Ch087-My Troubles Have Trouble With Me (Patreon)

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Ch087-My Troubles Have Trouble With Me

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Sylver gently placed the last bone rib onto the pile of bones and cartilage and leaned closer to Ciege’s motionless body to make sure there weren’t any shards left inside the bloodless cavity. He did as he had with the previous metallic ribs and applied a thin layer of treated oil onto it, before slowly pushing it inside.

After he finished wiggling it around to get rid of as much trapped air out as possible, Sylver reached for the final piece that would be replacing his sternum. The piece of metal was thin, and already slightly bent. Sylver held it next to his actual sternum and was glad his estimates were right.

He was a bit off, but nothing that he couldn’t fix himself once he was back in his body.

Sylver took the conical shell-shaped piece of metal and unraveled it until it was flat. There were three small rings to hold the needle in place, that Sylver used to align it properly. Once the needle was in, he very gently rolled it back up and spent several minutes tightening it until there was barely enough width for a sheet of paper to go in. Or a blood vessel in this case.

Once he was satisfied the tiny metal fragment that hypothetically could kill him for good was tucked away and hidden behind 31 layers of hair-thin metal, Sylver pushed it underneath his metallic sternum and locked it in place.

He repeated the process for the [Rune Of Infinite Summoning] and [Xander’s Waystone]. Admittedly he was a bit tight on space because he hadn’t accounted for how big [Xander’s Waystone] ended up being, but at least now Sylver didn’t need to worry about being trapped.

Granted, the waystone did need nearly 10 minutes to work. And Sylver had to be next to motionless during that time. And there was a question of whether or not it would consider Sylver’s shades as part of him or as separate creatures.

It wasn’t ideal, certainly nowhere near as convenient as when Sylver could just discard his body and make himself a brand new one in the Ibis’s library, scaring the shit out of the sleep-deprived apprentices.

A skull clad in yellow light would appear out of the giant pillar holding the ceiling up, and it would be swearing in a language very few people knew, and in a matter of minutes, the skull would become a whole human skeleton. Shadows would rush from all over the room to cover the skinless man up, and he would descend onto the floor wearing a robe that looked like it was made out of darkness itself.

Which it technically was.

Sylver would adjust his robe, comb back his regrown hair, introduce himself to all the ammonia-scented apprentices, and would be on his merry way, to fuck up whatever had managed to kill him or entrap him that he had to abandon his body.

Sylver glanced at his heart that was barely beating and was bouncing off the wall of its container as it floated around in the now dark red liquid. Sylver picked it up with one hand, and very gently lowered it inside its metallic confine. He very quickly stitched the previously cut blood vessels back into place and laid the thin layer of chainmail on top of his ribs.

All in all, Sylver’s wide-open chest looked like it belonged in an art gallery. Shiny black metal, so thin and intricate in certain places that it looked less like armor, and more like decoration.

“I’m going to start welding everything together now. I would advise you to not breathe any of the fumes in. My blood is… complicated, it might very well be poisonous,” Sylver said, as his shadowy body began to shake and break down.

“I’ll keep that in mind… Are you almost done?” Lola asked as Sylver’s body started to melt.

“Almost. But we’re past the dangerous part, the rest is just welding, adjusting, and then applying the rune,” Sylver’s voice said, despite the shadowy figure standing over Ciege not moving a muscle.

The pitch-black smoke that pooled around the floor, spiraled around the operating table. The carvings on the metallic plates that littered the floor sparked to life, and the black smoke flowed as if time had reversed and traveled up the operating table, and forced itself into Ciege’s wide open ribcage.

It covered it up, as Spring became visible and fell on all fours and started coughing. Ciege’s body shivered for a moment, as both arms slowly lifted, and placed themselves on top of the pool of smoke inside of Ciege’s wide open abdomen.

Sylver’s eyes opened up, as bright white smoke escaped from his darkness-covered ribcage, and pooled near the ceiling, as more and more smoke added to it. Sylver opened his mouth and coughed out more clouds of smoke, and took a very long and deep breath, as he slowly raised his head. Spring remained on the ground retching as if he were a cat with a hairball.

Sylver reached out towards one of the nearby floating bodies, and the stitches on his chest and stomach burned away as the wounds sealed. He breathed out a dense cloud of white out of his mouth as he reached for the next floating Krist.

