Chương 74: Day 108 - Ansae (Rashomon)

There was something about watching armies burn that was really appealing. It touched her heart to see Blue do his best dragon imitation and roast some whatever-thousand monsters in one grand inferno. It was maybe a little disappointing he left the elites to the mortal fighters, but mostly because she wanted to see what other tricks he had. Otherwise, it was a good use of minions.

The side benefit was that Blue's little representative had returned, her unique not-quite-demihuman signature flitting about among the humans and demihumans. Which meant that Ansae could finally make a deal with him. Yes, it had only been a few weeks, and she'd been licking her wounds for centuries, but those were centuries she'd mostly slept through. These past few weeks had been interesting, especially watching Blue expand at a ferocious pace.

She was actually feeling a little impatient, which was itself fairly novel, and she'd been awake more than usual. Blue didn't really waste any time before sending Shayma down, either. Enough time to clean up and recover from what was a thoroughly messy, if impressively short battle. Then Shayma was moving down through the surprisingly-expansive tunnels toward the meeting room. Which was still in shambles, so Ansae took that as a sign Blue was still annoyed with her. Not that she blamed him.

She straightened up before Shayma arrived, shrugging on a mantle of self-control that she rarely donned, and nodded to the fox-girl when she opened the door. Whatever Blue felt, Shayma didn't look angry. Or even particularly upset. Just skittish and uncertain, and more than a little awkward as she sat down and didn't say anything.

"I wish to enter negotiations with you." It came out less smoothly than she would have liked. It had been a very long time since she was any sort of supplicant, and she found she didn't much enjoy the position. But she wasn't so stupid as to let ego get in the way of getting what she wanted.

"What would it take to repair the relations between us?" Shayma's ears flicked as she listened to the words of her master.

"Blue says that he would like an apology for your behavior toward me."

"Not him?" That was unexpected. Most people of power were rather prickly about their prerogatives, herself included, and servants were considered extensions of themselves for a wide variety of reasons. Having someone apologize to a servant was either an exercise in humiliation... or a sign that the servant is not just a servant.

"No, he says that I'm the one you attacked, so, me."

"I see." She had a feeling it was the second one, then. Usually that would be very foolish, but she'd seen the girl's Status. For a mortal it was something with an enormous amount of potential, and her Class was unlikely to be the only source of power Shayma had. Her species description implied that Blue could bestow enormous boons upon her... and that was ignoring whatever knowledge or items he created or found as a Power.

If he so wished, he could probably build Shayma into someone who could topple nations, in time.

"I, Ansae Ziir, do apologize for my unwarranted and violent behavior. I will not lose my control like that in these negotiations, rest assured." It was, frankly, embarrassing that she had before. Oh, it was a good idea to rampage every once in a while, just to keep her hand in, but there was a time and a place.

"Thank you," Shayma said, with all apparent sincerity.

"Blue wishes to know what you had in mind when you requested the meeting." Ansae wasn't certain how to take that. Blue was either being entirely disingenuous, or was a lot more ignorant than he should be for someone who knew her name. Or he had enough of his own concerns that he'd entirely forgotten about hers. She laughed, then, at already violating her determination not to let ego get in the way of things, and answered honestly.

"Direct. Blue has a way of curing Depletion. I want to be cured." Shayma nodded, ears swiveling backward then forward, and suddenly seemed shocked at something Blue was saying. Ansae kept a close eye on it and the surrounding area, since the cracks in the wall were starting to repair themselves. It seemed Blue's attitude was positive, though there was clearly some issue given Shayma's reaction.

"All right, well, first, Blue is willing to do so but he's not powerful enough right now." Shayma hurried past the, to Ansae, most important part, as if afraid she wouldn't be allowed to finish.

"Blue needs a reservoir of seven hundred thousand mana in order to cure that much Depletion, but he also wants to make sure you knew the process requires Blue to h-have sex with you." For some reason the last part seemed to worry Shayma the most. Ansae stopped herself from laughing again. As if a little sex worried her. In fact, it made a lot of sense, since there was almost nothing more intimate than what lovers shared and Depletion touched intimate things indeed.

Not to mention the act itself had so much weight that there was almost always power bound into it. But something about that reply was extremely strange. First, the fact that Blue could name a specific figure, however ludicrous, for curing her. Seven hundred thousand mana was, even for her, an absurd amount, but Blue's response just asked her to wait. He was confident he could manage it, and she just couldn't let that pass. So she asked.

