The Mother of Monsters

Teyva was silent for the majority of the walk back to the settlement. They did their best to follow her compass, the dial proving only to be marginally more stable than it was before. Instead of speaking, Teyva spent most of her time reflecting on everything that she’d experienced since she awoke in the first tomb. While she did, she took stock of her swarm which had remained in an almost sullen silence since they had engaged the Bound One. From what she could tell about their strange emotional messages they were ashamed that they couldn’t have done more for her against the boss.

She called the survivors of the dungeon out, letting them scurry over her person and stretch their legs. One, in particular, she spent a little extra time with. It was larger than its kin by almost double the size, making it almost two inches wide. It scurried over her hand and fingers, eerie mismatched eyes watching its mother as she contemplated her life. Occasionally she would reach up and pet the tiny little killing machine, cooing softly to it. It was the little actions that allowed her some feeling of control in her life where she felt like she had none otherwise.

Nephral flew alongside the pair of women, occasionally darting out into the trees with the mockery swarm to hunt some small prey. Azrael would watch them go before glancing back at Teyva who seemed not to have even noticed the departure of her summons. Instead, the glowing woman just stared into space, her head cocked just so she looked like she was admiring the mockery on her hand. Azrael knew better, of course, but there was little she could say to her friend right now that would draw her out of her stupor. She needed time and rest. Rest that would come when they returned to the settlement.

They arrived at the settlement cloaked in the depths of nightfall, ambient light was all but nonexistent which made the glow of Teyva’s body all but a beacon in the dark. Torches burst to life atop the gates and at first, the guards were on edge, startled by the glowing woman approaching them from afar. It wasn’t Elat himself who came out to greet the two women that the rest of the settlement guards were put at ease. Their return sent a wave of excitement through those up at that time of night, but Azrael insisted that they would tell all they could about their adventure when she and Teyva had gotten some sleep.

With those parting words, the pair dragged their weary, aching bodies to the small hut on the far side of the settlement. Once inside they were greeted by a pair of floor mattresses complete with a simple blanket on top.

“Too beautiful for words,” Teyva murmured.

It was Azrael’s turn to fall mute as they pulled themselves into the building, tossed aside their shoes, and crawled into the offered beds.

Teyva slipped into the void almost immediately. Finding herself floating in the vast space as the distant black clouds let off a purple glow and the occasional flash.

The prompt came as a surprise, she hadn’t seen it’s like since she’d slain the first Tomb Guardian. That time though she hadn’t awakened any of her attributes and so she’d lost all the experience to her willpower attribute. Now two bonuses were coming from all her hard work. She smiled a little before turning her focus on her attribute points to spend.

She did the math in her head and figured that if she spent all of her points buffing her attributes over twenty each at the get-go she would still be just slightly ahead of someone with only one set of racial attribute points as they leveled up. She’d distribute them evenly after accomplishing that, focusing on one stat or another as needed. She needed to keep her options open with the wide variety of abilities at her disposal. She selected Physique and buffed it to 23 then boosted Endurance to 24 just to squeeze out a little more health.

She confirmed her changes and felt herself rise to the surface reluctantly. Her eyes opened to darkness, [Eyes of the Halls] having once again worn off in her sleep. She felt refreshed despite how little she had been sleeping and checked her stats. As before, her stats had been completely replenished as soon as she’d leveled up. She rolled her eyes and covered her face with her hands, willing herself back to sleep. The mental exhaustion was still there. After a few minutes of struggling to sleep, she glanced over to see Azrael out like a light.

“Figures,” Teyva grunted in a low voice. She sat up and felt the weight of Nephral and her Mockeries slide down a little. The sphinx growled in confusion and the mockeries were suddenly on high alert. Teyva sighed and soothed them with a thought before reaching over to scritch Nephral under the chin, “Go back to bed, mother can’t sleep. She’s going to stretch a little.”

Nephral stood up and took a quiet turn before returning to a comfortable spot on the mattress. The mockeries on the other hand scattered through the room, finding nooks and crannies to watch their mother from. Teyva sighed but didn’t press the issue with the little darlings. Instead, she pulled out the sole Aspect Shard she had obtained from leveling up and squeezed it. She didn’t bother spending a lot of time on her decision. Of the few choices that remained there was one, in particular, she had been waiting on for too long.

