Rain Harlow
patreon
(Vol 5) Chapter 59: A Dark Queen's Maiden Voyage
🕑 Added 2024-07-05 15:06:46 +0000 UTCSammy continued internally scrambling for a plan, some plan, any plan. “Like, ah, healing!” she finally sent to Ba Ra. “Cleansing- hmm. Her or, maybe, uh- what’s his name, Dika, Deiky, what, ah-”
“Deikmorn Brakka.” Ba Ra added helpfully.
“Yeah, him! Healing Deikmorn Brakka! I have this light cleansing… thing, so…” She suddenly remembered to check her timer on Channel Domain — which would be needed for cleansing Entropy — and saw it would not come off cooldown until dawn. “Stage Two! That’s Stage Two, you see! For fixing things! Because that’ll be later on. If he survives to dawn, that is.”
“Yes…”
“And Stage One, well, oh boy, wait until you hear this…haha…” Think, Sammy, think! Okay, we zip over there at lightspeed, and then… fight… or something? “Get this, Ba Ra — sink your teeth into this: I challenge Dreixia Hillcrusher…” She trailed off without finishing, wincing.
“As Puck?”
“Yes! Exactly. As I was saying, utilizing my new Naugite-stylized Face-Deity-Avatar, bursting onto the scene with gusto, I challenge Dreixia Hillcrusher to a duel to decide who’s boss!”
“That could work. If you present yourself as standing in for Zadkiel’s will while he recovers from his ordeal, this could change things dramatically. A presentation of strength by another aligned deity will cause everyone to reconsider abandoning the war effort. If you win. Fortunately, she’s terribly weakened by the corruption.”
“Alright then! Okay… I need to get there and I need to form a new Face. How long do I have?”
“Even on a forced march, mortals must camp to rest. There will be no siege until some hours after dawn. However, if we can convince them to depart the fortress, we’ll want to do it well before then. The closer to the enemy we are, the worse the damage of attrition their wizards are. Sooner is better than later all around.”
“I’ll get there as soon as I can. A few hours.”
“Keep me informed. And if you bring Servitors, don’t forget to change their style, and that many Naugites have Infravision. Better to use subtle illusions if not shapeshifting.” With that, she disconnected.
Sammy rolled her eyes. Like I’d forget! Hmm, maybe just a palette change for the Angels? Fallen Angels, Dark Pegasi…
Sammy left the two Daughters of Fate to entertain one another as she prepared for the journey. There ultimately wasn’t much aside from figuring out logistics for getting there and who she’d summon when she got there. Mirror-hopping from Fobent to Merrington was already set up by her realm, as was a chain from there to the site of the big battle, so getting to the new fortress wasn’t a stretch.
She wanted to summon a pack of Servitors as a show of strength once she got there. Her most powerful Faerie Dragons were definitely coming for their inherently on-theme shapeshifting, and she prepared to ‘fix up’ numerous strong Angels to show up. Cat Siths were actually golden, too, as Naugites associated black cats with the mysticism of the Southlands. Something to respect. And Resemblants… Well, they were shadows. It pretty much fit decently already.
Sammy momentarily took off for Fobent. Gabriel was her initial ‘pilot’, and she was ecstatic to be making the run, having obtained Flight (Expert) that made her, in her own words, ‘redonkulously fast.’ The base for level 7 was 180 km/h, and +80% made her pre-burden speed 324 km/h. But they now had access to a spell buff that was an additive +40%, making for a pre-burdens speed of a whopping 396 km/h. With the special weight-canceling carriage, actual long-distance speed was maybe only reduced by 10-15% from this.
“So basically,” Gabriel was finishing mentally as they were already soaring through the air, “Michael has no chance whatsoever of breaking the record I just set!”
“Uh-huh,” Sammy replied for what was probably the 12th time since listening to her break down the math. “Great. Just slow down a bit, because this is not a race. And look, I need to focus in on my Puck Face now that we’re moving, okay?”
“Sure thing, Madam! Don’t mind me, just setting another record with effortless ease, hehehe…”
For Puck, she started with something vaguely like Ozra, something like a gremlin or goblin, just red-skinned and somewhat larger, but not on the scale of her base form. It would end up being a bit less strong and a bit more agile, but the differences weren’t extreme considering the System-mandated raw strength of deities.
She went with the customary ram horns, with white hair and sideways-slanting pointed ears. There was an inherently mischievous cast to it all, but she tried to avoid a purely cutesy version of it, giving her the hint of danger and deeper sinister vibes. She added a devil’s tail.
She also desired to copy over her Relic Armor, so she gave it a different appearance to suit the Face. It was dark purple and vaguely organic in contours, suggestive of wood, yet entirely metal. The helmet was deliberately imposing, cultivating more of that sinister energy and Naugite-centric battlefield presence. A Dark Fae Sorceress Queen at war.
Azure was consulted at multiple stages to get her opinion and add details. She approved and reinforced going for the image of a dark trickster goddess. While some clans might not like the idea, most of them were not even present for the war to begin with, as Zadkiel had his own reputation for underhandedness. Azure also suggested going with a reflection of Fate for the Face, but calling it Luck instead. Everyone wanted that on their side.
In order to utilize [Pneuma], she decided to go with made-up, ill-defined, ambiguous stuff to cover for whatever she did, which the Naugites had to be used to already with Zadkiel hiding his Domain for a decade or more. [Pandemonium]. It sounded good for Puck, it could cover for Fate-based curses and such, and the realm-based nature would cover for [Pneuma].
Mysterious bullshit forces for the win. It slices, it dices, it tucks you in at night, all for the low, low price of your immortal soul! Muhahaha!
