Chapter 56: Chapter 56 – Arx

Chapter 56 - Arx

After an extended session of vigorously feeding my lilim, an activity that I found much more enjoyable when I was not constantly looking over my shoulder for the threat of beetles or other such interruptions, the two of us were taking a light nap on one of the cots in the safe room. Or really, Jax was. She was nestled into my side, her head resting on my arm, and snoring ever so softly. It was endearing, in a way.

Meanwhile, I was having a little trouble finding sleep on my own. After having spent so many nights with the absolutely perfect aid provided by filling my Core and the automatic torpor that came with it, I was feeling wide awake. Plus, it was all of three or four in the afternoon, and unlike my companion, I had not had the pleasure of a meal.

So, I was spending the time having a private conversation with the Lady of Power. Or trying to.

What do you mean, ‘what do I mean’? It’s the identify spell. What’s to understand?

Bu… It just… does what it says? It’s a spell that you cast to identify things. Like magical properties. On magical items.

No, no… that’s… not… Actually, that is pretty interesting.

I was assuming, based on this response, that these Word Engravings were some form of enchantment system. And from the description, it sounded like the Words that were Engraved on the object were invisible unless you had a skill like this. All of which tracked with my experience with magical items, thus far. Other than an obvious patina of quality, they looked perfectly mundane. To me, anyway. Maybe a more experienced eye would disagree.

Still, while this was undoubtedly useful, it was not exactly what I was going for.

Okay… no. That’s more like… detect magic or something. I want a spell to tell me what the Words actually do.

I sighed in frustration.

But I’m not trying to translate them? I just want to know what a magical item will do when I use it. Or even how to use it. Like the arm guards Jax is wearing?

…What?

I waited, but she did not elaborate further. Scrunching my eyes closed for a moment, I rubbed at the bridge of my nose.

Okay, Donum… let’s work through this.

If function was according to interpretation, specifically with a capital I, then one had to assume that it was referring to Words specifically Engraved on a magical item. But how could that be? Was She saying that a person could just… change the way a thing worked if they decided that the Words should be interpreted a certain way? What a bizarre concept.

But… hold on. If that were the case, then there was the implication that an item would need to be Interpreted at least once in the first place to do anything at all. And the items we had found certainly did do things, even if we were not quite certain about them. The Coin Pouch currently hanging about my neck was a prime example.

So then… the Activator would probably be referring to the person who made the Engraving, and not the person wearing the item, like I had assumed. Unless…

Can I purchase a skill to override the Interpretation of the Activator?

Uh… huh… In other words, yes. But not by you.

Or not any time soon, anyway. Likely, not ever. There were something like a hundred thousand words in English. Or more. I had no idea if that translated one for one into Words, but if you managed to get one a day, everyday, it would take well over two hundred years to get all of them. And we had been in this one Dungeon area for weeks!

Expelling a puff of air through my nose, I pondered how to get what I wanted out of this.

Okay… so if a magical item functions because someone has Interpreted the Words on it in a certain way, can I purchase a spell to divine what their Interpretation was?

Her response took a while, as it often did when I asked for something weird, but she did eventually decide to cooperate. Somewhat.

I grimaced. That was… kind of what I wanted. And what with the strange way magic seemed to work here, it was probably the best I could get. Essentially, at least in D&D terms, what I was lacking was proficiency in arcana. In other words, I did not know jack about magic. And because magic was all about Words… Well, I was pretty well boned in that regard.

Still, there was potential here. I doubted that there were many people who had thought to ask for a skill like this. Or at least, I assumed that was the case. She had taken a while to cough the skill up, after all. So, either it was rare, She was extremely busy at the moment, or She had needed to make up the skill on the spot. And given that magic items were a common enough find in the Dungeon, which I will admit was an assumption on my part, I would bet that at least somebody would be willing to pony up some cash for a divination like that. Even if it was vague.

Then again, there was that warning. I did not particularly care for the idea that I would be broadcasting myself on some magical channel. On the other hand, it had not mentioned anything about them knowing that their Will had been touched upon by me. So, there was at least some anonymity here.

