Chương 67: A Song Of Ice And A Bundle Of Legs.

Vraxious—The Ravenous Grove Vrax excitedly slid from the Everthirst hammock in his "greenhouse." It reached towards him slightly as he walked away and straight to the workbench that held the beautiful angelic form of the Sirens Call daisy, its haunting tune scrabbling for purchase on his mind even now. He looked at the angry clot in its jar; it made a turn-it-off gesture towards the flower. Hmm, so it's affecting the angry blob too, but not enough to put him in a trance. Vrax looked at the jar.

"Well, little abomination, you get to see something that very few have. I'm about to turn this wonderful fragile flower into something amazing. You see, it's from the far north, so it likes cold. It's already got a pretty strong psychic lure. I'm going to combine those facts and make it something much more graceful than most of my other creations." The jar shouted something that was muffled by the glass. Vrax smiled and let his [Predator's Gaze] show him what the little monster actually was.

[Symbiotic Veinmesh Tier-1] (lvl 10) [Threat: low]. Huh, neat. Still don't really know what the hell you are.

"Shh, shhh, I'll talk to you later; this is more important." Vrax's face took on that rapturous, unsettling visage he defaulted to when he was using Adapt Life, and he slowly pulled the siren's call from its pot and held it in his hands. I have quite a bit more mana; let's see if this is feasible. The room grew noticeably colder as Vrax used [Adapt Life]; he focused on the plant's natural connection to the frozen north, the swirling icy storms, and the permafrost that pervaded that region.

He twisted the image he was holding to show the plant wielding that same icy cold against the creatures it lured in. [Mana 150/204] [Talent Granted] [Wielder of the Frozen Winds] This creature may create and shape ice and wind-aligned mana. Ahh crap, there it is… it's a mana-shaping talent, which means the plant can't do shit with it unless it's smart enough to learn how to do that... or has it instinctively like many other creatures do.

Alright, let's finish making the base before I worry about the admittedly critical details. Vrax set the Sirens call down on his workbench flat and began a slow, arduous crafting process. Lengthening the flowers out like arms, shaping the stem into a rough, almost concave torso. The roots and bottom he shaped into the approximation of legs and feet.

He wrapped the entire creature in a single layer of those transparent purple petals to help cover up the odd proportions of its limbs, although that made it even more uncanny, more like transparent flesh gently laid over a malformed dainty skeleton, topped with the lovely flower now the size of a human head. Hmmm, this is looking like the world's creepiest flower mannequin. I mean, that certainly works….

The siren's call song was becoming less and less indistinct as he continued the transformation, changing to more like an opera sung underwater than the hazy whispers it was before. Vrax skirted back and forth, up and down the humanoid shape, adjusting and refining his changes, forming a slight trailing cape of the transparent leaves down its back and finishing with a veil tracing down over the "head."

The blob of veins was getting more and more panicked as Vrax continued, rocking the jar back and forth, seeking escape. Vrax chuckled and put the daisy's pot on top of the jar to keep it in place before continuing. Right now the siren's call looked like a truly haunting sunken-in human-ish frame wrapped in the suggestion of skin and trailing cascading ribbons of the ethereal petals.

[Mana 100/204] The actual shaping of the plant into a humanoid had been quite mana intensive; Vrax expected the next bit would be as well. He focused adapt into the Siren's Call, trying to grant it a hungry, prowling mind to propel the new body he had given it with both skill and guile. It worked, but not how he had imagined; the beautiful veiled flower head ripped open as an actual brain formed inside, pushing its way past the thin flesh.

The siren's call swirled from the bench in a fluid sweeping movement, trailing its many petals around it like streamers in the breeze as it more glided than leapt to the floor and right up into Vrax's face. Oh shit. Vrax had a smite on his fingertips, ready to try and melt this thing's head if he had to. It almost curiously brushed a hand of petals along his face, ice crystals crackling across his skin. It spun towards the panicked jar on the table, sweeping over to it in a lunge.

