DREADWOLF

◈ Chapter 136:

 

Lyra double checked her invisibility was up, not because she suspected it wasn't, but just to try and calm her thundering heart and her jangling nerves.

 

She was crouched in front of a small door, a tiny door, one built for Goblin slaves. Beyond it lay her destiny, an opportunity to escape from the oppressive, and totally undeserved, bounty on her head. All she had to do was step through the door and- and- then- commit cold blooded murder.

 

She blew out a long slow sigh, seconds long, trying to reset, to center herself. She needed calm and composure for this, absolute perfect stealth was in order.

 

She lifted a shaky hand and pressed her palm against the door, slowly pushing as her other hand unlocked it.

 

She winced as the door made a subtle creak, the hinges apparently in need of oiling. Fortunately the bubble of her invisibility Skill kept the noise from escaping and didn't break, whoever was in the room beyond would have no idea she was entering, there was nothing to detect.

 

Well that was apart from the door itself. Her ability didn't work that great with doors, something about a large object pivoting from one point caused problems and she could feel the door pushing back against her hand, her ability trying to close it to 'hide' her tracks. At the same time it seemed to flicker, the door itself going transparent and a second slightly transparent and closed door appearing, one that bisected her body as she emerged. She hoped it really was just an illusion and wouldn't bisect her for real. Her Skill had done some strange things over the years, taking the masking of tracks and observation in some odd directions, not the least of which was turning to powder the blood free clothing she had given to one of her rescued clients as she had delivered them to their family. That had been awkward. Good sapient-like decision making wasn't a strong point of the automated Skill.

 

Still, it seemed she would get away with it. She emerged into the room as the door began to slowly close behind her, her Skill gently shutting it for her.

 

The room was… enormous, the ceiling was easily two storeys above the ground and a sprawl of furniture was cast across it, everything from Lamia style chaises, to low sofas, to coffee tables, to maybe a dozen drinks cabinets and huge and heavy dark wood wardrobes.

 

Swirls of strong smelling smoke gently drifted through the air, indication that the dozen or so jewel encrusted sheeshas had been recently used.

 

It was clearly a place for the Lord and Lady to entertain guests in a more private way before inviting them to their bed, which was of course also in the room, a vast thing well over ten foot by ten foot and built to hold multiple large Lamia, which it currently did. 

 

There were a total of seven Lamia sprawled across it and passed out, all pure blood, six female and one male. Him, it was him, the target, a striking black scaled serpent amongst the colourful others, a glossy shadow amongst the tangled rainbow coils.

 

Lyra bit her lip as she looked over the mess of Lamia. How was she supposed to get a clean shot at him with a bed this large and with this many other Lamia in the way? 

 

Hesitantly she stepped around the armchair she had emerged from behind and approached.

 

Not only was it wide and long It was also quite a tall bed, meaning it rose high from the floor, which just added to the issue of reaching Wranvyre. She stood at the edge, fretting, he was so near, so killable, but the risk… In her head she had imagined a much smaller bed and no Lamia in her way, she would simply stand by the bed and stab down.

 

No way that was happening here.

 

But she couldn't just go, she couldn't just leave, this opportunity was a gift from the gods themselves.

 

And how else was she to protect her family?

 

There was no other choice and she reassured herself that once the blade pierced it would all be over, the aftermath would not matter.

 

She very very carefully lifted a knee and slipped it onto the bed, easing her weight onto it.

 

She paused waiting for a reaction, but of course, with the help of her invisibility, she wasn't sensed.

 

After a moment of tense observation she began to knee walk closer. The first obstacle was a Lamia tail, a large one, green, it blocked her way and she needed to get over it. Carefully 

now she moved sideways then lifted her knee, awkwardly straddling the thing then slipping over the other side.

 

Fortunately, the Lamia was so addled with whatever they had been smoking that she didn't notice, even when her wool brushed up against her. They had clearly been very busy in more ways than one before passing out.

 

Lyra was close now. She had chosen her route carefully and only one sky blue scaled Lamia lay between her and the Lord. She bit her lip as she looked over her, completely naked of course, just like the Lord, everything on display. 