Hmm… Really, to be most effective, the spell would need to be coupled with Detect Engravings. Otherwise, you would have no way of knowing what Words were present. But that was something for future Donum to worry about. Present Donum did not know any Words. Save the one. And people did not just go around Engraving ‘toilet’ on things.

Presumably.

Scratching my head for a moment, I sighed again. I did want this skill. But as usual, I was fairly hesitant about it. It was not something that I technically needed, but having at least some clue about what our stuff did might be life saving. At the very least, it should expand our options. And options were useful things when the situation got tense.

So, after a bit more back and forth, I decided to just go ahead with it. Being a spell caster was all about utility, after all. I mean, sure. Fireball is a great spell, but so is Web. Not that I could cast either one of those. Although… Polymorph is pretty good.

Hmm… now there’s a thought. Turn Jax into a dragon for a while? That would be awesome!

Then again, the endurance cost on a few simple buffs was terrible. I could just imagine what kind of horrific load a spell like that would cause. No… that was something for down the road, for sure. A wizard needed to Dimension Door before he could Teleport, after all.

Alright. Divine Engraved Will. Let’s have it.

The Words came as they always did, whispering themselves into the recesses of my mind, tucked away for later use, and I shifted uneasily as goosebumps rolled down my back. The movement jostled Jax out of her slumber, and she looked up at me blearily.

“Hnn? Wha…?” she paused to yawn, exposing her long canines. “How long were I asleep?”

“Oh, I dunno,” I replied. “Long enough for me to buy a skill.”

“Yeah?” she grinned, sitting up. “Ye get that wee toaty ye were thinking about? With them lightnings?”

My mouth twitched. Right… that thing. I had sort of put that idea away after having been rebuffed, but now that I was past the Boundary, I had not thought to ask again. But it was too late now.

Note to self: Make sure to consult with your companions before buying skills. You moron.

Shaking my head, I filled her in on my recent conversation with the Goddess and finished with a description of my new ability.

She had been distractedly picking a few knots out of her hair with her claws as I spoke, not really paying too much attention, but at the last line, she paused, “Are ye sure that be safe, then?”

“Probably,” I hedged. “I don’t think they’ll know who it was that was trying to ‘divine their Will’, and in any case, I doubt they’d be all that put out about it. After all, I’d just be trying to get a sense of what their enchantment does.”

Wiping a final bit of sleep from her eye as she considered the argument, she eventually nodded, “Right then. Do me arm guards. We dunno nothing about them.”

“Okay, uh… I guess set them here,” I gestured, indicating the cot we had just gotten up from. “And give me a few minutes. You know how it is with new spells.”

Setting the leather pads where I had indicated, she did not offer comment beyond a slight quirk of her lips. Plopping down on the floor beside them, she rested her elbows on the cot to wait out the inevitable wrestling match.

Preparing myself mentally, I sampled the Words on my tongue. This one was going to be a doozy, I could tell already. Not only was the spell fairly long, but the Words felt… complex. More… tongue-twister-y than normal, if that were possible. But then, I had to suppose that made sense. It was kind of a weird spell.

So it was no surprise that it took me a solid ten minutes to finally get out the first cast. By that point, I felt about like I had when I was in speech class back in college, after having delivered my first oration. The audience was just as bored, too.

“Okay,” I said finally. “I think that’s got it.”

Jax jerked back awake at my words and leaned forward drowsily, “Myah? What are ye getting, then?”

“Uh…” I murmured, unintelligently. I could tell that the spell was running, what with the constant drain on my endurance, but I was not sure I was getting anything, if I were honest. Then again, She had said that the results would be subtle. “Hold on… let me think.”

Closing my eyes, I took a breath and tried to quiet my mind. What else was here… something… external. Casting about, it took me a few moments before I began to detect it. It was faint, to say the least, but what I felt was… Well, I could not really say. It was like I was blindfolded and deaf, yet somehow attached to… something. And it was… It felt like… need?

“Hungry?” Jax asked, surprised.

My eyes popped open, and I looked at her, “What?”