"You know both my Depletion and my name. How do you know these things? I have gone to some trouble to protect myself from most forms of divination and appraisal."

"He says it just shows up for him whenever someone is inside. Name, health, stamina, mana, Depletion, but the rest of your status is hidden."

"... interesting." That was concerning. It was good to know that even entering his territory gave him such an advantage, but there wasn't much she could do about it if her existing protections couldn't shield her entirely. At least he didn't have access to her full Status, but just what he could see must have let him know how powerful she really was. She studied Shayma, then the mana flows that stretched throughout the miles nearby, but didn't see anything that would grant such an ability.

This Blue was full of surprises, but that was all to the better. He might actually be able to follow through for her.

"If you're not yet powerful enough to cure me, I can wait. I have been patient enough so far, another century or two won't hurt me." Shayma blinked, then shook her head.

"According to Blue it should be much sooner than that. He's going to study what [Purify] does the next time he has an opportunity, which will be soon, and since he's gotten this far in three months he's pretty sure he'll have some sort of answer for you soon." Her control slipped. Not much, and not in the direction of violence, but she was not expecting that Blue was so... new.

"You're... three months old?"

"The dungeon is," Shayma agreed, which was exactly the sort of non-answer she'd been expecting. Powers didn't spring forth fully-formed from nothing, and Blue was doing too many odd things and acting with too much purpose to be a newborn. But whatever he had been before, however he had become this, if his power base had only been growing for three months… She had noticed he worked quickly. She just hadn't realized that meant everything she saw was a recent development.

"If you could do all this in three months, that does imply you might be able to expand yourself significantly in just a few years." By this time the room had repaired itself completely, and taking that as reflective of Blue's mood, she decided to push.

"But until then, I should stay. You may have been able to deal with that army but there are more potent threats around. I am not going to leave my only route to a cure unguarded." Shayma nodded again, tilting her head before blurting out a question that was obviously meant for Blue.

"Wait, training for me?" After another short wait she focused on Ansae again.

"Blue is glad you want to stay, and says he'll make you a new, larger lair and give you access to the rest of the dungeon. He just wants information and shapeshifting training for me, since there's nobody else who can teach me." That was uncommonly generous. Almost suspiciously so. Ansae was building up two possible versions of Blue in her head, one of which was calculating and convoluted beyond belief, and the other was refreshingly straightforward.

Which version was true didn't matter to her response, because the offer was quite good.

"I suppose the more able you are, the more likely it is I get what I want. I have to admit that lair you made was a nicer place to stay than the cave I dug."

"Don't forget you can come visit upstairs, too," Shayma said.

"I'm sure Queen Iniri would love to meet you!" That seemed to be added by her rather than Blue, which tallied with Ansae's previous appraisal. Blue really seemed to be treating her as her own person, which made him far more dangerous than most powers or Powers she dealt with. Allies made better weapons than swords and better defenses than shields. Unfortunately, she'd outlived all of hers.

"Blue also wants to trade for gold," Shayma added.

"He needs it for building things but can't find any. He has things that are probably valuable." With that, twelve glowing stones appeared on the table, a thin bubble of black all that betrayed the actual method of transportation. Dungeon biology, honed to a fine art and made to seem even graceful, which was itself quite the feat.

"What are these?" She felt them respond to her the moment her hand got near them, something very much like a Source. But she'd far outgrown what a Source could do when she'd learned to wield Primal mana. A stone pillar slid up beside the table.

"They're Primal Sources," Shayma said.

"He made them by altering normal Source gems. If you watch the pillar, you'll see how it gets converted to stonesteel. He did that to the Source gems he made and he thought you might know more about them." What she saw was mana, either with no Affinity or one she'd never encountered, wrapping around and through the stone, carried by the tendrils of dungeon flesh. Then everything collapsed in on itself, converting to an entirely new material in a single moment of readjustment.

It wasn't the strangest magic trick she'd seen, but it was not something she'd seen before. To then apply that to a Source?

"... you can't do that to Source material," she objected, finally picking up the stones now that she knew what they were. Or purported themselves to be. But thinking about it, there might be an explanation. She only half paid attention to her own words as she narrowed her magic to the smallest tendril, probing each of the Sources. They responded. That shouldn't have happened. Nothing about what the Sources were doing made sense, because suddenly they were no longer their own magic, their own Affinities, but hers.