[??? (???) Defeated!]

[??? (???) Defeated!]

By the time Sylver touched and killed the fourth one, there was barely any trace of the fact that he had been split open and had his organs removed and put back.

[??? (???) Defeated!]

[??? (???) Defeated!]

[Draining Touch (II) Proficiency increased to 67%!]

[Biological Manipulation (I) Proficiency increased to 37%!]

Save for the fact that against his pale skin, the pitch-black metal inside stood out like a giant bruise. Sylver caught the blood-soaked towel before it fell off as he slowly got off the table and kept himself covered.

He patted himself down and wiped away some of the dried-up blood with his hands, as he felt his chest and tapped against the metallic ribs pressing against his skin. Sylver took a deep breath and could feel the newly added constraint. He cracked his neck as he flexed his hands, and a wave of yellow light traveled up through his wrists and forearms up his arms and shoulders and illuminated his insides from within.

Spring finally managed to cough up the small pouch and slumped down onto the floor, barely keeping his shape. Sylver took very slow and deep breaths and with each passing second, the light coming out from inside of him became dimmer and dimmer.

Spring started to get to his feet by the time Sylver stopped glowing. Spring brushed himself off and went back into Sylver’s shadow.

“Can I ask something?” Lola asked, as Sylver adjusted the bright red towel around his waist, and patted his chest to check for scarring or inflammation.

“I feel like you’ve learned more than you ever wanted to today, but sure, be my guest,” Sylver said, as several shades made their way out of his shadow and started deconstructing the tent he set up, as well as draining the tanks that held the now dead and dried up Krists.

“What was the point of keeping your heart beating while it was in that jar? I can kind of eyeball all the enchantments you carved into the platinum plates, but the stuff you drew on the glass jar, I’m genuinely at a loss about,” Lola asked, as she pointed at the aforementioned jar, that was now no longer holding Sylver’s heart and was simply half full with an unnatural looking viscus red jelly.

“Ah… How do I explain it…? You understand that nothing you saw here can ever be told or described to anyone else right? I know it doesn’t need to be said, but I wanted to say it just in case,” Sylver said, as he raised his hands in the air and slowly stretched.

“It didn’t need to be said, but your secrets are safe with me. Your many, many, many secrets,” Lola said, as she started to stare off into blank space with a matching blank expression.

Sylver looked at her while he twisted his torso around and adjusted how his muscles wrapped around the metalwork inside of him.

“Anyway. Have you ever fought against something that could regenerate a new body from a small piece of itself? You burned the body away, but it grew a new torso, head, arms, and legs from a hand?” Sylver asked.

“Sure trolls, hydra, drakes,” Lola answered.

“Right, hydra are a good example. Why is it that if the main body is destroyed it will grow a new one from a lost piece of tail? But then why doesn’t every scale it drops grow into a brand new hydra while the main body is still alive?” Sylver asked. Lola nodded for him to continue as his body made a muted clink, followed by another muted clink.

“We live in three dimensions. Height, width, depth. Four if you add time, five if you add mana. Six if you remember that Ki exists. The number isn’t as important as the concept, we live in a certain number of dimensions and are unaware of the others, that’s the main point,” Sylver explained.

“In the way all elves are born being able to sense mana, dwarves can sense magnetic fields, is that what you’re talking about?” Lola asked.

“Exactly. But back to the hydra, why is it exactly that every new scale doesn’t grow into a hydra while it’s alive, but does when its main body dies?” Sylver asked.

“Because of some dimension, I’m unaware of?” Lola asked as Sylver crossed one arm over the other and flexed until his insides clinked.

“Have you ever heard of primal energy?” Sylver asked.

“I think so…”

“Soul sense uses base energy. This is similar to that but based on primal energy. A living creature starts with a soul and grows a body around that. Later the body interacts with the soul and grows the soul, I’m getting off-topic. Primal energy is something like the energy of the world as a whole. Like one giant soul that affects everyone, and is affected by everyone. Sorcery, voodoo, blood magic, and some other miscellaneous magics make use of this connection. A sorcerer isn’t pulling spells out of his ass, he’s pulling it out of the world’s collective ass,” Sylver explained, as the shades gathered the inert plates of platinum and broke it up to store away.

