Book 7, Chapter Seventeen – Home of the Grave

As soon as Pandy got close to the house, she could sense that something had changed. Not its appearance, unfortunately, since it was still in rough shape after the attack. She hadn’t had time or opportunity to come back and start fixing it, and leaves had blown in through the broken door, along with lingering traces of dampness. It must have rained recently, though from inside the Dragon’s Domain, the weather had always seemed to be perfect.

She paused just outside the threshold, staring into the dark hallway. For the first time since Nox and Nyssa had acknowledged Pandy as Lady Avington, neither of them appeared to greet her. Normally, Nyssa would have made an attempt to clean up the leaves and puddles, too. The Apparition might not have done a good job of it, since she still didn’t seem to be entirely certain where trash was meant to go and which objects, exactly, were trash, but she would have tried.

“Nox?” Pandy called softly. She pushed the dangling door aside, and with a long, low creak, the wood gave way, allowing the door itself to fall to the ground, while the single remaining hinge swung back and forth. Isidor and Glory jumped back at the sudden sound and tumbling slab of wood, but Augustus stayed right behind Pandy, steady and supportive, ready to defend her if necessary.

“Nyssa?” This time her voice wavered, threatening to break. Pandy liked Nyssa, and while she’d shoved the concern for her elementals to the back of her mind, it hadn’t gone away. If Nyssa hadn’t had enough magic left, or if Nox had drained her to keep himself going… It didn’t bear thinking about. But they were linked to the house and Pandy was the Lady of the house. Surely Pandy would have felt it if one or both of them had… had ceased to be.

Still, no dark blobs of shadow separated from the natural darkness of the interior of the house. No moaning voices greeted her with welcome or chastisement. Where were they?

Pandy took another step forward, leaving the bright moonlight behind, and still she felt nothing. For the first time, she felt no sense of presence within Avington Manor, and she had to grit her teeth to keep from crying as she plowed ahead, ignoring the rubble and the gaping hole that led into the lab, going straight to the staircase at the end of the hall. Nothing stopped her. She would have welcomed a falling axe, which would have shown that Nox was still there, even if he was angry with her for failing to protect them.

The others came after her, with Empress Glory pausing only briefly outside the door that led to her own little apartment. It was obvious that she wanted to see what had happened to the things she’d been forced to leave behind, but she didn’t. She continued on, hovering close behind Isidor, gripping a short, vicious knife that looked like it was growing out of a pair of brass knuckles. Isidor himself held Tempest out ahead of him, and it was the turtle’s flashing sparks that provided illumination for their short procession.

The steps were still covered in wall-chunks, and there was still a hole in the wall at the top, but Pandy ignored that, too. Once everyone was on the second floor, she led the way to the office door, then held up her hand. “Go into the atrium and, um, don’t look.” By now, they all knew how the house worked, so even Augustus just nodded, though his eyes told her he’d be there in a heartbeat if she needed him. She smiled back and stepped into the office.

Mud and blood were dried into the white carpet, especially where Empress Glory had stood, protecting Eleanor even as her life drained away. That alone would have bought her Pandy’s trust and eternal gratitude, but the woman had helped save Thaniel, too. Once all of this was over, if Pandy survived, she was going to make sure the Empress never had to steal cheese again.

None of the assailants had managed to get into the office, so other than the dark stains, it remained intact, and Pandy shut the door behind her before crossing to the desk. She sat down cautiously, truly uncertain if the books would even appear, but they did. The three books were there, neatly stacked, though the Avington House book was noticeably thinner, its cover battered and the title nearly illegible. Another thing to worry about. Later.

Shifting the top two books to the side, Pandy lifted Faithful Foundation and turned to the first page.

NYSSA - Apparition

Condition: 6%

Cost to Repair: 800 LF/ 40000 Mana/ 4000 CP

Loyalty: 100%

NOX - Apparition

Condition: 8%

Cost to Repair: 2091 LF/ 104550 Mana/ 10455 CP

Loyalty: 94% 

Pandy stared at the Loyalty numbers. Why were they so high? Last time she’d checked, they were, what, ninety-nine for Nyssa and only fifty-one for Nox? Pandy had fully expected them to go down, not up, though she’d been hoping Nyssa’s might still be high enough that Pandy’s nine hundred and fifty-six Mana could bring her back to coherence. Well, as coherent as Nyssa ever got. It seemed more and more likely that the Apparition had, ah, lost something in the century she wasn’t fed.