She shook her head uncertainly, “I dunno… Ye suddenly started feeling hungry. Out of nowhere, like. But it went away when ye opened yer eyes again.”

I shifted my gaze to the side for a moment, working my lower lip. The spell had not been particularly descriptive in exactly how this was supposed to work, but the fact that Jax had been able to pick up on it was telling. “Do you think… Maybe it’s feeding me emotional insights?”

She bobbed her head uncertainly, “Maybe.” Then, shifting closer, she placed a hand over mine, “Try again.”

Taking a breath, I closed my eyes once more, returning to that still part of my mind. The connection was still there, waiting. Immersing myself back into it, I tried to pick apart the feelings that trickled in.

Hunger. I nodded. Yes, she was right. That is what it was.

But what else? There had to be more to it than that.

And there was. But describing it… I felt like… there was some kind of trigger. It was sort of… itchy. Like nervousness? Or…

“Fear,” Jax whispered into my ear, supplying the word I was looking for.

Right. Fear. Fight or flight. A response to threat.

And then… Then a reaction. Sort of… a need again. But not for food. Something good and bad at the same time? Like… Like I needed to…

“Protect,” Jax whispered.

I nodded. Protection. Security. Like I was a mother bear. Standing in front of her cub. That was it.

And that was all. I could not feel anything else.

Allowing the spell to fall away, I exhaled in relief, trying to process the information I had managed to glean from this exercise. It was scant, to say the least. I looked over at my companion to discuss it, but then I felt something else. Something that was very much not my spell.

It was as if a weight had settled on me. Like I was being watched. As if the entirety of the Dungeon was staring right at me. Slowly, the hair on the back of my neck began to stand on end.

Jax’s eyes widened, and she leapt to her feet, axe in hand, “What? What is it, Master?”

I opened my mouth, and a slow wheeze escaped my lips as I tried to speak, the crushing pressure too great to allow me to do more. But then, all of a sudden, the weight left. And I felt a passing sense of… amusement?

“Master?” Jax whispered, shaking me lightly. “Talk to me!”

My own eyes wide, I looked up at her, but I could not focus on her features.

I realized now what I had done. The Activator. I had tapped into the Will of the Activator. And for these arm guards, that could only be one person. One being. I had just touched upon the Will of the Demon Queen, herself. The Lady of the Dungeon. A Goddess.

---

“No!” Jax argued hotly from above me. Stepping off of the ladder, her head poked back over the opening to scowl down at me, “I’ll not have ye drawing Her attention again. Not while we’s in this place.”

“Look, I’m telling you, She didn’t mind,” I protested, about half-way up, myself. “If anything, She thought it was funny.”

“I don’t care if She were dancing for joy!” she returned, as I ascended the final steps. “I don’t want Her thinking about ye at all! Not here. What if She decides… I dunno what! Master… I can nay protect ye from such as Her.”

I sighed, “Well… okay, I can see your point. But I still need to get a sense of our other items. And I need to practice.” Taking a few steps toward the square, I turned to look back at her, “Are there… maybe some kind of appeasement rituals that people do for Her? Like… after exiting the Dungeon? Or to ward Mouths away? That kind of thing?”

She crossed her arms, frowning at the direction my thoughts had gone, “I’ll not have my Master getting up to a bunch of peasant nonsense. If that shite actually worked, it’d spread to all corners, instead of being different from family to family. Place to place.”

My eyebrows raised of their own accord at that surprising bit of logic, “Fair enough. Still, She is a person. Of a sort. Right? I’m sure that there must be something we could do to stay on her good side.”

But she just shook her head, “Master, I told ye before. The Lady of the Dungeon ain’t for the kinds. She don’t listen to such as us. Our needs ain’t her concern. All she do is to create endless torments for us in this place.”

“Maybe…” I sighed. Something about that did not sit right with me, though. The presence I had felt had not been malevolent. Powerful, of a certainty. But not malevolent. “Still… it can’t hurt to be polite.”

Jax smirked as she walked past me, “Polite, says he. And to the Demon Queen her ownself, no less. Ah… If I did nay love ye so, I’d call ye mad. Come on, then. How much time?”

