The Grand Weave

"So what exactly did you just do?" Sereza asked as she peeked over my shoulder.

I ran a hand down my face and stayed silent. It didn't take long; Erebus' skill activated, and I could feel his mana drop. When he crawled out of the corpse, the body dissolved into dust.

Sereza jumped back with an eep. I once again appreciated the magical mask glued to my face.

I grabbed the loot orb from Erebus' back and carried the spider in my other hand. Sereza gave me a dirty look, so I waited until she caught up.

"You could have warned me, you know." She coughed up a wad of black phlegm and spat it out.

I summoned a flask of water and tossed it over. She caught it, popped the cap, and gargled a mouthful. I waited till she finished before accepting the flask and doing the same.

The mask prevented anything from breaching its surface, but I accidentally bit my tongue in the middle of the fight. The taste of copper was still noticeable, and I wanted it gone.

After emptying the flask, I tied it to my belt and continued walking. Sereza joined me, and I held up Erebus. "This guy here is what you promised not to speak about." I then held up the loot orb in my other hand. "And this is why you can't speak about him."

I tossed the orb over, and she reached to catch it. I had channeled some mana into the orb before tossing it, so when her fingers wrapped around the shadowy material, it unraveled, and a band of black cloth fell out.

She looked down in surprise and held up the band. The material matched the figure's cloak and had the perfect shape to fit around someone's wrist.

"What is this? A bracelet?" She pinched the cloth with her fingers and held it up. Then she did a double take, looked over to Erebus, and returned to the bracelet. "Wait a second, where did this come from? You burnt the robe off the guy, and there was nothing on its corpse."

Honestly, I was surprised the loot orb had produced something other than an alchemy ingredient. Materials were the most common drop amongst the orbs, and if I had to make a rough guess, somewhere above ninety percent resulted in materials rather than items.

I didn't answer her and continued until I stopped before the man's corpse. I was unsure about letting Erebus loot what was once a person. It was a fifty-fifty split on whether the skill would focus on the elf or the abomination the elf had become.

In the end, I decided to loot the corpse. I fought to kill the thing, and it died doing the same to me. Letting the spoils of victory go would be an insult to what I promised my familiars.

So I reached a hand out and let Erebus crawl on the dead man's chest. He waved a single spider leg in a salute and sank into the shadows, where the tentacles invaded the elf's heart.

Sereza watched silently, but she moved back by a few meters. Since I was unaffected, I stayed where I was and waited for Erebus to appear.

After he activated his looting skill, I felt a slight change to his draw on mana. Usually, when Erebus was summoned, he had enough mana to loot about twice before needing to rest a little to loot again. Anything beyond three would require mana potions if done in a short timeframe.

When he activated the skill this time, his mana dived steeper than usual. His mana pool was less than a quarter full, and I could feel him struggle slightly as he exited the shadowplane.

He crawled out of the shadows as I gently extended my hand, and then he slowly climbed onto my palm. I bent my fingers to support him better and stepped back, and the elf's corpse began to bubble and melt.

The last of his flesh joined into the oily muck that was his lower half and turned into a puddle of rancid colours. Sereza had to take several steps back to avoid the stench from the puddle.

With a final glance at the extent of damage done to the city corner, I joined Sereza, and we left the area. We walked for a minute before we found a nearby bench to sit on. Now that we were seated, I grabbed the loot orb from Erebus' back. It wasn't bigger than the usual orbs Erebus created and was made of the same material.

"What are you waiting for? Open it already!" Sereza said, excitement unhidden as she stared at the orb.

I quirked an eyebrow. "Excited, much?"

She ignored my sarcasm and held up the cloth bracelet. "Do you know how insanely rare it is to have a looting skill?"

"Don't get your hopes up. Usually, it creates materials, not items. And we don't even know what the enchantments are; they could be useless junk."

Still, delaying was pointless, and I channeled mana into the orb. It popped, and a ring fell out. It was made in the shape of a tentacle curled into an 'o'. It was black with an oily sheen similar to the slime on the abomination's body.

It squished when I rubbed my thumb over the material, and I felt the cold ooze across my skin. But when I pulled my thumb away, the spot on my gloves that had touched the ring was dry.

Two enchanted items in a row? That's uncommon.

I held the ring up to the light and handed it to Sereza so she could examine it. She made a disgusted face as she squished the tentacle ring before returning it.

"I'll keep the bracelet if you don't mind. I don't think I want to risk wearing a cursed ring," she said.

I wasn't too thrilled about the idea of wearing a ring made of fleshy tentacle, but if the effects were good, I would put up with it. However, now that she mentioned it, I wondered if Erebus could produce cursed items. During times like these, I wished the system's description of my skills would be more thoroughly explained.

Erebus hopped onto my hand, his body already recovered from the drastic drop in mana. He tapped the ring in a few places, and I was afraid his razor-sharp limbs would puncture the tentacle, but when he finished examining the item, the ring was left undamaged.

He sent thoughts of joy and completion, so I pulled out a rib bone I had stored in my inventory and fed it to his back. He tapped my hand with his limbs, and I smiled before undoing his skill and returning him to my soulspace.