“How does this relate to a hydra? And your heart for that matter?” Lola asked.

“A hair falls off your head, and your body tells the world that that piece of hair is no longer a part of you. Same with a hydra. It’s the reason there are healers out there that have zero understanding of how a liver functions, and yet they’re able to heal it to perfect health. Primal energy is the flow of information. If my heart is outside of my body, it means I’m dead, right? I’m human, the majority of humans have trouble staying alive while missing a heart,” Sylver offered.

“Most things do,” Lola said. She reached behind herself and her staff and silver ball disappeared under the folds of her white robe.

“It’s why there are certain scars that never go away. Healing magic uses primal energy as a reference, so there’s nothing to be done when the reference says everything is alright. Now if you happen to know how to manipulate this energy then-”

“You can make it so every scratch you make doesn’t heal… Or stop your body and soul from reacting even while you’re supposed to be dead because of a missing heart… Or kill somebody…” Lola interrupted.

“More or less, yes. Mixing and matching different energies can sometimes lead to great results. The carvings essentially made my heart think it’s still inside of me, so I didn’t have to worry about my soul detaching from my body. I was in my body, but I wasn’t in my body,” Sylver said.

Lola gave him a strange look.

“So everyone that can use death magic can sense this primal energy thing?” Lola asked.

“Oh, no. At least not that I’m aware. Aether could sense it, but Nyx couldn’t. There’s a way of sensing it through your mana, like throwing flour on an invisible opponent to see them, so Nyx and I used that for the longest time. But you’re right in that death magic does take advantage of this invisible energy. It’s why for some mages it sometimes works, and sometimes doesn’t. I on the other hand know with full certainty if I’ll be able to kill someone using death magic, or if it will be a waste of effort,” Sylver explained.

The shades finished packing everything away, and Lola followed Sylver towards the exit. Lola was quiet as the door opened into Sylver’s bedroom and he walked into the bathroom to shower the dried up blood off himself. The shades sealed Sylver’s ribs and chunks of flesh into a metal chest, to be delivered to Sylver’s new home along with the rest of his belongings.

“What other things can you sense?” Lola said loudly through the closed door.

“While in Ciege’s body? Mana and souls, that’s it. My soul sense allows me to feel people’s attention on me, emotions, and in some cases intentions, but that’s about it. I would need to spend a lot of time meditating for Ciege’s body to start being able to sense the smaller things. I spent most of my time trying that while waiting for the Cord to show up when I was stuck inside Tuli, but I didn’t manage to achieve a whole lot other than getting slightly more accustomed to casting from inside Ciege’s body,” Sylver explained, as he pulled a piece of bone out of his hair and flicked it towards the drain.

*

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Once he was done freshening up, Lola escorted him to see Salgok. Sylver had already gotten used to his new center of gravity by the time he stepped into the dwarven blacksmith’s workshop.

“Show me,” Salgok said, as he looked up from sharpening a dagger of some sort and practically ran over towards Sylver.

“Show you what? I thought you said it wasn’t possible, that I would-”

“And yet here you stand regardless, with something that looks like all your blood vessels turned into metal inside of you,” Salgok interrupted, as he stared right at Sylver’s chest. “What’s it connected to? What’s holding it in place? Where does-”

“I’ll explain everything later, but I need you to apply the rune first. Keeping the equivalent of a house of cards from toppling over while inside of me isn’t as easy as you imagine,” Sylver said, as he walked over to an empty pallet and slowly lowered himself down onto it until he was laying on it on his back.

Salgok was next to him a moment later, holding a hammer in one hand, and a weird-looking pair of tongs in the other.

“On the sternum, nothing’s changed?” Salgok asked.

Sylver nodded and his robe pulled to reveal his chest. He ran his finger down along his sternum and the flesh parted to reveal a shiny piece of metal.

“This might hurt a bit,” Salgok said, as he used the strange-looking tongs to hold of the [Rune Of Indestructibility] and angled the flattest part towards Sylver’s chest.

“There’s a lethal dose of painkillers in my system right now, I can’t feel anything,” Sylver said, as Salgok shrugged and held the rune against the metal in his chest. Salgok hit the top of his tongs and Sylver was blinded by the giant explosion of sparks.