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“Oh, uh… just under five minutes,” I replied, quickly checking the timer.

She nodded, “Good. We’ll make it back with plenty to spare. It won’t do to let her wake elsewhere. Disorienting enough as it be.”

I made a face. She was going to be more than just a little disoriented, if my guess was right.

The square was much as we had left it, blood splatters and all. The ‘giraffe’ had been reduced to a Gem already, a Greater Mark III to be specific, and was currently rattling around with the others in my Pouch. As for the dagger, we had managed to extricate it from the… remains, and rinsed it as thoroughly as we could. It belonged to her, after all, and we meant to return it. As for the wrap… well… that was a lost cause.

It figured. And to top it off, we had only managed to find one of her boots. The other, according to Jax, had gone spiraling over the burned husks of the buildings during the uhm… incident.

“How much longer?” Jax asked impatiently, bouncing on her toes.

“Two minutes,” I reported, struggling not to roll my eyes. “Just do something to occupy your attention. She’ll be here before you know it.”

“Two minutes ain’t long enough for that,” she grinned.

I snorted, “There are other things you could do. Like… practice with your shadows or something?”

“Maxed out,” she sighed.

“Seriously?” I replied. “We only had the one fight.”

“Two fights,” she corrected. “That Thumper weren’t more than a day ago. And it don’t take much. Be why I’m gonna push me Intelligence for a while.”

“Oh? Decided to go that way, huh?” I asked, just making small talk at that point. “How far do you want to go with it?”

She shrugged, “I dunno. Maybe… eight? Ten?”

We continued in that vein as the seconds trickled away, discussing build possibilities and the like until I felt a change. And it was a feeling, too. Well before the counter had finished ticking down, I suddenly began to sense a shift in the connection between myself and my newest lilim. It was like it was strengthening, solidifying in a way. As if she was here, standing right next to me. Touching my Core every bit as much as Jax was. And yet, she was very clearly not.

“Master?” Jax prodded, lightly touching my arm.

Holding up my hand for her to wait a moment, I placed the other over my chest, absently rubbing at the spot where the sensation of ‘Core’ was most present before noticing something out of the corner of my eye. Jax followed my gaze, and we watched as the gristly memento of our companion’s former existence slowly and soundlessly began to burn away. The dim blue flames worked from the outside in and hardly seemed to move, yet before we knew it, they were done.

It was as if she had never been. Not her name. Not her body. Nothing remained of the woman who was.

And then the timer reached zero.

The blue flames erupted once more, this time blindingly bright. Starting from her extremities, her form burned its way into reality, crawling up her arms and legs, up her torso, over her chest, and finally to her head, accelerating briefly as they raced over her ears and hair. And with a flickering pop, they extinguished themselves. At that moment of completion, the sense of weightlessness that had suffused her body vanished, and she gently settled on her feet. There was a moment of quiet, then. Her eyes were closed, as if she were sleeping standing up.

She was completely nude, so it was quite obvious that there had been some changes. For one, she was almost a half-foot shorter than she had been, and now stood only slightly above my own eye-level. For another, she was considerably less muscular, though certainly still quite fit. She looked more… lithe, perhaps? Sleek? And… I was not sure. Younger, maybe? Though, I could not say why that came to mind. It was not as if she had ever looked particularly old, but there was something of an undeveloped quality to her physique now.

It was a fairly major step backward for her overall looks, if you were to ask for my honest opinion. Not that I would ever tell her that, of course. But then, she had lost half of her attributes, so I supposed that made sense. We would just have to build her back up again. No problem.

For her face, her jaw-line had narrowed considerably and was much closer to what I would expect from a normal woman. I was not sure if she had fangs, just yet, but her once prominent tusks were now nowhere in sight, so it seemed likely. Otherwise, her facial structure looked much the same as I remembered.

