--- Lily --- (A short ti after leaving the group)
A bit over halfway between the manor and the Trvis outbreak Lily was hit with a sickening feeling. Her claws retracted and she tumbled from g’s shoulder, unable to do anything. Even before she hit the ground Lily was already retching and things did not get better on impact. Lily couldn’t help but throw up a mix of bile and food from earlier in the day as her head swam and pounded.
She could faintly hear, and barely register, g’s foot slamming into the ground a short distance away as the greed demon stopped in place and jogged back over to Lily. Lily continued to lose sustenance for a few monts even as g said sothing Lily failed to hear.
Eventually, Lily had enough coherent thoughts to realise she needed to explain or at least vocalise so groans to explain what was happening. Rolling away a bit so she didn’t transform into vomit Lily imdiately sighed in relief as her senses were neutered by her human form. It was enough that she was outside of the invisible line of hell. "Oh thank god," exhaled Lily.
"What was that?" asked g. "You get hit by a spell or sothing? I’d joke about you being motion sick but you took quite the tumble," g pointed to the several small craters that had been gauged in the road by Lily’s passing. Glancing over at them Lily was genuinely surprised. She hadn’t realised her body had strengthened enough to DO that. Sure she was sore but there were no cuts or anything and clearly the road had co out as the loser in their short battle.
Lily shook her head to try and clear it as she gave a pained laugh. It was no longer debilitating but her head was still a ss from it. Still, Lily had to explain. "The… the manor it’s… it’s beyond fucked. The space there it’s… it’s so unbelievably WRONG. I don’t have the words to describe it. The closest thing I can give as a comparison would be sitting down for dinner and being served a rotting carcass, half decomposed and full of maggots. It… it feels just so…" Lily trailed off with a shake of her head, unable to properly express just how off she felt.
"Hmm…" g remained silent other than that slight noise of acknowledgent. She had a few competing thoughts. Lily was an important part of her plans to catch up to Hunter. Even if g herself could detect so weaknesses in space, without a proper sense of things it would be a risk. Yet at the sa ti… if Lily couldn’t even function? Then she’d just be a liability. Well, that and Kat might have so WORDS with her. g would count herself lucky if Kat didn’t complain at all.
Of course, g was unaware that Lily had managed to instinctively shut off the link between her and Kat once the sensation of the corrupted space hit her mind. Not wanting to transmit the awful sensation to her girlfriend as well. With Kat too busy with Kamiko she didn’t notice the cut-off. Perhaps if she was more actively looking things would be different, but for now g was off the hook.
"Can you continue?" asked g.
Lily bit her lip, the sharp canines inherited from her new body drawing so blood. "I… I don’t know. I an… I hope so? I can… maybe try to filter it or sothing? It was really bad but I know people can get used to a bad sll. It’s just… I wasn’t even trying to USE my space sense until we got closer and it’s already this bad?"
"So are you continuing or not?" asked g firmly.
"I will," said Lily as she stumbled to her feet. With a nod that Lily hoped conveyed so confidence she transford back into her mphis form. Imdiately her spatial sense was assault by the feeling once again. Prepared this ti, Lily managed to weather it without simply throwing up but it was a hard won fight. Lily felt herself shivering along her entire body. Her hair stood on end, puffing up as if she was trying to scare off a nearby predator.
g thought it was adorable, both that Lily was clearly trying so hard and that she looked ’ready’ for a fight. Calmly watching the younger girl, g waited patiently as Lily acclimated. It wasn’t a quick of a smooth process. Lily felt like her mind was twisting up in nots but ever ti things overlapped in a certain way another piece seed to click in place.
As Lily gained small grains of understanding of the place the nausea died down. The feeling of wrongness didn’t abate, if anything it grew deeper as she felt out more and began to understand the core of the issue… but for now she was fine. She could manage. Lily hopped up towards g shoulder… and missed by a huge margin.
She wasn’t vomiting sure but her sense of spatial awareness was completely broken. Her instinctive understanding of where g was didn’t line up with the reality of things. Lily managed to land sowhat well, scraping up the stone and frowning. A few monts of this later, Lily transford again to explain. "You’ll have to carry or sothing but I can manage. It’s… it’s less nausea inducing but it feels more unnatural as it lingers. OH and be careful. The area of corrupted space is expanding to cover more area! So don’t just charge in,"
"I’ll keep it in mind," stated g, who, after a mont picked up a much tinier Lily. g also pulled out the compass before starting to run. It was a bit awkward, with Lily in one hand and the compass in the other but g could manage it. If a couple of trees or buildings were damaged in the process g didn’t consider that her problem.
It took so ti, but compass was soon freaking out around a hundred tres from the edge of the property line. By this point Lily had settled into ’generally unwell but not about to vomit’ stage of things and the link with Kat had been restored. Sowhat muted if Lily was doing things correctly, but open for now.
Lily could easily sense the reason for the stop. Hopping down from g’s arms as gracefully as she could manage at the mont Lily transford back to speak. As she did so g said. "The compass is telling the ss starts here, what can you sense?"
"It DOES start here but only just barely? I’d suggest just… I dunno carrying on your shoulders and sprinting up towards the manor. Though um… where is Pebbles?" answered Lily.
g frowned at the ntion of Pebbles and glanced around. Looking for the man in question but no obvious sign of him could be seen. Stretching out her own senses, g eventually managed to detect movent under the ground a few tres away. Walking until she stood directly above the noise, g slamd her fist through the stonework and after a bit more destruction pulled out an injured looking Pebbles.
"Didn’t take into account what the bomb might’ve done to the ground here?" asked g smugly. Not feeling the slightest bit of sha from the fact she didn’t think about it either.
Pebbles spat, away from g, and a large amount of blood and… was a tooth? Lily wasn’t sure and the fact Pebbles then continued to spit out chunks of rock afterwards alongside the blood didn’t help decide matters one way or the other. Once his airways were clear of obstruction Pebbles took in a shuddering breath and said, "Nope. Apparently not. Spell clearly needs more testing,"
Then, to Lily’s amazent he slapped himself in the face twice, pulled away from g… and HEALED HIMSELF. The spell was only visible for a few monts but it quickly restored Pebbles to full health, or what seed like it. He at least had the decency to look winded afterwards but Lily was shocked. "HOW!"
g glanced at Lily, then at Pebbles then back at Lily. "Hmm… I do know the little secret to that spell… should I keep it to myself or…?"
"A lifelike statue of myself," cut in Pebbles.
"What?" intoned a confused Lily.
"The secret g was dodging around is that I created a healing spell that only works because I took the ti to sculpt a perfectly anatomically correct copy of myself including the veins and arteries, bones and even individual muscles. It required having a healer cut open in multiple places to ensure that it was completely accurate to the best of my abilities," explained Pebbles.
"That’s… THAT’S INSANE!" hissed Lily.
g giggled, "Yeah and the extra bit he likely wants to really keep secret? If you ss with that statue? He’ll heal wrong forever. If you’re subtle enough he might never know just how damaging what you’ve done is. Just a minor imperfection and then…" g snapped her fingers closed. "He’s done."
User Comments
0 comments from readers