Her single, and singular, Primal magic, every Affinity and no Affinity. Each of the Sources was a tiny shard, but completely hers. With the slightest flicker of thought that they should really just be one Source they became so, their forms melding into each other, passing harmlessly through her because, of course, they were part of her now. [You have created an Artifact!] It had been a long time since she'd gotten any sort of notification from her Status. Doubly long since she'd seen that one.

She'd only ever made three other Artifacts, and none of them on purpose. The first was the dagger at her side, wrought from the heart of a Mana Spring in the abyssal ocean, granting her utter sovereignty over the winds and tides of that ocean. That ocean was gone now, but there was still enormous amounts of mana, both wind and water Affinity, resting in the crystal blade. The second was her moon, the Dragon's Eye, from which she drew her immortality and an enormous amount of raw power.

The third was the orb she had used and destroyed in her assault on the rot at the ends of the world, made of a material she'd never seen before or since, fallen from the skies and then infused with hundreds of thousands of points of her own Primal mana. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. [Provides a reservoir of Primal mana that grows with use.] [Reduces costs for Primal mana spellcasting for absorbed Affinities.] [Improves imagery and intent of Primal mana spellcasting for absorbed Affinities.] [Primal spells channeled through this Artifact cannot be blocked or deflected.] [Cannot be lost or stolen.] [Will absorb new Primal mana affinities.] [Please name your Artifact.] [...] [You have obtained Crown Of The Silver Woe!] It felt like she was cheating. Yes, it had been her power that had converted it to an Artifact, but the substance was the impossible Source material provided by Blue, and for merely gold.

Merely gold! She wanted to growl, or roar, or pin Blue down and ravish him without mercy, since he was clearly equipped for it. It took all of her self-control to keep her expression mild.

"What an astounding little trinket. I don't have anything like it in my hoard. The closest I do have is this beauty." She touched the artifact at her side, feeling its eagerness.

"Who took an ocean over a thousand years to make." She had named it a Crown, but at the moment it was still a gem. She needed to absorb it, and while there were various ways to go about it, the one that carried the most potent imagery was consuming it. So she simply swallowed the jewel.

Then she seized it, building on the strength of the concept of eating the power and pulled it into herself, circulating it through her mana channels as she forged it into the image of a crown, resting heavy on her brow, carrying with it her power and authority. Her horns crackled as it set into place, the Artifact blazing to life.

"Well, that's scary impressive." Shayma stared. She laughed, letting her teeth show and feeling more alive than she had in years.

"It has been some time since I've gotten to show off." The fox-girl nodded, still clearly unsettled, and Ansae took pity on her.

"If gold you want, then gold you shall have, but this thing is worth more than mere metal trifles." Not that she amount of gold she was planning to give them was paltry, but in the end it was just gold. She accessed her hoard, something she'd tied into her very body long ago, and dropped a few of her larger ingots on the table.

"So what do you want besides gold? My honor compels me to give you something else, and I do have quite the hoard."

"Blue says samples of exotic materials would be nice," she began, and Ansae flicked her claws, setting out an arrangement of metals, crystals, and ivories. Barely anything, compared to what she had stored away and what Blue had given her. But enough for a beginning, at least.

"Me?" Shayma suddenly burst out. Ansae tilted her head, peering at Shayma as the materials rapidly vanished from the table.

"... Blue wants me to ask for something for myself," she explained.

"But honestly, he provides pretty much everything I need. I would like to know if my parents are okay, and get a message to them if possible. They were out in the Wildwood forest the whole time I was over there, I think. That's the direction [Seeker] pointed, anyway." That was... so pure it nearly hurt. Most people asking for something from a dragon would think in terms of gold, gems, weapons, or maybe even actual dragonscale or claw.

Most people, offered something from a dragon's hoard, would think of what they could gain for themselves. Most people would not ask about their parents. She saw why Blue kept Shayma on such a loose leash. Or no leash at all. Ansae didn't have that sort of attitude herself, but she wasn't stupid. Shayma's perspective and personality was incredibly valuable, and trying to control her would only destroy her virtues.

She was starting to think none of that was calculation, though, and it was all just the natural way Blue viewed the world. And Shayma. She was starting to warm to the girl herself. Family was one of the things her power had denied her.