 

The black knife materialised in her fingers and she slowly leaned over the female Lamia, wobbling slightly as she tried not to fall.

 

It was as she was balancing that her wool brushed up against the Lamia's skin and the Lamia started to move, her tail sliding over the green scaled Lamia, up and around. She moaned "Wranvyreee," softly in her sleep, stretching her arms above her head, and the tail that now circled Lyra suddenly constricted, squeezing tight around her hips and legs in a loving Lamia embrace.

 

Lyra froze as her invisibility broke under the touch. She was trapped. Trapped in the coils of a Lamia who was sleepily crushing her. Not good. 

 

But that was not going to stop her from saving her family, she still had the reach on Wranvyre. She firmed her grip on the knife and turned back to the Lord, lifting it in preparation to lunge, lunge for his eye. The quickest and most certain way to kill him remained her best option. She would aim the blade for his eyelid and stab through the eye socket and directly into his brain killing him instantly.

 

The problem was. There was no longer an eyelid to aim for. Because the eyelid was open.

 

Lyra looked down in horror at the Lord calmly gazing up at her, fully awake and aware, his dark brown eyes looking directly into hers.

 

"Lyra Bellerhorn. How is that you have come to be inside of my bedroom, inside of my mansion, inside of my walled estate?"

 

"I… d-don't- I-" Lyra's mouth was dry, she couldn't breathe.

 

"Hmm, lacking your usual silver tongue. Perhaps I can slake your sudden drought of playful words. You are desperate, the bounty is a threat to you and yours and you came to solve the problem using your, really, quite curious invisibility." 

 

"I-"

 

"Which is really the best possible outcome for me, with this there is no way that your lies will be able to become irritating rumours… although." He glanced at the knife, his lips forming a flat line. "The betrayal of the knife was never part of the equation. To think it would abandon me for a brat like you, a cretin, a moron from a family of morons who simper and scrap at the noble table, begging to be allowed back into our circle."

 

"F-FUCK YOU!"

 

She slammed the knife down, the tip aimed directly at the reclining Lord's face. The blade came on, about to pierce, and then it was going through a pillow, slamming to the hilt.

 

Lyra blinked. One moment the Lord had been there, and then he was just gone. In an instant he had vanished into thin air.

 

"It doesn't matter, it's hardly the first piece of poorly crafted magic to be unruly, failing to do as its master wishes."

 

She snapped around, breathing hard. 

 

Wranvyre was across the room, opening a wardrobe as if nothing had happened, as if he had never been mere moments from death.

 

"Y-your Class, it t-teleports you?"

 

"Was it that hard to figure out? You realise now that there is no escape from this. I am well aware of your limitations."

 

Lyra watched, trapped within the Lamia's constricting coils as the Lord pulled on a shirt and buttoned it up, tugging at the cuffs to align them as his long black hair draped easily over the white fabric.

 

"B-but h-how? No, wait, why did you let me go in the tent- back then? you could have teleported and ended me easily- but I managed to run!"

 

The Lord had pulled open an inner door in the wardrobe and was browsing a selection of swords.

 

"Hmm, that part was entirely intentional. Obviously I could have killed you at any moment, but I allowed you out of the tent and I allowed my brother in law to see and understand what you did. The knife unexpectedly choosing a new master was not something I would have allowed, neither would I have allowed you to stab him with it, although that did ironically seal the deal on his belief of what you did."

 

He seemed to find a suitable sapphire pommeled rapier and picked it out, checking the balance in hand before readying it at his side.

 

"And all because, as much as it galls me to say, there are certain rumours of my more... violent hobbies that had been circling, circling to the ears of my dearly departed wife's family. For them I needed to put on a convincing play, an act, a performance."

 

He casually passed his hands by his face and it was as if a different person was revealed in the passing of his fingers, his shoulders sloping, tears in his eyes, chin trembling, cheeks flushed with grief.

 

"Sh-she did it, that destitute sheep. She did it, she murdered-" he swallowed, his throat bobbing with restrained emotion, "She killed her for gold, for fucking gold! You understand that, don't you? I know you've felt it, their eyes gazing at us like rats hungry to devour, the public want what we nobility have, they always have, and they will kill for it, you know it's true, I know you can feel it, feel their gaze crawling on your skin. Poor Glyri was a victim of the filthy greed of the deserved 'have nots'. It's going to keep happening unless we do something about it… my brother, she would want this."

