Chương 31: A Glorious Amount of Foolishness

"What a glorious show," Gloria said as she joined the passengers making their way back from the viewing galleries, though the familiar adjective made her pause mid-step.

'I should probably stop calling everything glorious before people begin thinking I've got only a single word in my vocabulary.' The Katamaran had already begun its journey, its movement noticeable beneath her feet as she walked toward her room among families discussing their favorite portions of the display and children hurrying toward the entertainment decks. Two sailors hurried past Gloria while arguing beneath their breath, though neither appeared capable of keeping his voice quiet for long.

"Tell me you launched that first signal early."

"Me? I still had the ignition cord in my hand when the sky exploded!"

"I was waiting for your signal, you idiot!"

"Then who in all the depths set half the heavens on fire?" Both men slowed and stared at one another before continuing on their way, while Gloria kept walking and decided that volunteering an explanation would accomplish nothing useful. For all its beauty, the celebration had captured scarcely a fraction of the battle's true scale, and Gloria found herself particularly dissatisfied with how neatly it suggested that nine brightly colored warriors had simply surrounded her and won.

"I could have defeated all nine without difficulty if they had truly been the only ones present..." she said quietly. At least the descending swordsman had been unmistakable, and the pale-blue fire used to shape him left Gloria with little doubt that the final strike had represented Kaiser, whose blade had delivered the last portion of damage required to bring her down.

If history insisted upon granting someone credit for her defeat, she could think of few people she would rather see honored, for Kaiser had been her classmate long before either of them possessed another name within DDO, and his relentless insistence had been the only reason she agreed to try the game that eventually consumed so much of their lives. A smile touched her face as she remembered those distant years, although it faded when she considered what his race meant for any hope of finding him now.

Kaiser had remained human within the game, and three centuries offered poor odds even for someone of his power, since DDO allowed players to survive wounds that should have killed them a hundred times over while guarding permanent escape from age with almost spiteful determination. The Church of the True God had enforced that restriction, declaring that true life could only be reached through the death granted by their god and treating every attempt at immortality as an offense against the natural order.

Players who pursued eternal youth had therefore attracted fanatics, inquisitors and entire armies prepared to destroy their research, which meant that even if Kaiser had searched for a way around his mortality after arriving in this world, he would have spent centuries opposed by one of its most powerful faiths. Another group of passengers moved past Gloria as a yawn escaped before she could suppress it, forcing her to cover her mouth.

"I have become quite tired," she admitted, continuing forward as the number of her cabin came into view only a few doors ahead. Even so, this world had already broken too many of DDO's old limitations for Gloria to accept Kaiser's death without proof, and if elves, grounded and dragons could endure for centuries or even millennia, perhaps he had discovered some means of— Her thought ended when a large woman came striding toward her with enough speed to force several passengers from her path.

She was remarkably beautiful beneath an unruly mass of red hair, though the collection of wolf pelts wrapped around her broad frame resembled clothing assembled from the aftermath of a hunting expedition, and Gloria had barely begun wondering where she had seen the woman before when her muscular arm drew back.

'Oh, she is swinging at me.' The fist came straight for Gloria's face, only to stop within her raised hand as her fingers closed around it, leaving the woman straining against a grip that refused to move so much as an inch. Nearby passengers hurried away from them while an animalistic growl rose from the attacker's throat, and Gloria calmly peered around the captured fist.

"Have I committed some offense against you that would justify this behavior?"

"You harlot!" the woman screamed.

'What?' Her other fist swept toward Gloria's head, though a slight tilt allowed it to pass through empty air before Gloria released the hand she had caught. The woman staggered with the force of her own missed strike, then retreated several steps and pointed at her with hatred burning through tear-filled eyes.

"How dare you stand there and pretend innocence after what you have done to us—to me?"

"Cease this foolishness," Gloria said, lowering her hands.

"I neither know you nor possess the slightest understanding of what you are accusing me of."

"You ruined my marriage!" The accusation finally disturbed a memory buried beneath the day's more important events, and Gloria recognized the red hair and imposing build from the women who had been seated beside Bar when they first met.

"You are one of Bar's partners?"

"I was," the woman choked out, fresh tears running down her face.

"Until he returned from that quest and declared that every one of us was weak, that surrounding himself with women like us had made him soft, and that he could no longer endure looking at us after witnessing what true strength looked like!" The memory drove her into another charge, though Gloria waited until she came within reach before flicking one finger against the center of her forehead.

The woman's head snapped backward as though she had run directly into a swinging beam, leaving her staggering through several clumsy steps, and before she could regain her balance, Gloria struck the thick wolf pelts covering her abdomen with a second flick. The force drove the air from her lungs in a broken gasp and dropped her onto both knees, where she clutched her stomach while struggling to breathe. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"What exactly did Bar do?" Gloria asked.

"He left all of us," the woman gasped, lifting her head to glare through the pain.

"He called us burdens and said that if we lacked the strength to follow his path, then we had no right to remain beside him, after which he took the only ticket among us and came running to this cursed ship!"

"The only ticket?"

"That slimy friend of his obtained it for him, and Bar held onto the wretched thing while telling us that we were too weak to follow where he intended to go," she spat, struggling upright as fresh tears ran down her face.

"He planned to abandon us, do you understand? He ran for this cursed ship while we chased him through the crowds, and only two of us managed to slip aboard after him before it departed, while the others stood upon the docks calling his name. He heard them, I know he heard them, yet he never looked back even once, because defeating you suddenly mattered more than every woman who had loved him!

He spoke of defeating you with that ridiculous smile upon his face, as though abandoning us were merely the beginning of some wonderful adventure!" She raised her tear-streaked face, anger overcoming the pain once more.