"They do say a child should honor their parents. A divination, then. Not an issue, though it will be easier if Blue takes down the [Warding] for a moment." The [Warding] dropped instantly, which made it much easier to see that he was already at work with the materials she'd supplied. Odd crystals sprouted throughout the uninhabited sections of the dungeon, and began to shift colors.

It was actually a little intimidating even to her how quickly he worked, considering the normal timescale of dungeon changes was weeks. Sometimes years. She shifted her focus to divination. That was actually harder than it might be, considering that Shayma had gone through enough changes to weaken the blood connection. For most people, probably, there would be no connection. In almost every way that magic cared about, Shayma was a different person now, but the key word was almost.

She still wanted that connection, which was enough. She'd certainly followed fainter paths, in the past. It was an expenditure of mana she couldn't easily recover, but with her agreement with Blue, that might not always be true. Besides, she had a new Artifact that would let her pool mana to deal with small expenditures like this one.

So spend it she did, wishing that her Crown had a divination-appropriate Affinity, and crackled through the hidden ways of the world to a campsite far to the south and east, where two fox-kin were sharing a stew.

"Found them," she told Shayma.

"They're just fine. I can send them a message, but it's one way." She had the ability to open a full portal, but there were limits to how much she was willing to spend when something far less would do the same job.

"Thank the gods." Shayma said. Ansae twitched, but not at the invocation. It was because Blue had somehow detonated one of the crystals in a way that threatened to give her a headache, the mana knotting in uncomfortable ways before dissipating. He really was kind of scary.

"All right, um... Mom, Dad, I'm okay, Iniri's okay, and if you go back to Wildwood Retreat they'll confirm it. I was there just a few days ago, but I had to leave. I'm with Queen Iniri, we're up north past Meil up against the mountains, before Yaen Pass. We're... being protected by a Power. It's complicated, but we're not in any danger or anything, and we're going to take back Meil in a week or so! Hurry up here, I'm sure everyone, Iniri and all, not to mention the Power, would love to meet you!"

Ansae packaged up Shayma's somewhat rambling message and sent it along the connection, watching it turn into a spiral of mist that appeared between them, and then clarifying into an image of Shayma. They had good reflexes, as the female had a light-absorbing sword out in record time, while the male simply hefted a nearby fallen tree. But by the time Shayma's message finished, they had relaxed enough that it seemed the message had been received.

"They have heard it," Ansae told her. Shayma bobbed her head happily before flicking an ear.

"It will probably take a couple weeks. Mom's only quick over short distances." This business of having to speak out loud to Blue was actually quite irritating. Hopefully Shayma could learn [Telepathy] or some equivalent, though so far she hadn't managed to get through to Blue herself with the Skill.

"Blue will have your lair ready by tomorrow," she said, addressing Ansae directly. Of course he would. Blue clearly liked moving quickly when he decided on something, and the usual restrictions that dungeons had didn't much apply to him.

"He says he'll leave it up to us how to schedule shapeshifting training, but he has some questions for you now, if you don't mind."

"Certainly. I have all the time in the world." As one of the very few immortals, that was more literally true for her than for almost anyone else in creation.

"He says he can see and manipulate mana, but he can't get it to have any sort of Affinity, and asks how to go about making mana have Affinities?" That was... very strange. Even she had started out with some basic Affinities, provided by her Race, even if she'd long ago grown beyond that. She could see different affinities circulating around, but maybe he couldn't access them.

The best explanation she had for twisting mana Affinity was her own method of reaching out to Primal mana, and even as she expanded on that, she wasn't sure that would actually help. But maybe that was a good thing. Even if it was Blue, a spellcasting dungeon would be... terrifying. Having one on her side would only be marginally less so.

"He's also curious about Powers. What being a Power means, and what a Power does."

"You do whatever you want." This wasn't the first time she'd been asked something of this sort, though it was the first time she'd been asked by a fellow Power. In fact, she'd rarely dealt with them. She knew better.

"It's not usual for Powers to interact," she told him, because he clearly didn't know better.

"One of the few commonalities we have is the ability to make Bargains, and we know better than to Bargain with each other."

"He's wondering what's so important that you're bothering with him, then."

"He can see my Depletion. What does he think?" Despite herself, her lips curled back to bare her teeth and the Crown on her head crackled. She thought he'd understood what was at stake for her.

"... he apologizes. It was a joke in bad taste. He's going to start working on your problem right away."