“It’s resisting, hold still,” Salgok said, as he hit the top of the tongs again, and Sylver saw the produced light even from behind his closed eyelids.

“The compatibility is low…” Salgok muttered as he kept hitting the top of his tongs and kept creating giant explosions of sparks. Sylver counted 42 attempts before Salgok stopped trying and sat down to catch his breath.

“Too much, or too little material? What’s the problem?” Sylver asked. The hole in his chest filled up with darkness to stop it from bleeding.

“I don’t know. It isn’t meant for this, but it isn’t rejecting it outright, so it’s possible,” Salgok said as he got back on his feet and got a fresh pair of tongs that hadn’t folded in on themselves from the sheer amount of force he had applied to them.

“I’m not familiar with how exactly runes function, but is there anything I could do to help?” Sylver asked. Salgok closed his eyes as he took long deep breaths and ran his hands through his beard.

“How sturdy is that thing?” Salgok asked with a gesture towards Sylver with his hammer.

“Give me a second… Tell me when, you’ll have 30 seconds before I’ll need to wait for my mana to replenish,” Sylver said, as Salgok snapped his fingers and summoned a glass of water into his hand.

“Alright. Do it, tell me when to stop,” Salgok said, as the hammer in his hand disappeared and was instead replaced by a hammer that was half a step away from having the prefix of “sledge”.

Sylver braced himself as Salgok pressed the rune held in place by the pliers up to his chest and hit the top of it with his hammer.

Even though Sylver had sealed off his pain perception, he gasped out loud as he felt every single bone in his body flash with heat for a split second. He thought he imagined it until he felt his seared lungs buckle and force white smoke out of his mouth and nose.

Sylver saw the faintest smile on Salgok’s frozen in concentration face and braced again as the large hammer descended onto the chisel-like pliers. The second hit made the pain last longer, and Sylver felt his stomach fill up with smoke as one of his normal ribs bent under the pressure and pierced it.

Sylver tried to tell him to stop, but couldn’t get the words out of his mouth. Sylver’s body went lax as Salgok hit the pliers and rune again, the pain driving his recently displaced soul out of place. Sylver kept everything inside in one piece, as Salgok grunted with the effort, and Sylver saw that his large, almost “sledge” deserving hammer, was now a war hammer, with a head almost as big as Salgok’s body was.

Sylver felt the pliers slip and felt them strain against the fine chainmail draped over them, as he nearly screamed from the pain. The wooden pallet underneath him broke into pieces as Sylver dropped down onto the floor, filling his back with nails and wooden splinters.

[Binding Successful!]

[Perk: Iron Chest]
-While the needle is hidden within your iron chest, you will gain the following perks:
+75 % Resistance to Slashing Damage.
+75% Resistance to Piercing Damage.
+50% Resistance to Physical Damage.
+25% HP regeneration while motionless.
*Damage-related perks only apply to bones.

[Koschei] has reached level 5!
+Perk: Duck And Dive
+5AP

[Perk: Duck And Dive]
-While in contact with the needle, you will leave no footprints, scent, or trace.
-While in contact with the needle, +20% increase to Dexterity.

Sylver tried to get up from the floor but found himself pinned in place. It felt like every single bone in his body had been on fire, and was suddenly doused in cold water. He felt something wet pooling underneath him and patted the front of his pants to make sure it was just blood.

“You’re smiling? It worked?” Salgok asked. Sylver tried to turn his head, but couldn’t muster the strength. He blinked tears out of his eyes as he tried to stand up again.

Spring informed Sylver of what he had somewhat already guessed.

His metal ribs had pierced Salgok’s floor as if they were nails. Which explained the massive pressure Sylver felt in his chest, on account of his lungs being crushed from being trapped between the floor and Sylver’s indestructible metallic ribs.

He was about to ask Salgok to get a crowbar when Sylver remembered he could turn into smoke.

He brushed his front of as he inflated his lungs using magic and forced his ribcage back into its proper place. It popped back to where it was supposed to be.

The back of Sylver’s pants were completely soaked in blood, courtesies of the holes in his back from where his ribs had pierced his skin. Thankfully his robe was black, and the blood wasn’t visible on it.

“So? How is it?” Salgok asked as Sylver rapped on the piece of glowing metal in the middle of his bare chest and barely heard anything.

