Keron
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Chapter 87 - Gifts
🕑 Added 2024-06-24 17:00:07 +0000 UTCEmily stands up, her heart calm with acceptance as she strips the two warm corpses lying before her in the tent of their magical possessions. She also takes the inhibition incense, finding a few spare sticks tucked away on a shelf beneath the table, before removing the Spitter’s silencer and holstering it again.
Emily leaves, heading to the closest exit and returning to the surface. She makes her way across the city towards The Broken Keg, following the same route Vagrant led her along last reset.
Arriving at the pub, Emily looks in through the dirty windows at the gathered patrons.
That’s a lot of witnesses.
She scans the booths lining the walls, quickly picking out the one housing Lurker.
I’m not hiding my mana signature right now and Lurker doesn’t seem to care. She’s probably not checking her detection crystal. I could use a brew of imperception, but I’d rather not waste those when I don’t think I can get more shadow boa.
She turns, looking back at an alley on the other side of the street that lines up roughly with The Broken Keg’s windows.
That could work.
Emily walks across the street into the alley, finding it empty other than a few piles of rubbish from the homes bordering it. She continues for a few metres, until the alley starts to curve, and before turning to face the pub again.
She summons the Whisper, its cold grip dropping into her outstretched hand. She tucks the hefty rifle into her shoulder, standing in a balanced, neutral stance, and places her face against the cheek rest. She reaches one hand up and adjusts the scope’s dials, setting the range and bringing the pub windows across the street into focus. Emily’s eyes glow orange, lighting up the dark alley, as she looks between the gaps in the booths for the heat of Lurker’s body.
Found you.
Emily smiles a predatory grin as she adjusts her aim. Her thumb flicks the firing selector to silent before she gently squeezes the trigger. The rifle lights up with a green glow and kicks back fiercely, but Emily barely flinches, absorbing the impact, as the bullet tears out of the barrel with a sharp hiss, spiralling through the air in a straight line towards her target.
The bullet shatters the window, before boring a hole through the solitary booth’s wall and the head on the other side. It keeps going, burying itself deep into the metal wall in the corner of the building.
Emily sees Lurker flop lifelessly onto the table in front of her then lowers the gun, racking the bolt and catching the spinning cartridge it ejects.
Targets eliminated.
She stores the weapon again and turns to continue through the alleyway, looking at the cartridge in her hand. An idea strikes her, so she pops a blade out of a Claw as she walks and gently carves a crystalline skull with a dagger through the top into the side of the cartridge. She flicks the finished memento up and catches it, sliding it into a pouch on her utility belt as she ignores the panicked screams fading away behind her.
***
The remainder of the time before their expedition passes quickly. Juliana insists on taking over the mundane preparations completely, dealing with food, transport, and shelter for the group, to take some of the burden off Emily’s shoulders. This leaves Emily plenty of time for the rest of the prep, and she soon finds herself sitting in her room, gearing up for another foray into The Glade.
Most of her gear remains the same, but her body armour has undergone a slight remodel. Tracing the spine along the back of the armour now sit eight reinforced glass tubes, filled with glistening red liquid. Each tube has a sleek metal housing that contains an injector system that can be activated with a small spark of machina.
Emily finishes fitting the Claws to her arms and gives herself a once over before standing up. She throws on a fresh set of black waterproof robes that she finished enchanting last night, with blue runes woven into the inner layer, and grabs a small, wide-mouthed backpack covered in purple runes, a spatial bag she has prepared for Tom.
She walks to the door and opens it to leave, running into Juliana standing with her hand raised to knock. She’s wearing a simplified version of Emily’s body armour, with a weight reduction array and a weakened resistance array, using only earth crystals due to low metal crystal availability, and no injector system. Emily looks her up and down, appreciating the battle-ready look far more than her usual mage attire, and noting the canvas bag held at her hip.
“Morning,” Juliana greets her cheerfully, throwing her arms around Emily’s neck and giving her a kiss.
“Morning,” Emily responds with a smirk after they separate. “What you got there?”
“Weaving stuff. Can you keep it in your spatial storage please?” Juliana responds with puppy dog eyes.
“Haha, I’ll do you one better,” Emily says, reaching into The Clock’s pouch and pulling out a delicate necklace.