"Apology accepted." It was in very bad taste, but... perhaps she had overreacted. Blue was a peer, not a petitioner, and Shayma had her ears flat against her head from the pressure of her presence. She reminded herself that, jokes or not, Blue was being generous and open-handed. Even the joking might be interpreted that way, if she wanted to be particularly forgiving.

"I... appreciate that you're willing to help me despite how I acted in the past. That you're willing to do so without asking for some guarantee that I would cooperate." Then she snorted.

"Or even payment in advance, though I'm not sure that's so much gracious as foolhardy." Shayma ducked her head.

"He says he'd rather just be on good terms with you, and that it tickles his vanity to house a dragon's lair." It was clear by the expression on Shayma's face that she had no more idea what Blue meant by that than Ansae did.

"And that he's so brand new that he appreciates someone with more wisdom that he can talk to."

"That's a refreshing attitude." And fairly unique, historically. Most people didn't appreciate having The Silver Woe around. She grinned across the table.

"Not one most people have toward me. In the past it's been mostly running, screaming, begging for mercy – that sort of thing." Shayma blanched. It seemed she'd let some of her control slip as she'd relaxed.

"Should I be worried?" She asked, entirely blunt.

"No, you're quite safe." Ansae reassured her.

"Not only are you Blue's, but I got all my rampaging done centuries ago. Until this Depletion is fixed, I'm fairly well stuck anyway." She considered a moment, then added more honesty.

"I'm sure Blue's already noticed, but I don't regenerate at all. I have to be careful."

"That sounds terrifying!" Shayma stared at her, wide-eyed. The fox-girl was entirely too precious.

"Oh, Blue will add a regeneration field to your lair, even if it won't do that much good."

"That's kind of you." Ansae half-suspected the only reason Blue was doing that was Shayma's expression.

"For myself, I should see if I can figure out a way to speak with Blue directly. You're very charming, Shayma, but you can only be in one place at a time." Not just for that reason alone. It was difficult to get a grasp on what he was like without talking to him directly.

"Oh, I think Blue would like that." Suddenly Shayma smiled.

"It'll give him someone else to wake up in the middle of the night so he can pester them with bad jokes." Her ears flicked and she made a face." Three times," she corrected Blue.

"You have an interesting way with your servants," she said, finally unable to let the byplay go without comment.

"If I hadn't seen what you did to that army, I'd wonder if you were too soft." Unaccountably, Shayma blushed before appealing to her.

"This is another reason you need to figure out a way to talk to him! It's not fair that he expects me to repeat his flirting."

"Yes, it seems he's a thorough scoundrel." She agreed, finding herself entirely amused.

"I'll have to be cautious dealing with him." Shayma giggled, and ended the meeting by claiming Blue was afraid they'd start conspiring together. Which sounded like another one of his jokes. She was pretty sure, anyway, given that Shayma didn't seem much worried. Ansae stretched, stood, and headed back to her lair. She was pretty sure she could tell where Blue was planning to put her new one, deep in the mountain and, ironically, almost directly above her old one.

Considering his use of spatial magic, it was shaping up to be quite expansive. She shifted back into her natural form, holding out her claws to open her hoard again. The gold and silver insulation for her mana-gathering rune, and incidental bed, wasn't necessary anymore, so back it went. The decorations, some of her favorite though not necessarily most valuable items from her horde, went next, sorted back out into the hundreds of spatial pockets she'd crafted to store things.

It hadn't taken more than two instances of having things stolen from her, long and ago, to realize that not only was her hoard incredibly vulnerable when she was off elsewhere. Even back then taking it with her was unreasonable, let alone as the years passed and her collection grew. Then there were the things that were vulnerable to wind and weather, like paintings or unstable magical items. Or, as years turned to centuries and then millennia, anything that wasn't solid metal or stone.

She couldn't stop the passage of time, but the space that housed her hoard was absent anything else that might destroy her possessions. Most of them would probably have to stay there, but Blue's new lair wasn't going to need a mana collection rune, and she was certain that if she needed any special consideration for any piece of her hoard she wished to display, it was simply a matter of asking. Actually, if she were to have contact with the other guests of Blue's, she'd need a petitioner's hall.

He needed one, if he didn't have one already, squirreled away somewhere she hadn't looked. It'd be easier to tell him such things if she could talk to him directly. [Telepathy] didn't work, but if Shayma could hear him, there had to be some method. With all her centuries of experience, surely she could figure it out.