?" asked Lily. "I mean she looks like Brook to me..."
"The skin," Appoline answered. "If you poke around you find that the skin doesn’t quite have the correct... give."
"She seemed to bleed when I bit her," countered Lily.
Appoline shook her head. "She did indeed, but the way the potion works is... it essentially shrinks the true person down a bit, and then builds the overlay over the top of them, with the overly acting as most of a living person. It’s complicated, and the shell and the real person underneath are connected in a lot of ways to further sell the illusion. While I doubt anyone else could tell at a glance, after I investigate Brook’s wounds it was quite obvious to me."
"Right... so what can we do about it?" asked Lily.
"Well... depending on when she drunk the potion it should run out before morning. The dosage shouldn’t last longer than twenty-four hours... and if it does? That means that they’ve managed to recreate it on their own. So that’s a whole new set of worries to deal with," Appoline allowed.
Lily frowned, "Yeah... that’s not good. I should probably go and see if I can get Kat out of that box soon. If you need ingredients it would be bad for the two of us to go get them when there’s no real defenders for everyone else."
"Hey, I resent the implication of that," grumbled Vanilla.
Lily glanced over at ’Vanilla’ who... had seemed notably weaker than she should have been. Lily had seen her put up with a LOT of physical abuse and move forward basically unharmed but a bit of the wall got her. "Why are you so weak anyway?" asked Lily.
Vanilla huffed. "I’ll have you know, I have start of the art armour on for a reason," Vanilla said as she rather deliberately tapped at the armour in question, even continuing to do so at a slow, heavy pace for a few seconds after she finished speaking. Message received.
"Right I suppose that makes sense. Wouldn’t want you to be easy target," offered Lily.
Vanilla smiled back, somewhat brittle, "Exactly,"
Lily sighed and rubbed her temple. Her tail was mostly fixed now. Probably. It didn’t hurt anymore and the bottle was basically empty. Best not to think about the potential bald patches. Regardless of the specifics, the truth was that ’Vanilla’ could not operate at Marigold’s level. It simply wasn’t allowed. That meant that the worry of leaving was still quite present.
Lily glanced at Appoline, considering suggesting that the elf went off on her own... but that seemed like an awful idea, and likely not one that Appoline would agree to considering one of the main reasons she was sticking with them was to not get kidnapped. Going off alone, potentially towards an ambush. Yeah not worth suggesting. "So... I’m going to go check on Kat now. Yell if anything happens I guess? Or would you prefer to come with me?"
[They’re not twelve Lily.]
Yeah but they might still want to.
[Fair.]
"No thank you," said Vanilla. "I’d rather stay here with Maryland just in case,"
Appoline sighed, "Probably best I also remain here. I’m not so far away nor so incapable that I cannot defend myself in the few moments it will take you to reach the fighting. Plus, tampering with spatial anomalies is quite likely to be far more dangerous than whoever attacks us,"
"Yay," grumbled Lily as she turned and made her way out of the room. She heard some giggles behind her, but that was a good thing if anything. Pushing open the door to Kat’s room, Lily wished she could say she was shocked when she found Kat laying on her side, kimono loose and barely hiding her chest.
"Really?" asked Lily.
Kat’s mouth moved, but Lily could hear her. Frowning, Kat sent the message across their link instead. [Lily I had to. I mean, when else am I going to get a chance to look fancy in a box like this? I considered something more appropriate for my small size... and then failed to think of anything that counted as ’appropriate’ in this context... so I just went with this.]
"And... ’this’ is trying to embarrass me by showing off as much as possible?" asked Lily.
[Yeah pretty much. It’s almost a shame you’re barely flustered.]
"Kat you’re tiny right now. I can barely see anything and you look more like a doll. What am I meant to get excited about?" asked Lily.
Kat shrugged.
"Right well... getting you out of there might be harder than it seems. There ARE holes in the box, sort of. The issue is that I’m not sure how safe they’d be to expand. I think they’re providing you air... but why would Brook want to do that? Why take the risk?" mumbled Lily.
Kat shrugged, fixing her outfit up a bit in the process. [Perhaps she wasn’t the one who designed the spell? Perhaps the fact that it’s not able to, or meant to kill me means it’s harder to notice activating? Maybe a killbox would have my demonic energy automatically fight against it or something? Perhaps I’d be more tempted to break out? Who knows. The important question is, can you open it?]