“…I think it worked?” Sylver said, as he patted himself on the area as the wound closed and the flesh fused into a pale scar down the middle. Sylver looked up at Salgok, who was still holding the oversized Warhammer. “Hit me,” Sylver said, puffing his chest out towards the dwarf.

While Lola looked horrified and was about to say something, Salgok was already mid-swing. Dark red tendrils of electricity followed the war hammer’s arc, as Salgok spun around once, and then hit Sylver square in the chest.

Sylver braced himself and even pushed against the incoming hit. He could feel the shockwave Salgok’s hammer created when it struck him, Sylver could feel it disperse through his bones and rattle them, and he could hear Salgok’s hammer cry under the strain, as it bounced off Sylver’s chest.

Sylver looked down at his chest, and aside from the skin that had been blown away, the ribcage held strong. There wasn’t so much as a scratch on the shiny metallic bones.

“What if it didn’t work?” Lola asked, as Sylver covered his barely bleeding chest with darkness and sealed the wound up.

“Oh, I knew it worked. It’s like having lead inside of me, but without the itchy magical restricting sensation. But it never hurts to make sure,” Sylver said, as he turned left and right and swung his arms around. “I feel better than I expected, truth be told,” Sylver said.

He looked around and saw that the skin that used to cover his chest had splattered everywhere, and half of Salgok’s workshop was now covered in small droplets of blood. Spring called shades out while Sylver, Salgok, and Lola sat down to have a small celebration.

*

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*

After a change of robes, pants, and another shower to wash away the blood, Sylver almost wished he could simply set his bones on fire again, instead of being here right now. He knocked on the door with one hand, while holding the large bouquet in the other. The bouquet was from a sweet shop and was made up of edible imitation flowers.

Sylver had second, third, and fourth thoughts as he listened to the sound of footsteps getting louder and louder, but he’d already told Novva he’d handle this, and quite honestly the sooner this was done the better.

“Come in, come in, you wouldn’t believe the day I had!” Leke said, as she took the flowers out of Sylver’s hands and disappeared into the kitchen for a moment. She was dressed in a thin robe that she usually wore in the morning, despite it being the middle of the day. Sylver felt around with his soul sense but neither Diarla nor Tera were home.

“There are only like 7 rules for the tournament. And yet every second contestant thinks their magical enhancing drug is somehow allowed, just because it’s their culture’s tradition. Bastards the lot of them, and liars too!  Especially the martial artists, they think that just because their drugs are in the form of pills they’re suddenly not against the simplest rules we could possibly have,” Leke complained as Sylver sat down in the living room. “Do you want anything to eat? Tea? Coffee? I’ve got a bottle of wine someone tried to bribe me with and had to call a gift when the guards came over,” Leke offered, holding a half-finished bottle of wine with a label Sylver couldn’t read.

“I’m fine, thank you. I actually came here to-”

“Was it Diarla or Tera? I want to know who I’m no longer talking to,” Leke interrupted. Sylver could tell by her tone but decided to see if playing dumb was an option.

“What?” Sylver asked, as Leke sat down next to him and kicked her feet up into Sylver’s lap.

“Was it Diarla, the mousy-looking girl with short brown hair, or Tera, the alchemist with long black hair that you took out on a date to catch would-be muggers when you only had one working arm?” Leke asked, with her eyes closed as she drank right from the bottle. It was admittedly a somewhat smaller than usual bottle, but Leke wasn’t that big to begin with.

“You’ll have to be specific,” Sylver said, as Leke made herself more comfortable on the couch and moved her legs in a somewhat unfortunate for the situation fashion.

“As much as I enjoy watching you squirm and try to lie without lying, I’ve got a two-day shift in a couple of hours, and I would like to move things along. Was it Diarla, or Tera, who told you to stop seeing me?” Leke asked. Sylver tried to sit up straighter but he found his legs pinned in place and remained as he was.

“I would prefer not to answer. But more importantly, I agree. Aside from the fact that I’m quite likely to end up dead, there’s also the fact-”

“And you think I’m such an idiot that I didn’t know that? Or am I an idiot for thinking that a person with the word “adventure” in their job description would be open to the idea of settling down and getting married? Or that someone who uses dark magic is even capable of having children? Be honest, is that really how little you think of me?” Leke asked, kicking Sylver in the thigh with each question.