Closing her eyes, Pandy did some mental calculations. She had almost a thousand Mana, so if she poured all but one into Nyssa, that would be one-fortieth of what she needed. One fortieth was… probably not enough to make a difference, and Pandy was going to need at least some Mana when she got to the basement. But she could split the cost three ways and just spend the next several days glomped onto Empress Glory… who didn’t intend to go with them. No, Pandy needed her Corruption Points, too.

“Nox, where are you?” she muttered as she stared at the book. Would this even work with the Apparitions so weak?

“Heeeeerrrrreee, myyyy laaaady,” a voice whispered in her ear, practically sending Pandy through the ceiling. Literally. She spun around, the legs of the chair twisting off balance so she had to stand up in order to avoid joining it when it toppled over. She ignored the loud thud, however, staring into the hollows of Nox’s pseudo-face. The largest hole opened again, emitting a moan as the flat body curled into something like a bow. Behind Nox, a bare smudge of two-dimensional darkness twisted, but Nyssa wasn’t even capable of producing sound.

Pandy gasped, her eyes filling with tears as she reached out toward the two stalwart guardians of Avington House. Even a hundred years of neglect hadn’t been able to reduce them to this state, but only a few months under her management had done it. Well, she would fix that, but they would have to wait a little longer. If they could. And with Nox’s Loyalty so high, she might be able to…

Pandy still held the book, and now she laid her palm flat over the page, whispering, “I’m sorry, Nyssa,” before thinking, <Innate Magic. Give Nox nine hundred points of Mana and twenty points of Life Force.>

Red numbers splashed across her vision even as the room around her darkened. Just enough moonlight filtered through the stained glass windows that her bunn-tacular night vision had taken care of the rest, but now she felt like she was in a tunnel, and there was a whooshing sound that indicated the train was coming. She swayed, and felt a frigid blast of air as a slightly more solid Nox attempted to catch her.

No, he wasn’t catching her, he was taking the Life Force she’d offered him. Generally, being injured didn’t really affect her all that much, other than the time she had to spend putting herself back together afterwards, but between this and the Mana loss, Pandy’s knees buckled, dropping her down onto the floor next to the fallen chair.

Faintly, she heard the doorknob rattle as Augustus called, “Pandora? Are you all right?”

She wasn’t all right, but she managed to say, “I’m fine! I’ll be out in a minute. Or ten.” Then she laid backwards, barely dodging chair legs, and let the room spin around her as her Mana slowly ticked back up. Only when she could see again and the merry-go-round had stopped did she clear her throat and say, “Nox?”

“Yeeesss, myy laaady?” he said again, but this time she thought she counted a few less vowels in the drawn-out words. Not many, but a few.

Holding out her hand, Pandy summoned a box she’d placed into her Inventory just before they all retreated to the library. Slowly, she sat up, holding it out toward the two Apparitions. Somehow, the book had landed on top of her, still open, so she glanced at the page before opening the box.

NOX - Apparition

Condition: 10%

Cost to Repair: 1989 LF/ 99450 Mana/ 9945 CP

Loyalty: 95%

Pandy gave a small, relieved sigh. Somehow, it had felt very important that Nox be up to at least ten percent Condition before she tried this. While the difference between eight and ten percent didn’t seem like much, she would recover everything she’d spent to get him there, and in Gacha Love, he would have just reached a threshold. Why did it matter? She didn’t know. It just did.

“This is a power crystal,” Pandy said, holding it up. The small oval seemed to take in the small amount of light available, leaving it a dark blotch inside the box.

She’d considered how much to tell the Apparitions about exactly where this came from, but in the end, she’d decided that they didn’t need to know a human had probably died to produce it. Not that Bryan had said as much when he gave it and the matching Light crystal to her shortly before she rescued him, but the implication was there, and it was part of the reason Pandy hadn’t done as Bryan requested and tried to use the crystals to ‘recharge’ Thaniel’s heartstone. She knew Thaniel would hate the idea of stealing someone else’s magic, even second-hand, but she doubted if Nox or Nyssa would care quite so much. She might be doing them a disservice in thinking so, but if so, she would have to angst over it at some future point.