Beyond that, her hair had turned a pure, brilliant white, and what with the expected long and sharp ears combined with her own naturally dark gray skin-tone, she looked a lot like how I would describe a drow elf. Except for the horns, of course. There was not much to them, just yet. Currently perhaps a finger in length and a touch darker than her hair, they looked a lot like Jax’s had when she had first started to grow them. She was also sporting claws on her hands and feet, I noticed, though where Jax’s were pitch black, hers were every bit as white as her horns.

And speaking of white things, where before there had been nothing but bare skin, there was now a quite noticeable little tuft of hair right above her womanhood. It did not look anything like… well… pubes, to be indelicate. Instead, it was thick, straight, and dense, almost like a perfectly manicured little diamond of fur. And it drew the eye like a magnet. I had the urge to run my fingers through it right then and there.

“Here now,” Jax muttered. “Why’s she got hair down there, and I ain’t?”

“That’s the first question you think to ask?” I returned, glancing over at her incredulously.

“You were looking at it, weren’t ye?” she retorted.

“Buh… I-I was looking at a lot of things,” I sputtered defensively.

“Not much else to see,” she grumbled, gesturing at her chest. “If anything, I think she got smaller.”

“Hush, you,” I whispered fiercely, swatting her hands out of the air. “You know she’s sens—”

Suddenly, her eyes snapped open, and the two of us started guiltily. However, she gave no sign that she had heard anything we had been saying. Looking off into the middle distance, her head swiveled for a moment until she found us, and she sucked in a breath. Beginning to tremble slightly, she murmured, “D… Donum? Is that…?”

Abruptly, her hand cupped her mouth and she threw herself to the side, violently dry heaving into the cobble. Fortunately, whomever was responsible for reconstituting her body had not bothered to put anything into her stomach, or else the newly spotless square would not have remained so for long.

Jax sighed, clucking to herself as she stepped forward to rub at the woman’s shoulder, “Aye, hen. Be at ease. It’ll pass soon enough.”

“Right,” I grimaced. Squatting down next to her, I waved some air into her face. “You’re feeling some kind of resurrection sickness. Just concentrate on breathing.”

Taking a few gulping breaths, she managed, “R-resurrection? W-what hap—,” before another wave of nausea overcame her.

“I’m not totally sure,” I explained, intuiting the rest of her question. “When I set the bind on you, I think something about your Core was… incompatible? Or maybe just too strong for me. So, it caused your old body to uh… Well, anyway, you died. Temporarily.” I grimaced. The appalling memory was still rather too fresh to recall it with any degree of levity. But I tried. “Well, good news, though! You got better.”

Gasping for a moment, she shook her head, “I don’t feel all that better. I feel… Something is… It’s like I’m in a wind? A-and it…? But i-it isn’t, though. I don’t…”

“Aye,” Jax nodded. “That’d be our emotions yer feeling. Ye’ve developed all at once, like. Did nay have the time to get used to it first.”

“Emotions? N-no, I… It’s like there’s holes in my…” she looked up at me, “…i-in my…” Her eyes widened and slowly, her cheeks began to darken. “’Snails…” she breathed out.

“What?” I asked, nervously shifting my gaze.

Her mouth twitched into a smile briefly, and she began to edge toward me, “Hi.” Her face darkened further and she grimaced.

“Um… Hi?” I responded, unsure about this sudden turn.

Jax abruptly chortled, “Ye weren’t ready for that, were ye, hen?”

She stopped her approach to growl deep in her throat, “Would you stop calling me that? My name is Arx!” She blinked once and gave her head a quick shake, “Or no… No, my… my name…” she trailed off.

I nodded, “Right. Sorry about that. Again. Uh… Bit of a mix-up when it came to giving you a new one.” Frowning at the memory, I explained, “Turns out that Kelthic names are no good, so I used your mother’s to sort of make… Well, anyway. It’s in the same language as mine is.”

“Wait, what?” Jax interrupted. “That ain’t fair!”

But Arx cut in, speaking over her, “Kelthic? Why would I want…? M-my mother? I…?”

I held up my hands, “Whoa, whoa! One conversation at a time.” Taking a breath, I reached forward to take Arx’s face in hand, “Look. I know that this is very overwhelming right now. I did warn you that there were going to be issues like this. But it will be alright. Okay? I’m here. Jax is here. Everything will be fine.”