To cover for [Light], her various conjurings, and other odd synergies, she went with the similarly mysterious [The Gleam]. Wow, she already sounds cooler than me! Kehehe…
When she ran it all by Ba Ra, she was fully approving. “Pandemonium could tie into Chimera in the future,” she said in thoughtfulness. “Especially if we finally go public with it, as it were. Can you… truly just make a new realm? Out of nothing?”
“Out of Limbo,” Sammy replied. “Pneuma. Existing energy pooled around and waiting. But yes. I could create an actual Pandemonium. Whatever the hell that would look like.”
“I hope we’ll see one day.”
With everything prepped and approved by multiple sets of eyes, Sammy finalized the Face for Puck and created it officially.
New Deity Face (3/4) established for the Samantha Core Avatar, designation: Puck. 200 FE expended. Outfits 1, 2, and 3 configured, renamed to [Deviled Armor], [Deviled Casual], and [Deviled Eggcellence]. Note that a Face Change has a cooldown of 30 minutes during which you must retain the current Face for that Avatar.
She checked herself out in a mirror without the helmet. Smiled a razor-toothed devil’s smile with a new face. Oh yeah. Perfect! I feel more sinister already. But I’m totes not! But I have to pretend to be. Yeah. For now.
Suddenly, she felt uncomfortable in her seat. She had to twist a bit to let her tail wag around freely.
Sammy stared at the devil's tail as it wagged around. “I have… a tail. I’m a Tailed Beast. Heh. This is so weird…”
Touchdown near Fobent took less than an hour. They stowed the carriage and Sammy unsummoned Gabriel so she could be re-summoned at the location along with the rest.
Mirror Walking her way through the wilderness off toward Twin Wells and beyond, she finally found herself in some sparse forest going up a cliff’s rise. Over that cliff was a straight shot to the fortress of Prie Moraan blocking off a narrow valley eastward with its wide, runic-reinforced walls. Bypassing it wasted days through the rough wilderness, rockier and irregular to the north and boggy to the south.
Under the cover of trees, Sammy began summoning her crew of Servitors and buffing them, utilizing disguises for those that needed them — namely making the Angels ash-skinned and more severe of features, with jet-black wings. These were Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Seraphiel. She kept Metatron as a Pegasus she’d ride and did a similar color palette swap.
Dart, Athos, Constance, and Porthos were in mean-looking dragon forms, quite large and fierce-looking. Cat Siths Merlin, Saruman, Morgana, and Airmid rode on platforms atop the dragons, capable of flight separately if needed. Finally, a small clutch of Resemblants were hidden and floating around them for support, instructed to stick with their more indistinct ghostly forms for the occasion. As such, they were unrecognizable from each other even for those who could see through illusions.
“Looking sexy as ever, Constance,” Dart commented, his chosen form black with red gradients and white outlines, his wings and other subtle features somewhat insectoid. Creepy.
Constance eyed him cooly, her form sharing much in common with Puck’s aesthetic — dark purple, foreboding, yet beautiful in a regal way befitting a dragon. “And you look like an overgrown worm for me to devour.”
“Ooh, don’t let your mouth make promises your guts can’t cash, baby.”
Constance huffed, steam blasting from her nose. “Don’t call me that, you great jackass.”
Porthos laughed richly. He was reddish-bronze with features a shade whimsical amidst all the severity of scales and predatory angles. “Save the show for the Naugites, you two! You can snap at each other past the walls and look like a true villainous couple having a spat.”
Constance sneered and glared at him. “We’re as far from a couple as dragonly possible!”
“Enough, all of you,” Athos commanded. He was black-scaled and the most foreboding of all, though his scales seemed to gleam with an oily multihued sheen, intensified on his bat-like wings that had transparent membranes. “Our dark queen’s flight is imminent.”
Puck was grinning at their banter. She shrugged. “Well, no time like the present I guess. Onward with the dark comedy parade!”
“I wish Bast was here,” Constance muttered. “He’d look great brooding in guyliner.”
Porthos snickered. “I’m surprised you haven’t roleplayed something like this already!”
Dart scoffed. “Don’t get her started on that subject.”
The Cat Sith Merlin also scoffed. “Children. Hmm, Saruman?”
“Indeed,” Saruman agreed as he cleaned himself.
Sammy layered a final invisibility over them, ensuring they weren’t seen and sniped from afar or the like.
The party made its way to the cliff edge, where the fortress could be seen to the east. Somewhat unexpectedly, though, spells lit up the night sky. Protection spheres could just be made out hovering high above, as half a dozen or more spellcasters were dropping fire, force energy, explosions, and lightning down on the fortress. Most of it was getting blocked, but not all, and the return fire was pitiful.
They already know about it being manned and sent an advance raider group to start hitting them through the night. Nasty. Wonder how long they could go?
Something about it seemed to suggest they were in no hurry.
When she pinged Ba Ra, she seemed to be genuinely frustrated. “Yes, this is going to make the siege much worse if the defenders are sleep-deprived through the night and exhausted. The Dominion in contrast probably have their raider-wizards operating in shifts. And our Antimage is going to get worn out trying to mitigate this. I’m going to need to pull him and those loyal I’ve allocated here at some point, to rest under a Silence aura. And even if you succeed, these raiders will likely follow and harry.”
Sammy scowled upward at the Dominion wizards, who no doubt thought themselves immune to threats. “I think I’m going to make my show of force one of more… substance.”
____________________________________________________________
« (Vol 5) Chapter 58 | Table of Contents | (Vol 5) Chapter 60: Chaaaaaarge! »
____________________________________________________________
