Chapter 163 – Woodshaper

Savri

Lilyth wasn’t that far off about the time we got back home, and sneaking us into our home at half seven in the morning was quite a fun exercise, though when I got into my bed, I knew I likely wouldn't be getting any sleep.

Too many thoughts were racing through my head.

I knew the furball was right about heading back home, but I hated to leave with questions unanswered. Nyxie seemed to have sensed my mood as she quietly appeared next to me.

Wordlessly, she wrapped her hands around me and kissed my neck and then my lips.

‘Hey, babe,’ I smiled in relief.

‘Hey,’ she purred. ‘Thought you could use some company.’

I kissed her on the forehead, mouth and just kept going lower, opening her shirt as I went.

‘You were right,’ I murmured seductively, my head over her belly.

‘So, how was your trip?’ Nyxie asked as we lay there spooning, me still coming down from the rush of pleasure.

‘Could have gone better,’ I admitted. ‘Not looking forward to going down those tunnels.’

‘Yeah,’ my big spoon laughed. ‘There are better things to go down on.’

‘True,’ I purred. ‘You know… I never expected for me… to enjoy being with you as much as I do.’

‘Happy to help you discover more about yourself, babe,’ she said as she caressed my stomach. ‘Been a while since I was in a relationship with a mortal.’

‘Kinda funny that my first girlfriend is a goddess. Still, I feel like the luckiest woman alive, Nyxie.’

‘And so long as we are together, I will do my best so that you continue to feel that way. Even forever.’

‘Forever?’ I asked, confused. ‘Last I checked, I was mortal and will eventually have to serve Ereshkigal.’

‘Doesn’t mean I won’t be able to spend time with you there. And well…’

There was a brief smell of ozone, and moments later, Nyxie put a vial with a cloud inside it.

‘Essence of Air,’ she explained. ‘Will turn you into a fae. Something like what Lilyth did with Helrika, except without… You know. If you take it, you will be able to stay in the realm of Air, and you won’t have to worry about things like old age. Not if I can help it.’

A red light went on in my head.

‘Aren’t demons fae already?’ I asked.

‘Only in the sense you don’t live on Dwynveia,’ Nyx answered carefully, her wording causing another red light to go on.

‘I knew you would catch on,’ Nyx sighed. ‘The rest you will need to discover on your own. And I think you are on a trajectory to do so.’

‘Is this one of those sordid secrets the quest warned about?’

‘No. But it is related. Based on what I have seen, you can't investigate one without discovering the truth about another.’

‘Isn’t telling me this against the rules?’

‘Those have been… relaxed,’ Nyx seemed sad. ‘But this stems from us being together. If we continue this relationship, chances are that breaking it up will prove difficult. Feelings can be like that, and like all gods, I have done things I am not proud of, but were necessary for “the greater good”. And you may discover some of those.’

‘Have my share of that on my conscience,’ I interjected. ‘So I can’t blame you without being a hypocrite. Even the scale stopped mattering to me in the end. Killing ten people for “the greater good” wasn't any better than killing a hundred. Or a thousand. Your hands were splattered with the blood of innocent people, all the same.’

‘I am so sorry you had to discover that,’ she said, squeezing me. ‘Though in a selfish way, I am also happy. Because you are one of the few mortals who really understand.’

‘Who thought gods and special forces soldiers would have something in common.’

‘I don’t think gods would compare themselves to special forces soldiers,’ Nyx laughed, but got serious moments later. ‘Still, as much as it hurts me, I want you to go into this relationship with both eyes open.’

‘Is this why gods stay single?’

‘Yes,’ Nyx sighed. ‘It usually doesn't go much further than friends with benefits. And we are very careful about relationships with mortals.’

‘The power differential?’

‘Yes. Which is why I am letting you set the pace of this thing. If it were up to me, you would probably be my co-queen right now.’

And here I thought moving truck lesbians were just a stereotype. Wouldn't expect a goddess to be one, too.

‘And the essence is the first step to that?’ I asked.

‘Yes. But don’t feel pressured to take it. It is an option. I will still be with you even if you choose not to change your body. The question will always be… will you choose to stay with me… after you make your… discoveries.’

I opened the vial and downed its contents. Almost immediately, I started feeling magic coursing through my body. Nyxie gasped in shock. I turned around to her.

‘Not sure about the whole queen business, but I want to see the realm of Air. And maybe hang out in your place and not just mine. It is also a small price for being with you, Nyxie. I don’t know where this relationship will take us, but I don't want the spectre of some vial hanging over me.’