Before Vrax could stop it, it had the jar in one hand and had begun freezing it. Vrax Slapped a hand on the Siren and sent it to his garden in a flash. The jar fell to the table and shattered into icy hunks. The Blob immediately started screaming in a whiny, nasal voice, "I don't know what kind of monster you are, but I... I will not be turned into one of your grotesque creatures! Grrrraaaahhhhhhh!!" It finished with a shrill scream and began cartwheeling towards the exit.

"Uhh, if you go out there, you are going to be eaten in like one minute tops." Vrax said, sitting back onto his hammock. The Blob rolled to a stop, whirling wildly to face him with its slightly rolling eyes.

"Better inside a subpar flesh palace than turned into a chair!" It gestured at the hammock.

"Well, I mean, most of the monsters out there are plants... so good luck with that. I'm guessing you need a host, and that probably can't be a plant with acid for blood. If the blob could have blanched, it would have at that "Well... hmmm…"

"Let's start again. I'm Vrax. This is my kingdom, and no, you can't use me as a host." Vrax placatingly gestured towards the empty table. The blob cartwheeled over and then pulled itself up with a rope of veins to be at eye level. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"Are you some kind of demented fleshweaver hiding in the forsaken lands from civilized people?" The blob asked. Vrax frowned.

"That's a shitty way to put it. I'm a paladin, thank you very much, and I like it here!" He shot back more pissily than he meant to. The blob cocked an eye stalk upwards.

"No one likes it here... I've been stuck here for gods know how many years waiting for the right adventurer to come along, full-bodied, gleaming with muscles, a well-balanced diet, and love of violence—the perfect flesh palace for me to live out my reign!" It had raised its veins like little bunched fists mid-proclamation.

"Okaaayyy... calm down there... I'm sure if you stick around here long enough you will find some idiot that fits that bill that wants a... uhh…what do you actually do?" Vrax scratched at the stubble on his chin.

"What... What do I do? I elevate my flesh palace to heights unimaginable by the mere mortal mind! Nations will bow before me when I find the perfect warrior!"

"Okay, you don't really know either, got it... here, put this little band around your... arms? It's a mark of Vurune; stuff still might try and eat you but less zealously." Vrax tossed a tiny mark of Vurune he had shaped on the fly mid-conversation.

"This place isn't safe, is it?"

"The blob said," looking towards the doorway nervously. Vrax didn't answer, instead walking outside to find a disposable patch of moss to murder with his stigmata and bring the siren's call back to finish; he was definitely on the right track with it. The creepy ice caress was…unexpected, but considering it didn't have eyes yet, it was concerning it even knew where he was. Vrax summoned it back onto the auction platform.

"Now please stand the fuck still for a moment so I can finish adapting you." It didn't exactly stand still; instead, it began pulling on invisible threads around itself that only it could see, causing ice to shoot up like reverse lightning and then drop to the ground with the sound of shattering glass as it experimented with its magic. Vrax furrowed his brows and began adding some finishing touches: a glowing green mark of Vurune upon its face.

Then he added some ice-blue tendrils hidden inside the chest cavity, mostly obscured by the sheets of petals; he attached a functioning eye to each of them, four in total. They snaked around its limbs, curiously peeking up from behind its shoulders and down by its hands. Right... that's fucking creepy even by my standards.

[Mana 51/204] Before Vrax could change anything else, it twitched its hands suddenly like it was flipping a switch in the air; the entire courtyard audibly chimed as an icy fog emanated out from it. The Siren then began gliding through it excitedly. Vrax just watched it with a sigh. He wasn't super sure what the hell he had just made yet, but at least the song was nice. He would try and catch it later when it was done playing with its new powers.

Vrax turned to head off into the dome and keep working on the living wall he had started when Duchess awkwardly clambered through the courtyard. She was laden with three troll legs far too large for her to carry easily. She froze, almost guilty-looking, as Vrax stared at her incredulously.

"Why? What do you keep doing with all these legs?" Duchess huffed and skittered away with her cargo. Vrax half jogged after her.

