Chapter 174: Epopes

I opened up the System and told it to show me hair related skills. To prove to everyone that I was in fact a genius for wanting skills related to my hair I read them aloud.

[Crowning Glory]

Type: Active

Your hair was already doing most of the work anyway.

Allows fine mental control over your hair. Grants the ability to harden, shape and extend it at will. Low mana cost.

[Bad Hair Day]

Type: Toggle

Some say to look unkempt is a fate worse than death, but with this skill your enemies won’t live long enough to judge you.

Makes your hair look terrible, but grants massive combat bonuses. Medium upkeep cost.

[Lustrous Shield]

Type: Passive

A well-conditioned, high volume mane is the only armor you truly need.

Your hair absorbs a percentage of incoming damage. Effectiveness scales with hair length and quality.

[Majestic Flow]

Type: Toggle

Why wait for a natural breeze when the universe revolves around you anyway?

Your hair is enveloped in a gravity-defying breeze. Anyone who views your luscious locks must make an Attunement check. If your Attunement is higher than theirs, they are momentarily awed. Low upkeep cost.

Vitek once again laughed.

“That’s really a thing?” Bogumir asked, surprised.

“Obviously it’s a thing, Bogumir,” I said. “What could be more important than hair? The thing that surprises and disappoints me is that there doesn’t appear to be a skill that allows my hair to be perpetually clean.”

Vasil cocked his head. “Those are all interesting choices. I think we can all agree that [Bad Hair Day] would be the best choice here. With massive combat bonuses you will likely be able to go toe to toe with higher leveled opponents.”

I gasped in horror. “Vasil, do you even hear yourself? The skill is literally called [Bad Hair Day]. I don’t do bad hair days. I would rather DIE than have a bad hair day!” I gagged at the thought of unkempt hair, then took a moment to collect myself. “The System used the words ‘unkempt’ and ‘terrible’, are you sure you are not working for Banda Masvih? Or the Church for that matter? Suggesting I take that atrocious skill is sounding mighty treacherous to me right now.”

“Sacrilegious,” Ola said.

“Right!” I said, pointing at Ola. “Sacrilegious! What the hell, man?”

Vasil shifted uneasily. “I just thought—”

“No! You didn’t think!” I narrowed my eyes. “Unless your thought was to murder me. Friendship revoked! Friendship revoked! My hair will not be desecrated! I will suffer no more of your violations!”

Vasil raised his little hands. “Hecate, please! I am merely suggesting you entertain the thought. Combat multipliers are extremely powerful, and with your mana pool you would be able to sustain the buff for a significant amount of time.”

Even though I tried to fight it I couldn’t get the image of me with a bird’s nest on my head instead of my hair out of my mind. There was one bird who was the worst of them all, but the more I tried not to think about it the more I did. The damned epops with its disgusting poop caked nest. You could smell their nests from a mile away. I shuddered at the thought. I couldn’t live with a poop nest on my head. No way.

“Are you suggesting I kill myself?” I hissed. “Because that’s what I’d do if something like that ever happened to my hair. Do you want me to DIE? Is that what you want?”

Aurelia tutted and shook her head in disapproval. “Shame on you, Vasil. After all Hecate has done for you, you want to murder her. I expected more from you. Vasil the wise, more like Vasil the betrayer.”

Kasia also shook her head. “You know how important her hair is to her.”

Vasil looked even wetter than usual. I didn’t know if frogs could sweat, but he looked like he was doing it. “I was just—I was just—”

“I think it’s a great skill,” Bogumir said with a grin. I was about to yell at him, when he said, “…but not for Hecate.”

Wow. Even Bogumir was on my side on this one. Vitek didn’t say anything, he was just laughing to himself.

“Alright,” Vasil sighed. “It is a great skill, but not for Hecate.”

“Glad we got that settled,” I said. “But don’t think you’re back in my good graces now. I won’t forget this betrayal. The trust we have built over our time together is gone.”

