Chương 475: Day Four Hundred And Seventy-Three

Dear Diary,"Redemption is all about, Every turn improving, Because that's how a drill works." Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Redemption Y'know, the worst part of being isekaied is that nobody's gonna get my best jokes. Then again, apparently I've got a reputation for being a bit of an idiotic lunatic, so I guess I might as well roll with it.

Then again, maybe that's how I got the reputation, by making references nobody but me gets, then laughing my ass off while everybody stares at me, wondering what the fuck I'm laughing at. Wouldn't be the first time I've done something that stupid, and sure as fuck won't be the last. Like putting stupid anime references in my Holy Book. I dunno, maybe at some point I'll steal a laptop with a hard drive full of movies or something.

Then again, this is me we're talking about, so even odds none of those movies are gonna be something appropriate for family movie night, if you catch my drift. Because I just know I'll go do whatever it is I gotta to do steal that shit, then wind up forgetting what I went for and grab something only tangentially related. But maybe if I throw enough weird shit into my Holy Book, people will actually stop and think about it rather than trying to bludgeon people with it.

Because that is absolutely not what I want them to do. Bludgeon people. I want them thinking. Thinking good, bludgeoning bad. Shit, maybe I need to put that in there somewhere.

So yesterday after punching some extraneous holes in the courtyard and turning a former helmet into a fuckin' iron pancake, Saffron sent Karen home for the night, then had me slice some rocks out of the existing excavations, throw up some Filtration Wards under the courtyard, then use Fire Bolt to melt the fuckers into the holes I'd inadvertently punched in it. Sunset hit with us still standing there, and if it got a little cool, the heat radiating from those chunks of the courtyard definitely warmed things up.

Which I appreciated, because with my ladies in their unruffled gothic Lolita dresses and Karen in her porn star wedding dress, they all decided I needed to be in my 'Holy Garb' as High Priestess of Loki, which was about two square yards of silk, two thirds of that covering one of my legs, with the rest artfully arranged to barely cover my nips. Apparently there is, in fact, a set of panties that go with it, and they did not include those. Cold lady bits are not fun lady bits. Meh.

I whined enough about it that they warmed me up after we got home. In the morning Marie, Saffron, and I stepped back to the homestead and Saffron had me melt a bunch more stone into some big forms she'd made in the dirt. Most of them were pretty basic, just big fuckin' rectangles of stone that she trimmed the imperfections off, then had me lift into place. Not, like, with my hands, although I surprised myself a little bit by being able to stand one up.

"That goes over here," Saffron said, pointing at what looked like the basement of the excavation at the end of the valley with the mine in it. Which was absolutely at the other end from where I'd been working.

"Oh, this is going to suck. Why didn't I do this over there, then?"

"You need more practice with your tentacles." I thought about what Siobhan had me do the other night. With all three of them. It sorta came naturally, being able to just kinda do lots of things at once with those tentacles, but as you might imagine, they weren't the kind of thing you'd pick up the Two Thousand And One monolith with.

"Uh..."

"The big ones."

"Big ones?" She stepped over to me, said, "well, not the biggest ones. Those are too big. but... the bigger ones." She took my hand and teleported us... somewhere. The homestead valley, but not. Everything looked kinda misty and ethereal, and the excavations and stonework was absolutely ghostly. On the other hand the giant black columns, redwood large at the smallest, were absolutely solid.

"This size," she laid a hand on one of those, stroked it, and some part of me got really weirded out when I felt it.

"Will do nicely, I think." She took my hand, stepped us back to the valley, and nodded to the big stone block we'd crafted. I squared my shoulders, set my feet, and, as she giggled at me like I'd been doing totally unnecessary shit, reached out with the part of me she'd touched in that misty dream world. I... saw the business end of the thing come out of a ripple in the air, and I wrapped it around the massive hunk of rock.

Not wanting to find out exactly how badly I could herniate myself this way, I lifted slowly and carefully. Then felt like an idiot as it rose with about as much difficulty as lifting a big two by four or a sheet of plywood. Thinking about comedy routines I'd seen, I wrapped the tentacle around it a couple more times, supporting the whole weight of the thing, because I did not need it snapping in two. I lifted it over to where Saffron wanted it, walking along side to keep my eyes on it.