Sylver turned to look her in the eye but couldn’t get a proper read on her. Even with how close she was, she was doing something that was messing with his soul sense. Sylver couldn’t even tell if she knew she was doing it.

“First of all, I’m capable of having children. I purposely made it so I can’t have them right now, but I wouldn’t even need an hour to turn everything back on. And I don’t think you’re stupid, I just thought that maybe you’re seeing things with rose-tinted glasses, and either you purposely ignored what you knew to be true, or thought you would be able to change things,” Sylver explained.

“…Look, cards on the table, what’s the big problem here?” Leke asked. She moved her feet off Sylver’s and crossed sat on top of them next to Sylver on the couch.

“The problem is that I’m not in a position to give you what you want, and I very likely won’t be in such a position for a very long while. So although we both enjoy each other’s company, it’s ultimately unfair to you,” Sylver explained.

“What did she tell you? She told you about Klein, right?” Leke asked, with a gesture using the bottle in her hand.

“No, just that you wanted to start seeing someone else, but couldn’t do it because of me,” Sylver answered.

“See… The thing is that that isn’t entirely true. Klein is… He isn’t someone somebody in my position can just say “no” to. But if I were seeing a certain necromancer that Klein and a majority of the local nobility hold in high opinion, or are wary of for some reason, I get to say “no” without actually saying no. A sort of polite “no” that keeps similar would be suiters away,” Leke explained with a nervous smile on her face as she spoke. She looked towards the floor instead of Sylver’s eyes.

“Ah…” Sylver said as he realized Diarla might have misunderstood something, either by accident or on purpose.

“We’re both consenting adults. Free to make our own decisions and choices. And should the time come in the future that either one of us finds someone else, we stop seeing each other there and then. I know who you are, and I’m not under any illusions as to what this so, so there aren’t any misunderstandings here, apart from that you think that I’m too stupid to make my own decisions,” Leke explained with a bitter tone.

Sylver sat quietly for a while and mulled things over in his mind. Leke drank another quarter of her bottle of wine during that time.

“I mean… As long as we both understand what we’re doing, and we’re both fine with it, there isn’t a problem. But I’m not thrilled about you putting me up against the nobility like this, not directly at least. I work for Lola Aeyri, next time use her name if you have to,” Sylver said, partially stunned at how easily everything had been resolved.

“Great. I have about 3 hours until I need to put on my uniform and spend the next 2 days listening to people who can barely speak Eirish explain why their cursed sword that does all the work for them should be allowed into the arena. So do you want to have a drink and try to make small talk, or can we just go upstairs and you do that thing you did last time you came here. You know, when you-”

“Oh, I uh… I’ve had a bit of surgery done. I’m fine, it’s nothing serious, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to be doing anything too physically demanding until everything fully settled down,” Sylver explained as he got up from the couch and took a few steps away.

“What if I said I’m cross with you for listening to Tera and deciding something for me that you had no right deciding?” Leke asked, as she got up from the couch and her robe all but fell down.

“I have nothing to apologize for. I worked with the information I was provided, and did what I thought was best,” Sylver countered, as Leke didn’t bother to close her robe up, and took another step towards him.

“Well, I still feel kind of angry about it anyway. If only there was something that you could do to calm me down,” Leke offered, letting the robe fall off completely at this point.

“I am going to be gone for a while…” Sylver said, partially to himself, as Leke made a gesture towards the front door and the lock turned and clicked shut.

“As you said, you’re an adventurer, you might die out there. The least you can do is leave me with a nice memory before you go,” Leke said. She stood on the tips of her toes and wrapped her arms around Sylver’s neck. Sylver didn’t react as she pulled herself up.

“It’s bad luck to say that kind of thing,” Sylver said, as he lifted Leke off the ground and started to carry her towards the stairs.

“I thought you didn’t believe in luck?”

“I don’t. You said we’ve got 3 hours?” Sylver asked and sighed as he felt Leke’s hand move down his stomach.

“Don’t worry about the time, let me worry about the time. Just do what you did last time, and maybe this time don’t stop if I start to scream,” Leke explained, as the door to her bedroom opened on its own.