“I think… I hope that if I put this into the book, it will help both of you recover,” Pandy said as both amorphous elementals drifted closer, like dogs sniffing at a suspicious object. “But I don’t know. It could… just roll off. It could go poof. It could show up someday in a particularly fancy toilet. It might even hurt you in some way that I can’t predict.”

At this, she flinched ever so slightly, crossing the fingers of her free hand. In her old world, there would have been no ‘might’ about it. With her luck, she probably would have blown up the whole house, or maybe turned it into a single enormous elephant that would rampage through Knightmere and crush half the city. Here, though? Here, where her soul actually belonged, and the world wasn’t actively trying to spit her out like a clam with a particularly irritating piece of sand? Maybe this would work.

Swallowing hard, she asked, “May I try? If you don’t want me to, I totally understand. I’ll keep working on helping you guys, or… or I’ll find someone else who will, if I can’t. But-”

“Yeeeesssss,” Nox moaned, a waving tendril extending toward the crystal. Pandy pulled it back. Letting the elemental hold it might very well work, but something told her that if this worked at all, it would be better if she used the book’s user interface. That was how the spell that fed the two elementals was set up, and Pandy just had a feeling that the old adage ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ applied here.

Having been given permission, and before she could think better of it, Pandy tipped the box, spilling the crystal out onto the pages of the book that lay open in her lap. “Repair Nox,” she told it, and the purple-black stone shimmered, then sank into the page.

Nox exploded.

Not in a ‘concussive force’ kind of way, but more in an ‘expanded outward with great speed and  energy’ kind of way. His essence flooded every part of the room, making Pandy realize that was what had felt so strange about the house up until that moment. It was empty. The kind of empty that precedes complete structural failure, not just an absence of occupants.

Now, every floorboard, every sconce, every carpet fiber and bunny statue, all were full of Nox. The house was Nox, and Nox was the house. The whole building seemed to shudder, though no knickknacks fell from the shelves, so it was probably a metaphorical – or possibly metaphysical – motion. From outside the door came loud exclamations of surprise, and the lights came on.

This was not metaphorical. When Pandy first took over as Lady Avington and began restoring the house and its elementals, the rooms and halls regained the sort of ambient light that came standard in buildings of this world. Tonight, that light had been absent, but now it returned with a vengeance, illuminating the office as brightly as if it was daytime, though without the flood of colors passing through the stained glass windows, painting the room in rainbows.

Pandy looked down at the book, blinking back the dark spots that flitted across her vision.

NYSSA - Apparition

Condition: 41%

Cost to Repair: 472 LF/ 23600 Mana/ 2360 CP

Loyalty: 100%

NOX - Apparition

Condition: 71%

Cost to Repair: 580 LF/ 29000 Mana/ 2900 CP

Loyalty: 96%

A single tear landed on the page, briefly staining the paper before vanishing as thoroughly as had the crystal. Pandy struck the next one from her cheek, vaguely wondering if her tears counted for anything, and how many she would have to cry to actually change any of those numbers. When she looked up, however, the tears continued to flow, uncounted and forgotten.

“Hello,” she said, looking up at a figure that was undeniably Nox, but was also a stranger. He still had the dark eyes and silver hair and mustache he’d had before, but the version she was used to had always looked a little… false. Like a photograph or a reflection of something real. This was the reality, and the expression on his stern face was… approving? Pleased?

Sweeping a deep bow, Nox said, “Lady Avington,” and for the first time, there wasn’t a single hint of moan in his voice. Beside him, the plump, red-cheeked form of Nyssa bobbed a curtsey. At only forty-one percent Condition, she was definitely still fuzzy around the edges, and her feet… weren’t, but the cheerful smile on her face was the same one with which she’d greeted Pandy since the very beginning.

When Pandy started to stand, Nox held out a hand to help her, and she barely hesitated before laying her fingers in his. Gently, he pulled her to her feet, the book slipping down to vanish, unnoticed, before it hit the ground. “You’re… You…” Pandy stammered, then swiped one last tear from her cheek. “You’re all right,” she finally managed, and Nyssa beamed while Nox’s silver mustache twitched over his thin smile.

“For the first time in a very, very long time, I believe we will be, my lady,” Nox said, his voice pleasant and crisp, with an accent she recognized from both Saskia and, just occasionally, Isidor. “Now, what can we do for you?”