I laid it across the basement looking pit, and it settled in with a solid crunch. Weirdest thing is that I'm sure some parts of the tentacle were between the ends of the stone and the spots I set it, but they just... weren't. Like they phased right through the rock, or squirted out of the way, or I dunno, just fucked off back to neverland or whatever.

"Nicely done, love." She rewarded me with a deep yet somehow not sloppy kiss, which had me totally pumped to put the rest of those fuckin' things in place. By the time lunch rolled around, we had the 'main house' basement covered up, and we both went into the basement where she puppeted me to do another spell she called, 'Mineral Bond'. Which I guess acted kinda like superglue or some shit, only it worked on pretty much everything.

While we were down there working, she told me a story about changing Isnomi's diapers, where I'd given up on trying to fold it together properly and just Mineral Bonded the thing together. Fortunately not to her. Then she distracted me from the nigh inevitable weepies about not remembering that by taking advantage of our utter and complete privacy. Marie met us as we stepped out of the basement, hands on her hips and one eyebrow raised. She also had a big fuckin' monster elk lying next to her.

"Sorry, Murder Mittens. Didn't know when you'd be back?" Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. She laughed, rolled her eyes, and got us all really dirty, what with the lack of anything resembling beds or linen, and lying on stone being really fucking uncomfortable. To answer the question before it's asked, standing up. But that meant we all had to get a bath before lunch. Oh, no, extra bath time with Saffron and Marie! Anyway.

Weirdest fuckin' thing, when Marie got good and sudsy, I have no idea why, but looking at her grabbed my hindbrain and shook me around. Didn't go away until I got out a towel and toweled her very, very dry. Her hair did a total Jareth thing at that point, but before I could do the appropriate thing to do with anyone resembling David Bowie as Jareth in any way, Saffron lay a hand on my arm.

"Sorry, love, but we've news. Marie, could you come with us?" She did the trick she did to put us all in our uniforms, and stepped us all to an office, or maybe conference room. Looking out the window, I saw the rapidly clearing devastation of Calverton. Orla and Marylin Calvert were both in the room already, and a moment later Karen showed up, although like us she wore her uniform rather than her dress.

"Orla, Marylin, Karen, thank you for coming. Could you tell us what you've found?" Orla nodded, then gestured to Marylin, who looked a little surprised, but stood up and started talking.

"The Trolls completed their deconstruction of the House Crow townhouse early yesterday. Orla, General Hargreaves, and I have been going through the documents we found there since then. While the General wound up disappointed, because any references to what passes for the Rich Man's Port military had been removed or destroyed, we did find some personal correspondence that," she paused, then started over.

"I think a member of House Crow was in residence during the plague, and there's no evidence they ever left during the Undead infestation."

"What member?"

"I'm not certain, other than it's not Tallulah." I must have looked confused, because she explained, "that's the given name of Lady Crow, the Overlord of Rich Man's Port and the current head of the House. She has four children." She slipped into an almost recital, like she'd memorized the next bit at some point in the past.

"Cailyn, the oldest and most likely to succeed her mother as head of house should Lady Crow die in the next few decades. Lindsey, her only son, who is something of a fop, but who she often trusts as a diplomat because he has no real ambitions of his own. Adrienne, Lady Crow's estranged second daughter, who's exiled from Rich Man's Port, and Ria, who is younger than I am by a year."

"No cousins or uncles or brothers or anything?" Orla shrugged.

"Some, but we don't think it's any of them. Or Adrienne, for that matter."

"Why not?" Marylin cleared her throat.

"Because there is also mention of a full Fae bodyguard escorting whichever member of the House it was. A Lady-in-waiting, who in this case is also her last line of defense, three Knights including one Knight-Medic, and at least one Fae beast of some kind."

"Uh... okay, I'm gonna pretend like I know what that means. Wait, no, I'm not. By Knight, are we talking about, like, mounted dudes in armor? Because I haven't seen much in the way of cavalry hereabouts."

"That's exactly what they are," Karen chimed in.