“I… I will work hard to rebuild that trust. I guess.” He hung his head in obvious shame.

“Now that awful skill is gone, we have three solid ones left: [Crowning Glory], [Lustrous Shield], and [Majestic Flow]. I think we can all agree that while [Lustrous Shield] is good, I don’t need it since I have [Mana Shield], which is objectively better.”

“And you’re afraid it will damage your hair,” Bogumir said.

“And I’m afraid it will damage my hair,” I agreed.

“Now I know what you all are thinking—you’re all thinking [Majestic Flow] is the best choice of all of them. You can’t put a price on hair that is eternally flowing, majestically I might add. You just can’t. And the crowd control bonus effect is pretty good as well.”

Bogumir opened his mouth, but closed it again.

Vasil hesitated, then spoke. “I think the crowd control effect is the main effect.”

“You would think that,” I scoffed. “But then again, you also want to see me with a bird nest full of poop instead of hair.”

“What?” He frowned.

I squinted at him. “This all comes back to your bird obsession, doesn’t it? Chickens. Geese. Epopes. When did it start? Nay! When will it end?”

Vasil blinked and looked between me and Vitek, as if Vitek was somehow going to come to his rescue. “I do not have a bird obsession! I have never even heard of epopes!”

“Convenient. Very convenient. The all-knowing wiseman suddenly doesn’t know the most disgusting bird species, right after practically forcing me to house a whole family of those filthy animals on top of my head. For someone as enamored with birds as you are I find that very hard to believe. They aren’t exactly uncommon.”

“There are no birds with that name in Silesia, and I do not have a bird obsession.”

“There are plenty of them in Graecia, and I for one am glad they are not here. If you’re telling the truth, that is.” I scanned the room, just in case there were any epops hiding. I didn’t see any. I sniffed, and I didn’t smell any poop, so there probably was no nest here either. “I’ll believe you for this once. But I don’t believe you about your obsession.”

“Okay.”

Finally he acknowledged what we all knew to be true. I don’t know why he was so adamant that he didn’t care about birds when it was literally all he ever talked about.

This was the easiest skill decision I ever had to make, so I confidently accepted it.

[Majestic Flow acquired.]

I immediately activated it, and the second I did everyone let out an “ooooooh.”

“See!” I said, giving my hair a toss. “I told you it was great!”

I sprinted to one of the mirrors in the dining hall and took a good look at myself. I truly was a sight to behold. True to the skill’s name, my hair flowed majestically. I laughed (not maniacally), proudly turned around and spread my arms. “Behooolddd!”

“Yeah, alright,” Bogumir said.

“Behold!” I said, a little more insecure than I intended.

Bogumir just stared. “Are you done?”

“Yes.” I felt all excitement leave my body and I dragged myself onto a chair. How could they not appreciate this majesticity? I canceled the skill and my hair flopped back down. “There should have been at least another ‘ooh’,” I mumbled.

Kasia put her arms around me. “There, there, Hecate. It was very majestic and beautiful. I’m sure you will get great use out of it. It was very nice to see.”

That cheered me up a little bit, so I decided to resume selecting skills. “I still have three skill points left, and I think [Crowning Glory] will also be a great addition to my arsenal.”

“I agree,” Vasil said.

“You… agree?” I asked, suspicious. “It doesn’t involve any birds.”

“Why would it?”

“That’s kind of your thing?”

Vasil blew some air out of his nose holes. “It would give you some utility, and another way to deal with melee fighters who get too close. Additionally it will catch most of your opponents off guard. No one will expect a ranged warrior like yourself to attack them with their hair.”

“Well yeah,” I said. “That’s obviously why I wanted to take it. I knew that.”

“I did not assume you did not know it, I just—”

“So why did you say it like that?”

“Because you said it doesn’t involve birds!” he said, exhausted.

I shook my head. “By the Goddess, Vasil! Always with the birds! Give it a rest!”