 

His hand moved across his face once more and he was as he was, as if he hadn't been crying a fraction of a second before, his cheeks dry and skin unflushed.

 

"My brother in law fell for it hook line and sinker." Wranvyre allowed himself a smirk. "Once you understand people they are easy to guide onto the wrong path with a little display, and then they get the bit in their mouth and they run with it forever, like a well trained donkey. And nobles? Well they understand paranoia and hanging on with clawed hands to what they inherited like nothing else, as I'm sure your parents would agree. I mean really Lyra, you look at me like this but it's not as if you are innocent of such behaviour. I did acquire a report on you before my commision. Those promises made you so much money, and then when you promised so many what you could not deliver it all came crashing down. So much hope created from your big talk and then crushed back to savage grief, how many hanged themselves after what you did?"

 

Lyra clenched her fists, fingernails digging into her palms.

 

"You don't know anything about me! And it was just a job until- until-... You know what, go fuck yourself Wranvyre, keep your shitty mind games."

 

Lyra turned and slapped the Lamia who was coiled around her in the face, hard. The crack of hand on skin broke the air.

 

The Lamia jerked awake, her eyes gummy with whatever she was still intoxicated with.

 

"Wha-?"

 

"Lord Wranvyre murdered his wife, he took this knife and slit her throat with. He did it because she was pregnant with monsters. If her body can be found you can see for yourself, if you can find someone willing to cut it open there will be half Goblins inside. You need to tell her family what happened! He killed his wife! They need to know!"

 

The Lamia stared at her blankly, her mouth opening and closing in shock. She still seemed half out of it, but maybe it wouldn't matter.

 

"He-he did that? he- I- I can tell them, yes, I have friends that will-"

 

Her words were abruptly cut off with the appearance of a piece of steel in her throat.

 

Lyra stared in dismay as the Lamia died, choking and gurgling around the thin line of metal, blood pouring down onto her bare breasts as she rapidly expired, her hands clutching at Lyra weakly.

 

Lyra followed the blade to the hand holding it and looked up to find Wranvyre looming over her.

 

"If you thought any of these were leaving here alive then you were sadly mistaken.  Congratulations Lyra Bellerhorn, you will have more than doubled your cold blooded murder of the innocent, your infamy will be known far and wide in death."

 

Lyra trembled before him, her eyes wide, face pale. She was nothing next to this leveler. She would die here. He couldn't be stopped, he couldn't be reasoned with, whatever words she could have used to save herself failed to come to mind as she knew instinctively they would never work. She could make herself and the dying Lamia invisible, which helped… with nothing. The indentation in the bed sheets would indicate they were there and then Wranvyre would just stab and stab and stab. ...At Least her family would be safe with her death.

 

Wranvyre lifted the rapier and lunged for her heart.

-

The slave door stealthily creaked open.

 

Opal peeked from the gap wondering why it was that sheepy had taken so long to stab this apparently big bad leveler. Surely it was just a matter of one or two steps, lift then stab, then two steps back and done, right?

 

Apparently not as the room was significantly larger than she had imagined, and the bed was… absurdly large, large enough that it could fit an entire tribe of Gobbos! Well, that or a number of the aggressively large Lamia levelers, which it did happen to be filled by, and for some reason, a sheep girl.

 

Opal stared at her. Why had sheepy gotten onto the bed and then wrapped herself up inside of a Lamia's tail like she was wearing some kind of blue scaled snuggle blanket? What in the abyss was she thinking?! 

 

"Y-your Class, it t-teleports you?" spoke Lyra from within the coils.

 

She followed the sheep girl's gaze across the room to where an actually awake and moving Lamia stood, this one with black scales. He certainly looked like a merciless leveler Lord despite being in the nude.

 

She watched with interest as the Lord dressed himself and then to her amazement changed before her eyes, becoming grief stricken, his body language and expression so accurate that she found herself reluctantly believing it for the moment it appeared.