"No seriously! Where are all the fucking legs going? I know you aren't eating them!" Duchess clambered over a building in a half tumble to escape his line of sight. Vrax sighed deeply and turned around, letting the matter drop; it really couldn't matter much. A moment later in the distance she called back to Vrax in the voice of the mad noblewoman.

"My darling Pookums needs snacks, and I would be a bad mother if I left her without!" Vrax froze. O h, I really, really fucking hope that is just a random quote from her. Even I don't want to know what the fuck Duchess would like enough to make a pet out of. Gregory-Hopes End If Gregory had to break up another fucking bar fight today, he was fairly certain he was just going to start throttling people and asking questions later.

He puffed down his fifth pipe full of tobacco this morning; it was the only thing keeping him somewhat calm as he addressed the two battered, mostly conscious idiots he had just dealt with.

"Phillip, leave Tom the fuck alone. Do you know how much of an asshole you have to be to manage to rile up the bookworm this bad?" Phillip looked up guiltily as Gregory rounded on Tom; he had a fat black eye and a broken glasses lens.

"And you. Of all fucking people, you seriously reacted to this idiot's teasing with a dimensional attack? If that had hit any of the low first tiers in there, you would have murdered the hell out of them." Tom pushed his broken glasses up with a wince.

"He assaulted my perfect organization; it was immaculate. It took me hours!" Philip butted in.

"I just moved a fucking stack of papers to put my beer down!" Gregory sighed so angrily they both shut up with a fearful glance. He rubbed his forehead roughly for a moment.

"I hate all of…" Gregory was interrupted by Cedric sliding to a stop next to him from a full sprint in a shower of pulverized cobblestone. Cedric looked gravely at him.

"Follow me now." Cedric bolted away again at an inhuman speed. Gregory didn't question it, thudding after his boss. If Cedric was being this serious about something, it wasn't good; he wasn't a very excitable person. They ran full tilt out of the city towards the sounds of pitched battle. Cedric growled back to Gregory as he drew his long blade.

"Scouts, probably Rembrand, ambushed Feldwin on his way back." Gregory could see the battle unfolding right along the Forsaken Land's treeline. Feldwin was skirmishing with figures deeper into the forest. Feldwin was moving so fast from treetrunk to treetrunk he was practically teleporting along the treeline. Each time he paused for half a heartbeat, sending an arrow deeper into the forest with a crack of speed.

One arrow exploded along a golden barrier, shredding the nearby foliage; another was dodged by a shadowy figure, felling the tree behind him with a boom of shredding bark. Gregory ripped his shield from his back, splintering it into a fractal shell of metallic shards that hovered ahead of him as he ran, just in time too—a veritable shower of arrows tinkled against his skill-empowered shield, being deflected off at just the right angles to sail past him, missing by inches.

Gregory's pipe, however, was ripped from his lips by the tightest deflection, spiraling off broken into the field. Gregory stopped just short of the treeline, his shield still working desperately to deflect the few arrows puncturing through the tree he took cover behind. He looked back towards his shattered pipe.

"Oh... okay..." He pulled the bundle of mythril chain he kept on him at all times from his side pouch. It angrily began spinning with enough speed to rip the nearby grass free as it extended to a five-stride-wide vortex of doom.

"Shouldn't have broken my fucking pipe…" he said flatly. Feldwin looked at Gregory with wide eyes moments before Gregory sent the mythril chain sailing into the forest like a demented saw blade. The effect was immediate and catastrophic, like a tornado ripped a path through the willows. The archer that had been shooting at Gregory dodged the whirling chains' path by several strides and was still sent crashing through nearby trees from the force of the winds.

Feldwin looked at Gregory questioningly as a moment of calm fell over the battlefield. Gregory smirked, pulling out his shorter spare pipe and lighting it as his short sword began whirring next to him violently.

"Yeah... I finished my tier two trial." Feldwin cracked another arrow through his cover to shatter against the distant golden shield.

"Yeah, apparently that's…a mean use of that skill." Gregory took a deep pull on his pipe.

"Thanks."