As I spoke, she seemed to melt into my hands and her lips curled up into an almost goofy little smile. Nodding airily, she said, “Okay.”

Smiling helplesssly, I continued, “Now. Let’s try and sort out…”

“You’re pretty,” she suddenly blurted out. Then, her eyes widening, she jerked back and slapped her hands over her face, “’Stits… What is wrong with me?”

“Yer seeing yer Master as ye were meant, that’s what,” Jax whispered, her eyes bright.

“My Master?” Arx repeated, curling her fingers down and glancing over at her uncertainly. Her eyes — still black as ever but now shimmering like obsidian glass — stayed there for a moment, as if drinking in Jax’s form, but then, giving her head a quick twitch, she looked back at me. “Is that…? Should I call you that now?”

I shook my head, “You may call me whatever you’d like.”

Jax frowned, probably wanting to disagree, but she held her peace.

“Then,” leaning forward once more and blushing fiercely, Arx whispered, “I called you… d-dearest, before. Right? Can I…?”

I grinned, chuckling a bit, “Of course you can.”

Sighing with relief, she reached for me before catching herself and hesitating, “I… Can I…?”

I sighed and taking her hand, I drew her close. “Of course you can,” I said again. “Any time you like.”

Laughing now, as her tension washed away, she tearfully brought her lips to my own.

And then my world erupted into light.

---

I awoke some time later. I could not say how long it had been. Days? Weeks? Maybe only hours. But it was to the deep and heavy darkness that precedes the dawn. There was no moon out, not that there ever seemed to be in this place, so the only illumination was the faint speckling of stars trickling in from the vast reaches of space.

I had been curled into a fetal position, my hands clutching my head. And I hurt. Everywhere. My head was pounding, my throat was dry, and somehow I felt simultaneously stiff and overwrought. As if I had run a triathlon and then just dropped into a coma after crossing the finish line.

Groaning, I rolled over to my back, trying to stretch out my cramped muscles. It helped a little.

“Dearest?” a voice lanced through my brain, and I winced. Moments later, the outline of a head interrupted the star field above me, “Are you alright?”

For a moment, I considered answering sarcastically or perhaps even with a witty line. Instead, I wheezed out a pathetic little, “No.”

“Oh… poor thing,” the voice chirped. Reaching beneath my head, she scooped me into a sitting position, and a wave of nausea shot through me. I clamped down on it hard. I could not waste the calories. “’Snails… that’s terrible. What is that? Pain? Or…” she shook her head in frustration.

“I feel sick,” I muttered.

“Oh… okay,” the voice — Arx, I now realized — nodded. “That makes sense. From what it felt like on my end, I can only imagine… or no. I guess I don’t have to any more, do I?” She chuckled to herself, “Ah, ‘Stits… What is this language called, anyway?”

I clenched my eyes closed for a moment, not really of a mind just then to handle things like questions or other people. What language? Gradually, the words we had been saying seeped through my head case just enough for me to do things like interpret meaning. “English,” I groaned out. “We’re speaking English. My native tongue.”

“Mmm…” she bobbed her head. “Never heard of it. Besides the few Words I already knew of it, of course. And Toilet, I guess now.” She chuckled, “I can see why you never bothered to mention that. What rotten luck.”

I turned to look at her fully, “What? How did you…?”

But I did not finish the question. I knew. There were a lot of new things rattling around in my head. I could not quite pick them apart right at the moment, but there were a few that stood out. They shone like beacons, the Words did. Now and forever embedded within my very being.

There were nine of them, to be exact.

Cynic. Lift. Silver. Palace. Generation. Floridness. Dirt. Moisture. And of all things, “Labia?”

She snorted, “I know. Pretty random, that one. You have to figure that Vagina or even Clitoris would be more useful, but no. I got Labia.”

Right about then, we heard Jax groan and start to swear violently.

Arx sighed and helped me to my feet, “Come on. Let’s go have this conversation a second time.”

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