 

The sharp crack of a hand on a cheek came from the bed and Opal turned to see Lyra waking the Lamia looped around her, shouting in her face, trying to tell her what happened.

 

"He-he did that? he- I- I can tell them, yes, I have friends that will-"

 

The Lamia stopped mid sentence, her mouth open, perfectly stilled, her eyes unmoving. Lyra too, the two coiled together were stuck in place, frozen.

 

Strange.

 

She heard a sigh and turned back to find the black scaled Lamia by the wardrobe.

 

He rolled his eyes as he shook his head, running a hand through his hair.

 

"Not the move I would have made, and really, you just straight up told her? No ease in or spice for believability? I mean come on, what does the knife see in you as a deceiver? Fortunate for you that gullible idiot would believe up is down after an hour on a sheesha, not that it matters."

 

He yawned languidly and began slinking toward the bed, his coils making rippling S shapes as he slithered between the grand furniture.

 

"Gods, one of my best off the cuff bits too and I only have this fool of a sheep to witness it. What a waste!" He scratched his chin in thought. "Perhaps I could work it into a play somehow, the tale of the murder of Lady Glyrieth, of a mass murdering psychotic sheep, and me the stalwart hero."

 

He mulled this for a bit as he stood by the bed, the sheep and Lamia on it still frozen in place.

 

At last he clucked his tongue. "No, playing myself would just be too crass so soon after her death, even the nobility would balk at that."

 

He seemed to think about this a little more, as if hopeful he could figure a solution, but then he shrugged and lifted the rapier, casually pointing it and pressing the tip against Lyra's chest. He muttered something under his breath as he held it there and Opal caught the word "knife" and "Heart", but then his gaze was inevitably drawn up to her face, his hand easing on the grip.

 

"...Ah but you have such a pretty expression Lyra, someone who is deeply familiar with true fear. A lifetime of desperate anxiety really does make for the best of faces. It's a shame things turned out this way, truly, had things gone differently I had considered having you act in one of my theaters… and even to make you an icon of the stage."

 

He paused as he gazed into her eyes. 

 

"Perhaps a few more seconds seeing you in motion wouldn't be so bad, a little animated reference to memorise."

 

The blade tip moved from Lyra's chest to the Lamia's neck and then he pushed forward. The steel point slid into her, puncturing her skin as blood spilled free, at first just a little then a lot as the girls unfroze.

 

The Lamia died in front of Lyra's eyes. Wranvyre savoured her terror.

 

Opal lay back and let herself sink into shadow.

 

She hadn't been sure precisely what was happening at first, the Lamia didn't even seem that bloodthirsty, more mulling and thoughtful than anything, but then he had lifted the blade and she had realised her mistake.

 

Nobody was allowed to kill sheepy. Rain would be sad. A quieter voice tried to speak up of her own feelings about that, but she swiftly crushed it.

 

She rose up from the shadow, ready to kill, ready to-

 

Her pregnant belly pressed up against the underside of the bed as she emerged from shadow. It… was a lot closer to the floor than it had appeared from the Gobbo slave door.

 

She wiggled, desperately trying to shove herself nearer the edge, nearer to the black coils sliding back and forth just out of reach. To no avail, she was firmly jammed under the bed and stuck tight.

 

That was… a problem. She looked past the black scales, desperately trying to spot a suitable shadow to move to, but there was none nearby!

 

"-your infamy will be known far and wide in death."

 

Opal grimaced, here it came, and she needed to do something. She readied herself to make a risky attack on the Lord, falling from the shadowed ceiling so far up without a shadowed landing would pose a danger to her offspring and yet if she had no choice... but then the tail moved as the Lord became agitated, his bloodlust showing through.

 

The tail tip swept under the bed and Opal didn't hesitate, her hand snapped out, the harpy talon forming in her fingers as it went, and in one motion she sliced the tip of Lord Wranvyre's tail off.

 

The reaction was instant, there was a scream and the scales jerked back from the bed, a streamer of blood flinging into the air as the stump of his tail tip whipped away.

 

Now the Lord was in a more convenient position it was time to move in for the kill.

-