Chapter 148: Dangerous for Kobolds

Will’s eye’s snapped open, coughing as the air hit a raw patch of throat.

“Was I screaming?” Will asked, peering up at Charnesa.

“It’s normal. Looks like there was another one.”

“Apparently.” Will mused, glancing down at his palm, which was dimpled where his fingernails had dug into his flesh. He felt like there was a bit of film on his hand, like he’d touched some greasy food and hadn’t used soap to cleanse it yet.

Did the night terror evaporate? Will thought.

“These things aren’t very smart, so if you go back under, if there’s any more, one will latch onto you immediately. It’s a lot like fishing for pike, actually, except your mind is the hook. Are you ready to go under again? It gets easier after the first. The mind develops its own defenses.”

Will held up a hand, buying himself a moment to ask questions.

“These night terrors, can they be Sacrificed?” Will asked.

Charnesa blinked. “I’ve never seen it happen, but the rule of thumb is that anything can be Sacrificed with the proper preparation.

“Seems like a good opportunity. See if you can’t get Badur to use some preservation magic when I catch it.” Will said, feeling the residue on his palm.

“You’d need someone with telekinetic and telepathic Abilities, some blessed glassware, and Badur’s preservation techniques as well. If you had all that, we could try it.”

Will frowned.

“Hey Arkesh!”

The ancient Immortal Serpent looked up from where he was playing cards with the older generation of civilian Party Leaders.

“Eh?”

“Do you have telepathic and telekinetic Abilities?”

“I dabble!”

“He cheats!” Brenna said.

“Not my fault you don’t guard your thoughts,” Arkesh groused.

Will motioned for Arkesh to come over, and called Badur as well.

“Do we have any enchanted glasswear?” Will asked.

“No, but Polly can make it with an Ability.” Badur replied. Polly was one of the Caravan’s many artisans, whose task was to work together with the other non-combat Classes to make the Stronghold livable.

In this case, glassware for the home.

“Is that the one who’s sweet on you?” Will asked with a frown, thinking back to the woman who kept watching Badur kill monsters on the 7^th Floor long past when the novelty had worn off for everyone else.

“N-no!”

Will, The Immortal Serpent and the Saint of Holdna all gave Badur a critical gaze.

“It is.” Arkesh said before directing his gaze at Will. “They’re both interested, but waiting for the other to approach them. It happens more than you’d think.”

Badur went pale.

“Well, you heard him, go talk to Polly.” Will said with a wry grin.

“Romance inside the tower is ill-advised.” Badur mumbled, turning red and seemingly collapsing inward. “Children are often stillborn or deformed, and it would be irresponsible of me to-“

“I really didn’t want to step into this,” Charnesa said. “But for the sake of moving this along, there are infinite things young couples can do together that doesn’t result in pregnancy, and there’s only one thing that does.”

“Oh, OH!” Badur said, his eyes widening as though a divine revelation had struck him. Coming from a Saint of Holdna, Will supposed it was.

“Only one?” Will asked, frowning. According to Gertrude there were at least a dozen ways to get a girl pregnant. Kissing while alone, hiding sausages, going to town together, buying a house for a girl, rolling in the hay…

“We’re not having this conversation,” Charnesa said, making a chopping motion with her hand. “You, go get Polly, we’re going to need enchanted ampules. You, go back to sleep.”

“But-“

Charnesa flicked Will on the forehead, and his eyes rolled back in his head.

******

The second time Will found himself inside the Trial Room, Will clawed his way out when he realized the walls weren’t perfectly white, bearing some kind of black tarnish. It inspired him to scrape his way through several inches of white, faintly glowing stone with the tiny pieces of metal he’d removed from his boots.

Will really knew he was onto something when the wall began to bleed black bile.

He eventually pulled himself outside the room into a void where a massive slug made of rotting faces formed the outside of the Trial room.

He’d cut himself out of its belly.

The creature looked over its shoulder, and for a moment, the two simply stared at each other as Will’s memories flooded back.

Oh right. That’s what’s happening.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

It twisted to reach him with its finger-lined mouth, but Will whipped a shoestring up and cinched it down around the creature’s neck, tightening it until the monster’s neck turned purple and shrank.

In the logic of dreams, as the night terror’s body shrank, it merged with Will’s truncated left arm, settling in behind the tourniquet, its mouth wrapped around the stump, looking like an overly ambitious snake trying to swallow a bull’s foot.

“Let me get that for you,” Will said, grabbing the slug off his stump and crushing it in his hand.

Will felt a strange twisting in space around his right palm.

******

“We get it?” Will asked, blinking his eyes open.

“Sure did.” Arkesh said, holding up a tiny glass ampule with a purple and black mush inside of it.

Will blinked the sand out of his eyes and took the glass container, noting the way it was sealed off from the outside air, preserving the creature’s properties inside the glass.

Night Terror upgrade for Phantom Hand:

Adds the ability to convert physical damage dealt by the Phantom Hand into psychic damage.

Nope.

Will already had a way to inflict Psychic Venom from his Kit, and he didn’t feel like it was vital enough to drop an entire upgrade to guarantee he could do it without.

Psychic damage was great but it wasn’t critical enough to drop a Sacrifice on.

Night Terror upgrade for Aspect of the Immortal Serpent:

Adds ‘memory seed’ to Aspect of the Immortal Serpent. If the user’s mind is completely erased or replaced, a memory seed will regrow, restoring the user to their state prior to being erased.

Aspect’s ‘complete healing’ now applies to mental conditions as well as physical ones.

Hmmm.

It would be nice to no longer be afraid of doors and nuns, but it was a minor gripe.

The ability to bounce back after the mind being overwritten was interesting, but Will could only imagine it working in an extremely fringe situation.