She selected Pale Dawn and Grip of Frost.

The shard crumbled to nothing in her hand and she brushed her palm off before leaning against the wall and pulling up her inventory. There was still the Aspect Stone she had gained from the battle and the two unique items. She pulled out the Aspect Stone, if only to see it, and immediately regretted it. The [Aspect Stone of the Facsimile] was an ever-changing thing and had many different textures but at least she could hold onto it. The [Aspect Stone of the Unspeakable] was a rainbow-colored blob that felt hard when she applied pressure to it but slipped and oozed as if it was made of some sort of goo. Brilliant light cast off of it that, instead of illuminating the room, seemed to make it that much darker.

“Creepy thing,” Teyva grunted, putting the stone back in her inventory before pulling out the [Left Arm of the Guardian].

Unlike the stave from before this item was simply the limp limb of the Tomb Guardian, coppery metallic tone and all.

She nodded her assent and the object began to melt in her grip before it seeped into the skin of her left arm. It didn’t take long for her limb to change shape into the object. She raised the mechanical-looking hand and splayed out her fingers, examining the reddish digits as another prompt appeared.

She’d already read the description of the left arm and as far as she could see it didn’t have any special attributes like the right and she certainly didn’t want what amounted to a useless (if cool looking) item taking up one of her three weapon spots. She selected ‘yes’ and watched as her right arm assumed the appearance of the [Right Arm of the Guardian].

That was a good question, she realized, she’d encountered a few growth items now and was beginning to wonder when ‘item growth’ was supposed to occur. Regardless, it was still pretty cool having two mechanical hands. She opened and closed both palms before feeding chill touch into them. Both sets of fingers colored over with the white of frost.

“Nice,” She mused, before pulling out her final acquisition. It was smaller than she had expected.

The razorchain was about five feet in length and was made of inch-long links that were barbed with a shallow blade on every other joint. She delicately wrapped her metallic fingers around the weapon, feeling its heft and being happy she’d decided to keep the [Grasp of the Tomb Guardian] on before she’d called it out. The description said that the weapon could be changed in length with mana use. She was about to give it a try when a prompt appeared.

Her eyes bulged. She had assumed this was to be a ranged weapon given that you could adjust its length. Did this mean it was meant to be used more like a whip? She grinned eagerly and selected yes and watched her arms return to their normal state before the whip began to melt and the links feed themselves into her right hand. Eventually, the unsettling feeling of metal sliding beneath her skin faded and she transformed her arm.

It started at her wrist, like the [Iron Shortsword], but that was where the similarities ended. She could feel her limb grow and grow and grow like her whole arm was being stretched and bent in odd ways. The sensation sent a tingle up her feet and into her spine. She could feel every link in the chain, sense the air brushing over each blade. She could, with some effort, intuit the direction of the weapon even with her eyes closed. It was an unholy feeling like she had fifty new joints in her arm.

“Makes a girl want to puke,” She groaned, raising her ‘hand’. The end of the chain rose to her face and turned when she visualized turning to look at her palm. “Yep, not freaky at all,” She grimaced and decided she didn’t want to walk around with a chain hanging out of her arm before burning a bit more mana to turn it back into her normal hand.

Without much more to do, she sat down and called her children to her side. The Mockeries hurried to settle on her shoulders while Nephral eagerly leaped into her lap. She closed her eyes and tried to get some sleep.

The next morning Teyva woke to Azrael shaking her shoulder. She had a wry grin on her face that put Teyva off a little. Teyva groaned and stretched while Azrael quickly began to put her boots on.

“Sleepwalking now?” Azrael asked.

“Nah, couldn’t sleep, did some upkeep while I was awake.”

Azrael shrugged and tied her shoes; “You should pull yourself together.”

“Why? What’s up?” Teyva grumbled, sending her Mockeries back into the satchel.

Azrael shot Teyva an eager smile. “We’ve been summoned by the Elder. Time to tell him the good news!”