The chain is made of alternating black and white metal links, with miniscule purple runes carved into the white ones. The pendant hanging from it is a carefully crafted white lily. In the centre is a glittering purple crystal, surrounded by spiralling purple runes spreading out along the petals, and on the back is a second small crystal, recessed into the metal to allow the pendant to sit comfortably.
“Here.” Emily presents the gift with a gentle smile and a light blush on her cheeks.
“It’s beautiful,” Juliana gapes in awe, her eyes fixed on the enchanting pendant.
“Well, I made it for you to wear, so that’s only fitting. Right?”
Juliana blushes, pulling her hair out of the way as Emily reaches out and wraps the necklace around her neck. She fastens the clasp with dextrous fingers and steps back.
“Inject a bit of mana into it.”
Juliana wordlessly complies, and the pendant lights up with an ethereal purple glow that dances around the petals for a second before fading again.
“Woah.”
“Perfect,” Emily purrs quietly, watching Juliana lift the pendant and stare at it with watering eyes.
“It’s bound to you now. Simply hold an item you’d like to store and send mana into the necklace. Then to retrieve an item, think of it and do the same again,” Emily explains.
Juliana does just that, making the bag from her hand vanish as the lily glows again for a split second. She looks back up to Emily, tears rolling down her cheeks.
“I love it,” she says, throwing herself into Emily’s chest and hugging her tight. “Thank you.”
“Haha. You’re welcome,” Emily says, gently stroking her hair for a few seconds. “But, as much as I’d love to stay like this forever, we should probably leave now. We don’t want to make the others wait for too long.”
Juliana gives her one last squeeze before pulling away and nodding. Emily wipes the tears from Juliana’s cheeks before wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her down the corridor.
***
They meet their friends, all of whom are wearing their own body armour, provided by Emily just in case, in the cafeteria and eat breakfast in good spirits. Juliana proudly shows off her new necklace, and Emily hands Tom his backpack, filled to the brim with food and camping supplies, this time including cooking utensils. Enzo notes the oddity of leaving for an important expedition without a large send-off, but Emily simply shrugs it off as unimportant.
Afterwards, they leave The Dome together, hopping on a southbound train towards Southern Edge Station. They alight from the train and take the elevator down to the ground floor to meet their transport. Waiting on the street is a large car, twice the size of those used on the Salvia expedition.
“Tada!” Juliana chirps proudly, skipping out in front of the group to approach the driver, who is standing, leaning against the car’s front.
The man looks over as they approach, dropping the pipe from his mouth and bowing deeply.
“Hello, Lady Madonna. Are you ready to leave?” he asks politely.
“Yes please!”
The driver steps over and opens the car’s passenger door for them. The mages file in, giving the driver a nod of thanks on the way past. Once they’re all in, the driver shuts the door and climbs into the front cab, firing up the car’s engine. The vehicle roars to life and glides forward, the smooth movement in contrast with the violent sounding engine.
They could do with better sound dampening.
Dante, Enzo, Hester, and Tom chat quietly while Emily leans against the window, watching the streets roll by. Juliana leans against her side, her head resting on Emily’s shoulder with a happy smile dancing across her lips. The car soon arrives at the city’s exit and slides to a halt in front of the guards.
Juliana stands up and opens the door, stepping outside and walking over to speak with the guards.
Is this a difference in family status? We were able to leave without a single check before.
The guards don’t cause any issues, standing aside to let them through after only a brief conversation with Juliana. She climbs back into the car, settling down against Emily again as the car rolls into motion again.
Emily puts an arm around her girlfriend and gazes absentmindedly out of the window, her mind distracted by experiments in the Spellweave. They leave the city and drive through the countryside for a few hours, the car filled with excitement and expectation. Emily joins in with her friends’ conversations occasionally, including explaining how guide poses work and how she bought one from Oscar in preparation; and how he made her sign a magical contract agreeing not to give the pose to the Mandragos, or use it for their benefit, an easy contract for Emily to agree to.
However, other than answering a few questions directed at her, she mostly spends the time messing about with spell creation, trying to create some more third circle attack spells.