"He never called us weak before meeting you, so do not pretend that you had nothing to do with this!" Gloria showed no sympathy.

"I never told him to leave you, and his stupidity belongs entirely to him."

"You humiliated him!"

"I fought a monster while he happened to be watching, and if that was enough to destroy your marriage, then your tradition is even more idiotic than I believed," Gloria replied.

"Any custom that binds several women to one man because of his strength can hardly be surprised when his pride collapses upon meeting someone stronger."

"You know nothing of our traditions!" Gloria crouched until their eyes were level.

"Come after me again, and I will kill you; Bar's foolishness has nothing to do with me, and I will not offer this warning twice." She flicked the woman's forehead once more, knocking her unconscious before she toppled onto the floor.

'How exceedingly annoying,' Gloria thought as she rose and stepped around the unconscious woman, her good mood thoroughly ruined by another reminder of Bar. The tradition surrounding his marriages remained equally ridiculous, particularly when Gloria considered that the elven kingdom had permitted such arrangements within its borders. She had no intention of involving herself in Bar's domestic disaster, though if she encountered Ara in this world, she would certainly ask what possible purpose the tradition served.

Most of the passengers had already fled, although one young crewman remained nearby and stared at Gloria. He had evidently witnessed enough of the confrontation to understand precisely why the red-haired woman lay unconscious, and when Gloria snapped her fingers in his direction, he straightened so quickly that several towels slid from the top of his cart.

"You there, take this woman to the infirmary and ensure that someone examines her injuries," Gloria instructed, casting a brief glance toward the body.

"She appears to have tripped and struck her head." The crewman looked at the unconscious woman, then toward the finger Gloria had used to strike her, before nodding with remarkable enthusiasm.

"Of course, my lady; it must have been a truly terrible fall." Gloria continued toward her cabin without another word. Only a few doors remained between her and her own room, and as she reached for the handle, she spared one final glance behind her before dismissing the entire affair from her thoughts.

'Foolishness.' Gloria entered the room, and her hopes of reaching her bed quickly were crushed the moment she saw what awaited her. Iris sat rigidly at the table with a pen held above one of the many sheets now covered in circles, while Echidna towered behind her and wielded a narrow tendril of dark-red flesh that extended from her palm.

Each time Iris allowed the pen to drift even slightly from its intended path, the tendril snapped across her forearm with a sharp slap, leaving both arms reddened by what had evidently become a lengthy and extremely personal disagreement over teaching methods.

"You dare mock the Mighty with such a pitiful attempt?" Echidna demanded as another imperfect closure earned Iris a fresh strike.

"That shape resembles an egg crushed beneath a wagon, and Echidna shall not allow you to insult Gloria's instruction by presenting it as a circle!"

"I am trying, Lady Echidna," Iris replied through clenched teeth, her expression remaining impressively controlled despite the irritation gathering within her eyes.

"However, you have struck my arms so many times that my hands will not stop trembling, which makes the precision you keep demanding considerably harder to achieve!"

"Then command them to remain still, for the Mighty did not accept an apprentice whose hands surrender after a few gentle corrections."

"That was not gentle!" The red tendril rose again, though Echidna froze before delivering another blow when Gloria stepped fully into the cabin and closed the door behind her. Iris turned at the sound with unmistakable relief, while Echidna's stern expression vanished beneath a delighted smile as though nothing remotely questionable had occurred during Gloria's absence.

'Even more foolishness...' Gloria approached the table and examined the pages while Echidna allowed the tendril to curl around her wrist. Iris's latest circles showed clear improvement, for the horizontal stretching had nearly vanished, while the thickened closure points had grown smaller with every new sheet.

"Excellent work, both of you," Gloria murmured, already walking past them toward the nearest bed.

"Continue exactly as you have been." Iris's relief collapsed into horror as Echidna's smile returned and the tendril uncoiled from her hand once more.

"Gladly, Mighty Gloria."

"Wait, wait, wait!" Iris called, the alarm in her voice dragging Gloria's fading attention back toward the table.

"Lady Gloria, my hands truly cannot endure much more of this; Lady Echidna has been striking them for nearly every mistake, and I can hardly keep the pen steady anymore!" Echidna opened her mouth, though Gloria raised a hand before another argument could begin.

"Listen carefully, because I am tired and possess no desire to debate this matter; set three unused sheets aside for tomorrow, fill every remaining page tonight, and once you have finished, both of you may sleep. Echidna, reduce the force of your corrections, for beating the steadiness from her hands rather defeats the purpose of the exercise." Iris looked toward her temporary instructor, only to find Echidna returning the tendril to her palm without the slightest objection.

"Understood, Mighty Gloria; Echidna shall ensure that the child retains sufficient control of her fingers to complete the task."

"That wording does not reassure me," Iris muttered. Gloria had already resumed her journey toward the bed when Echidna spoke again, her voice growing serious.

"Before the Mighty retires, Echidna wishes to share something she may find interesting." Gloria looked back and raised an eyebrow before motioning for her to continue.

"The matter does not appear connected to our present purpose, though Echidna extended her awareness through most of the Katamaran while the Mighty was absent and examined the presences travelling aboard it," the goddess explained.

"Echidna encountered many unusual abilities during the Golden Age, whereas the creatures born during this era have generally proven too pathetic to deserve notice, yet two individuals upon this vessel stand far above the rest."

"How far?" Gloria asked, her interest overcoming a little of the exhaustion weighing upon her.

"One exceeds Iris by approximately one hundred levels," Echidna replied.

"The other exceeds her by no fewer than four hundred."