I cupped her face in my hands and we kissed.

Maybe I am a moving truck bisexual.

Lilyth

Luckily for us, Ireela let us sleep until noon before coming to wake us up for breakfast. Savri and Deirdee were already up and drinking coffee, the former in a weirdly good humour. Before we could investigate, I had to explain why we suddenly had a pet slime, but I had the answer of me going for a midnight walk because I was unable to sleep and during which I found Fluffy, who followed me home. It was not that far from the truth either. In the end, Ireela didn't seem terribly bothered by him because, to quote, “he seemed quite well-behaved, unlike a certain someone.”

And speaking of the fuzzy douchebag, our two other pets gave my slime a warm welcome. Veenaya simply approached Fluffy, licked him and nuzzled against him. In fact, when we woke up, we found the two of them just lying in a very enticing patch of sunlight.

As for Chirpy… well… When the two of them met, the fuzzy douchebag carefully walked up the slime and poked him with his paw, causing Fluffy to jiggle. Chirpy then sniffed him and rubbed his scent glands against the slime, causing the beastie to vibrate.

Shockingly good first meeting, I thought, just before a crack appeared in Fluffy’s side and a green tongue emerged and licked the nesumi, causing him to jump back as if he was burned and hiss in indignation.

I couldn't blame him entirely because his fur got covered in slime, but then again, I supposed Fluffy was just mimicking Veenaya and trying to be friendly. In fact, I was weirdly happy to see it because that meant my new pet would be more than a sentient pet rock.

This would further be proven when Fluffy made an emoticon-like face for himself so that we could tell he was looking at us and what his emotions were. His creeping and jumping around with “OwO” written on his body was the cutest thing ever.

Still… I have to wonder… no. Let's back up.

There were several oddities about my relationship with Fluffy. First, why was I thinking about the slime as “him”? He… it… was genderless, best I could tell. Normally, I would assume I was just projecting my biases on him, but then there were the faces. I had trouble imagining that those were fully his idea. And I could almost instinctively understand him in the caves. Did it mean there was some sort of psychic link between Fluffy and me?

That made me remember the comforting embrace of the slime hive mind back from when I was turned into one by Ere.

I hate this place. Why can’t anythingbe simple here?

The next day, Savri asked me to join her in the wine cellar.

‘Sorry, Sav, but I don't drink,’ I replied, examining her carefully.

Something changed about her, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Was her hair a slightly lighter shade?

‘This is about that project I mentioned,’ she quickly explained and led me to a sturdy table she must have moved to the cellar while we were out. On it, there were several branches of roughly the same length but varying in quality and straightness. The green crystal she got from Ere was next to them, and taped to the wall above them were plans for a staff along with some inscriptions in the language of Life.

Huh. How the fuck am I supposed to help with that?

‘As I understand, you have some deeper connection with nature, yes?’ Savri asked, confusing me further.

‘Yeees?’ I replied. ‘I wouldn't call it that, but I do have some limited capacity to… I guess… get deeper insight into it? I haven't tested this ability that much.’

Savri nodded and began to tap her chin, lost in thought.

‘That brings me to my next question,’ she finally said. ‘You said that you had been able to see the damage magic caused to the tree that ate some poor fuck?’

‘Yes? But probably enough mana to power a small city was used to do that.’

‘That’s… not what I wanted to hear. Still… that brings me to what I wanted your help with. Could you examine those branches to see if there are any imperfections inside of them or perhaps figure out if any of them are good mana conductors?’

‘What,’ I said in a flat monotone.

Savri chuckled nervously, covered her face with her hand and shook her head.

‘I know how batshit crazy this sounds. Could you at least try?’

‘I guess it won’t hurt,’ I shrugged and approached the table.

Feeling like a complete idiot, I put my hand on the first and straightest of the branches and probed into it just like I did with the poor man-eating tree. You may think it is weird that I am more concerned about the plant than the person it ate, but, in my defence, the soldier was already fucking dead while the tree was still suffering, so go fuck yourself.

To my surprise, I could sense a trace of mana movements inside. They seemed to be like blood coursing through a creature's veins. There were blockages, though, and the flow was weak.

Not a good candidate.

I moved on to the next one. It looked fairly fresh, but the wood was dead magically. I put it away in a different spot than the first branch. If I didn't find an obvious candidate, I would try to identify a “good enough” one. And so I went, discarding more branches than finding manageable and one I instinctively broke in half and threw away. There was something... wrong about it.