"Only it's important to note that their steeds are not horses, but Nightmares."

"Why do I not think you're talking about bad dreams?" She blew out her cheeks before continuing, "because while they absolutely are, they're also... Think of something like a horse, but longer. Thinner. Taller. And an obligate carnivore that feeds on fear as well as flesh."

"Okay, yeah, that sounds pretty nasty."

"And they allow the Knights to ride because they fear the Knights." I let out a low whistle.

"Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon. So do we know where they went?" Marylin shrugged.

"At a guess? Home."

"Why wait until, like, just recently though?" Orla leaned forward just a bit.

"Because until you Liberated Calverton from the Undead, the House Crow townhouse was well within the area controlled by the Undead. From what we can tell, the townhouse itself had... significant protections."

"How significant?"

"House Crow is a Cadet branch of the House of Ravens." At my 'go on' gesture, Orla blushed a little, I'm not sure why, but said, "The royal house of the Unseelie Sidhe." I guess I kept looking blank, because she looked a little exasperated and said, "The Morrigan? A Goddess who married the King of the Unseelie, then when he tried to claim some kind of authority over her, killed him dead as fuck, and has ruled the darker half of the Sidhe since then? Also, the protégé of Odin?"

"Not to mention the Dan Goddess embroiled in a centuries long feud with your adopted sister, love." That brick of a Mythology book came to my rescue again.

"Okay. Yeah. Morrigan. Also... feuding with Hel?" Saffron shrugged.

"From what I've read, it started with an offhand comment at a social gathering.

'My half-as-pretty cousin', if the tales are to be believed." Dad? Did that bitch really say that about my sister? Loki sighed in my brain. She did, daughter. Why do I think you're hatching a plan to express your displeasure? Because along with being six kinds of awesome smart, you're the best. His reply sounded almost giggly. I know.

"Okay then. So what does Tallulah's great-whatever-grandmother have to do with the townhouse's defenses?"

"First, because they were retributive in nature. From what," Orla swallowed, "your son Conrad tells us, those shells? Were frozen in time until the one who fired them entered the house." I shook my head.

"Why didn't they go off when the Crow Fae put the whammy on me then?" Orla closed her eyes.

"Because, Champion, I'm the one who fired them. Or aimed them and ordered the guns to fire, at least." I stepped over and gave her a quick bro-hug.

"No worries, Orla. No way we could have known beforehand."

"But I put you in danger!"

"Pfft. Like I don't do that all the time." I scanned the room.

"What do we do next?" I don't know what Saffron did, but suddenly all eyes focused on her.

"Our next step is to send a diplomatic mission to Rich Man's Port, to see if they are willing to remove the curse without further need for violence. I have no doubt we could prevail, but we've just finished fighting two protracted wars over the past year. We need time to recover, rebuild, and perhaps progress some, if we can manage it."

"Okay, when do I leave?" Saffron shook her head.

"You, my love, do not."

"Why not? I know I'm not quite back up to where I was, but I'm at least what, eighty percent there? Ninety?" She sighed.

"Oh, I suspect you're less than half of what you were before you were cursed, but that still puts you at more powerful than you were before the Battle of the Walls." When I just stared, uncomprehending, she continued.

"The Battle after which the two finest military minds in Phileo agreed that you, by yourself, are the single most powerful military force in Atlantis?"

"But why would that... oh..."

"Oh indeed. If we send you, we are sending an attack force. Fortunately, the Sidhe do not have a monopoly on subtlety or guile." I shrugged and leaned against the wall.

"Okay. Subtlety and guile? I'm out then." Everybody laughed at that, but Orla chimed in, "I beg to differ, Champion. Your plan for the Liberation was executed with such subtlety the Undead had lost before they realized they were in a battle."

"Just so," said Saffron.

"But while all our Heroes who might be able to lead a mission to Rich Man's Port are unavailable, it's fortunate that we have a Senior Cadet who focused on the Law and Custom of Rich Man's Port." Karen jumped like she'd been goosed, and before she even managed to reply, her creamy complexion went pale as Saffron's voice filled our heads. Who also happens to be able to summon her Goddess should the Fae need... convincing.