They soon arrive at the edge of The Glade. They all climb out of the car and thank the driver, leaving him free to return to the city, before settling down for lunch overlooking the mystical forest. Tom and Hester are both floored by seeing the magical hotspot for the first time. Juliana has already seen The Glade once before, from an airship while passing by, but she still appreciates the view from up close.
Tom excitedly takes the chance to use his new spatial storage and pulls out several sandwiches to distribute amongst them. As they all eat, enjoying the view, Emily turns her attention away from the forest and to her teammates.
“Hey, Tom,” she calls lightly to grab his attention. “Here, take this.”
She reaches out a hand, summoning an item from her belt and handing it to him. He looks confused for a moment, before realisation flashes across his eyes as he glances down at the similar shape fastened to Emily’s thigh.
“Is this a gun?”
“Yep! Since you can’t use proper attack spells, I thought it only reasonable to give you another way to defend yourself, just in case. And since you don’t know how to use a sword properly, I figured a gun was probably the easiest option,” Emily explains.
The gun she hands him is a boxy black pistol. It’s far less elegant than Emily’s personal weapons, looking like a lumpy box with a handle, the magazine beneath sitting an inch below the base instead of sitting flush. Tom turns it in his hand, his eyes glowing.
“Thanks, Emily!”
“No problem. It’s yours now.” She summons a leather harness and hands it to him as well. “Strap it under your arm with that. It should sit comfortably in your left armpit with some spare magazines under your right.”
“So that’s why you took my measurements,” Tom mutters, spinning the harness around trying to work it out.
After a few seconds, he tangles the harness while putting his arms in. Hester rolls her eyes before shifting to sit behind him and taking the harness from his hands to help.
“It takes the same bullets as a standard revolver if you ever need to buy more. I’ll teach you how to load the mags once you’ve shot it a few times. To fire, just flick the safety up, the switch at your thumb, and squeeze the trigger. Leave it down when you’re not using it, and never point it at something you don’t want to shoot, even if you think it’s on safe. Finally, it should be pretty much silent: so it’s safe to use in there,” Emily says, gesturing to The Glade with her head before adding: “Oh! Just don’t try taking it, or the magazines, apart. There’s a nasty mix of magic and explosives in there for anyone trying to reverse engineer it.”
Tom pales at the warning, looking up with shock.
“Wait. Is it safe to use?”
Emily scoffs at his question, looking past him to Hester, leaving him to his panic as punishment for not trusting her workmanship.
“Have you learned the spells I gave you yet?”
“I’ve learned protective bubble, cleanse, and a few projectile attacks, but it’s gonna take me a while to finish them all,” Hester answers while tightening the straps around Tom’s chest.
“Wait, you gave her spells?” Enzo asks confusedly.
“Yeah, I passed along a few basic second circle spells I bought since she didn’t have enough points to buy them,” Emily answers with a shrug.
“Wow! Everyone gets gifts but us. I see how it is,” Dante says with his hand on his heart in mock offence.
“Ha. I’ll show you some pretty explosions later. How’s that for a gift?”
“Perfect,” Dante responds with a grin and a thumbs up, drawing a few chuckles from the group.
“Jokes aside, I do have stuff to give you two as well,” Emily summons a bundled up robe and tosses it to Dante.
She repeats this, giving everyone in the group one.
“They’re waterproof and tear resistant. Don’t say I never get you nice things.”
They finish their food, and Emily gives Juliana one last squeeze before standing up and leading them towards the edge of The Glade. Before they cross the boundary, Emily turns to face them all, the looming trees standing tall behind her.
“Right, this is it,” Emily begins with a serious expression. “Once we step into these trees, consider it an active battlefield. I won’t let any of you die, but it’s still dangerous, so stay on your toes and if you spot anything you think may be dangerous please say something immediately. I’d rather have false alarms than miss something. I won’t tell you a formation to keep or anything, but try to keep Tom surrounded at all times if possible, and never move further forwards than me unless I tell you to.”
She falls silent, looking between her friends’ faces. She sees calm confidence on those of the three who’ve been into The Glade with her before, and a twinge of uncertainty and anxiety mixed with resolve in the eyes of the other three. Grinning, Emily nods and receives six firm nods back. She turns on her heels and steps forward.
“Let’s do this then.”