Sereza snorted as she stood up and tapped my leg with her tail. "You summoners are a cute lot. Always cuddling the summon, whether it be a cute kitten or a giant lizard."

I stood up and stretched. "Don't knock it till you try it."

She smiled and rolled her neck. "To the barrier?"

I nodded, and we set off. I summoned Zharia, and she resumed scouting as we crossed the broken city streets. The city was much larger than the village on the island, so it took another hour before we arrived at the barrier.

Sereza let out a low whistle as we stared at the massive streams of water rushing in different directions. Up close, the barrier produced a low roar, the raging rapids blanketing the silent street.

We kept our weapons out and constantly looked for signs of life or danger. Zharia watched overhead and was ready to sound the alarm if she spotted anything approaching.

Together, we silently approached and stared through the shifting water to peek at the otherside. It was hard to make out, but I saw an empty street littered with crushed debris. I had expected blood stains or corpses, something that could point to what happened in that region of the city, but alas, it was futile.

There wasn't anything there.

"Well, this was a bust," I half-shouted over the din of the barrier.

Sereza shifted till she was closer and turned to yell in my ear. "Do you think your tiger cub can absorb the barrier?"

I shook my head and pointed to the wall of moving water in front of us. "Not a chance. He'd explode from too much mana."

"Then what do you want to do? There's no way we can cross through."

I looked to the right and saw the barrier had left the buildings untouched, and the water streamed from the street below. I crouched down and moved my head to ground level. Where the water touched, there were raised stone sigils.

"There are runes here, look."

Sereza leaned down and followed my finger as I pointed to the raised sigil. She shifted around to see at a better angle before she stood up and crossed her arms. "These sigils were designed into the road. And considering how it's shaped around the buildings and houses, I'd say this was a planned security system."

"I agree, but knowing that does nothing for our current issue."

"True, but it's good to know this wasn't the work of the cult invading the city. There has to be a reason only this part of the city has a secondary barrier."

I agreed, but we would have to leave the issue alone. For now, it'd be safer to head back to the cellar. We could take our time and check out some of the buildings for survivors.

"Did you enter the rift before or after I did?"

"After, why?"

"How many people did you see enter the rift? I know the city is big, but statistically, there should be a few adventurers in our part of town."

She made a grim smile. "That's only true if they are still alive. And I entered about ten minutes after you did. A few teams called it quits, but the rest decided to enter when the others stepped in."

"Any estimate on how many tier-two teams there were?"

"More than ten, less than twenty. One had two members around tier one, so they backed out after the goddess' warning."

This time, I crossed my arms and gave her a look. "And you found out all this, how?"

She grinned. "People watching. You can find out a lot of things by simply being around when people talk. You should try it."

"I'll take your word for it. Come on, let's head out. There's nothing for us here."

I glanced at the barrier a final time and released a sigh. Things were getting complicated, and I was not looking forward to the next thirteen days.

We turned around and started our trek back to the cellar. Zharia resumed her job of going in and out of buildings while we stayed low and stuck to the shadows.

I was of half the mind to have Zharia send a flare into the sky and see if anybody would respond. But Sereza pointed out that doing so could potentially lead an army of tentacle monsters our way, so I nixed the idea.

In the end, Zharia found a few places where monsters stood frozen in space, like the giant beast near the smuggler's den. It was an easy decision to ignore the monsters for now and steer clear. If we found more people, we could take a shot, but it felt like a gamble to start poking the spatial distortions.

And when we finally arrived at the manor, I called Sereza over and pointed to the front door. "Hey, let's see if the water in the washroom works. I know it's easy to ignore, but I turned off the filter on my mask, and we both smell like death."

"Yes, Master is too dirty. Clean is good," Zharia chirped.

"What did she say?" Sereza asked as she lifted her shirt to smell it. She recoiled and made a disgusted face before putting her hands on her hips and facing me.

I turned to Zharia and stuck my tongue through the mask before turning back to the felkin. "She was saying I am too awesome to continue being so dirty."

A few more chirps went off near my ear, and I waved the suddenly close bird away and continued up the house steps. I found a bathroom with a shower system and called out to Sereza.

She rushed over and groaned in delight at the sight of the shower. "Awesome. You wouldn't happen to have any soap or anything, would you?"

She pointed to the knocked-over bottles that had shattered and spilled their contents on the floor.

With a sigh, I pulled a bar of soap from my inventory and handed it over. She flashed me a grin and then promptly shut the door in my face.

I heaved a weary sigh and trudged up the stairs to one of the side bathrooms. As I closed the door, I waved goodbye to Zharia and unsummoned her.

Now that I was alone, I stripped and stepped into the part of the bathroom that contained the shower system. The water that came out was ice cold, but I welcomed the cooling water.

Closing my eyes, I tried to summon another soap bar, only to feel nothing appear. I frowned and tried again, and this time, I felt a sense of rejection from my chest.

Frowning even deeper, I sunk into the mental space that showed the inside of Chomperz's stomach. To my dismay, there was a distinct lack of soap of any kind.

Ahh fuck, it's time to scrub hard.