‘It’s from the pocket of quiet,’ Sav explained. ‘Figured it would be a good candidate. Guess I was wrong.’

‘Yeah…’ I nodded and explained how I was feeling mana flow and what the problems were.

‘Interesting,’ Sav nodded. ‘I guess that explains why staves can greatly vary in power.’

‘Most staffmakers don’t speak “tree”, eh?’

‘They never even consider it. Until you told me about the man-eating tree, I didn't either. My original plan was to use the first branch you looked at.’

‘It is not a bad choice,’ I said. ‘I think it is the second best so far?’

I pointed to a branch shaped sort of like a question mark.

‘This is the one with the strongest mana flow I have checked so far. There are still some blockages in this one, but the mana flow is mostly unobstructed. Just… inefficient.’

‘I wonder how it was with my old staff. It was legion-issued and worked well enough, but I am just curious.’

‘How do magic staves work anyway?’

‘Oh, right,’ Savri let out an embarrassed sigh. ‘You wouldn't know, would you? Basically, the important part, or so I thought until today, is the focus crystal. It amplifies the mana poured into it, giving you more bang for your buck. That and you can smack people on the head with it.’

‘Nine out of ten doctors agree that this is the best solution to every issue.’

We both laughed at that, and I returned to my task. Only four branches were left, all of them not particularly promising as they were gnarly and damaged, so I wasn’t sure why Savri picked those up to begin with.

Maybe she hoped parts of them would be salvageable?

The first of the batch proved to he as useless as I thought, but the second… a quick peek proved that all the issues were fairly superficial, inside there was a strong and healthy core that just screamed that it wanted to become a staff. The only issue was with how twisted the branch was.

I felt it would be a shame if such a fine piece of wood went to waste… something activated in the back of my mind, and some instinct told me that it would be possible for me to alleviate this somehow. I just had to be gentle.

Led by that impulse, I started pouring mana into the branch and, thanks to what I learned while examining that poor tree in the Murdergrove, guiding it along the mana channels to the places the branch was bent at. Slowly, it started to straighten out, though I had to use magic to heal the damage caused by the process.

After that was done, it was time to shape the branch into a proper staff. It felt mostly to be the right width, but the bark and any “naturally” damaged section had to go. With the latter, I felt kind of like a dentist removing damaged parts of the tooth and filling them out.

Someone placed my canteen next to me, so I took a swig and returned to work, and soon afterwards, I was holding a perfectly smooth and long darkwood staff.

Now, it was time to add the inscriptions Sav designed. I delicately carved them along the haft with raw mana, trying to soothe the staff’s discomfort while doing so. I was quite pleased with the results and somehow had no doubt those would work just fine despite my limited connection to the realm of Life.

Finally, I grabbed the focus crystal and held it next to one of the ends of the staff. I sent tendrils of mana into the area and grew branchlets that formed a lantern-like enclosure around the stone. I smoothed them out a bit, added some small fox-themed flourishes and examined the finished product with my interface.

Item: Staff of the Kitsune

Class: Weapon - Magic Staff

Rarity: Artefact - Unique

Quality: Exceptional

Durability: 50/50

Traits:

• Soulbound - Cannot be stolen. If lost, it can be resummoned by the owner at any time. If damaged, durability is restored at twice the owner’s natural healing rate.
• Apex Arcane Focus - Life - Life Spells channelled through the staff have vastly increased efficiency and effectiveness.
• Minor Arcane Focus - Other Arcana - Non-Life spells channelled through the staff have slightly increased efficiency and effectiveness.

I smiled and turned around to present it to Sav, only to see she was gone and in her place there was Aki, sitting on a chair and observing me with a mix of worry and fascination. Absolutely dejected-looking Fluffy was in her lap. It took me a moment to register that she wasn’t dressed the way I remembered - instead of her tunic and trousers, she was now wearing a simple black dress she must have borrowed from Ren.

‘When did you come in?’ I asked. ‘Where is Sav?’

I was seriously confused. I should have noticed people milling around. I could vaguely remember someone touching me and some unexplained electric shocks, but I was so engrossed in my work that I paid them no heed.

‘I’ve been watching you for the past three hours,’ Aki responded with serious concern in her voice.

Three… hours? I was completely stupefied.

‘Lilyth,’ she continued, noticing my lack of understanding, ‘you have been out of it for over two days.’