*

*

*

Sylver had a smile on his face as watched the clouds quickly pass him by while Will flapped his wings and slowly but surely gained altitude. His back hurt like a bitch, and he didn’t know if he had pulled a muscle due to the added weight in his chest, or if the nail scratches still hadn’t fully healed.

[Golden Egg], [Hare’s Great Escape], [Iron Chest], and [Duck And Dive]…

I got [Golden Egg] when I got to level 2 in [Koschei]...

[Hare’s Great Escape] when I got to level 4 in [Koschei]…

[Duck And Dive] I got just now when it reached level 5.

I didn’t get anything for level 3, and do I count [Iron Chest] as part of the [Koschei] perks? It mentions the needle, so probably yes.

An egg, a hare, a chest, a duck… Is there a connection I’m not seeing? If we were to go by size it would be egg, hare, duck, chest.

Ducks lay eggs… Egg, duck, hare, chest?

If the chest wasn’t there, all the perks would revolve around living things…

An egg is kind of a chest…

A box without hinges, key or lid. Yet golden treasure inside is hid.

So what would be next? Egg, hare, duck, chest and… An egg can be unfertilized, especially if it’s made of gold.

A hare is alive, a duck is alive, a chest is dead. So the pattern could be one dead thing, 2 living things.

What’s next then? What’s a creature bigger than a chest? A mammal, then a bird bigger than the previous mammal.

Pig? Horse? Then what? Ostrich? It might not even be a mammal; it could be an insect. Or a fish. Or an arachnid. Or another inanimate object. Size might not even be important; it could easily be-

“We’re being followed,” Spring whispered into Sylver’s ear as Will began to move a little faster.

“Can you tell by who?” Sylver asked via tapping his foot without looking away from the clouds.

“No they have masks, and something else, we’re having trouble seeing them. A group of 3 and 5, the 3 just passed us, and the other is approaching from the back. They’re still on the ground, but they’re likely going to teleport up here,” Spring said.

Sylver turned over onto his stomach and yawned loudly as the umbrella hidden inside of his robe slid out of it disappeared.

He stood up and stretched for a while, before walking to the back of the wyvern and pulling his pants down slightly. Sylver stood there with his piece in his hand and casually leaned forward for a moment. As the teleporter appeared behind him, Sylver leaned back and smashed the back of his head against his attacker’s face and nose.

The woman gasped at the sudden contact, but even with that, she managed to pull the trigger on her crossbow. Sylver’s breath caught in his throat as the silver-tipped crossbow bolt bounced off the back of his indestructible chainmail-covered ribcage. He felt his skin crawl as the umbrella activated and caught him in the effect along with the woman.

The woman dropped the crossbow and it was now falling towards the ground, as Sylver spun around and caught the woman’s silver dagger-wielding wrist with one hand. She made another dagger appear in her other hand, and a shade caught her wrist, but couldn’t disarm her. The dagger shook in her hand, as it somewhat slowly made its way towards Sylver’s face.

Sylver stopped his feet from being glued to Will, and let the woman pull him towards her. He barely caught a glimpse of her terrified eyes through her black cloth mask, as he head-butted her in the teeth and felt the skin on his forehead get scrapped off. The woman made another sound and lost strength for a split second.

Sylver’s robe wrapped around what it could reach, and he forced her down onto Will’s back, draining as much health and mana as he could, gaining strength as she lost hers. The woman kicked at him, and Sylver just barely managed to lean sideways to avoid a direct kick to his already abused unmentionables. The woman’s bloodshot eyes stared at him, as Sylver sucked out every drop of mana and stamina that he could reach, pinning the woman down with each passing second.

Spring flung the umbrella towards Sylver, and a shade caught it, before it stabbed the woman in the shoulder, and twisted the ring near the handle, and pressed down as hard as possible. The woman barely grunted as the umbrella’s tip entered her shoulder and went inside.

“You have one chance to tell me who sent you, and what you want, before I disembowel you and turn you into an inverse of a kite,” Sylver said, looking the woman right in the eye as Spring ripped her mask off her face and threw it away.

[Human (Assassin+Assassin+Archer+Rogue) – 103]
[HP-5,113]
[MP-244]

The would-be assassin smiled through her bloodied and chipped teeth and tried to spit in Sylver’s face, but the wind blew the red liquid away before it could hit its mark.

“Bad choice, but I respect it,” Sylver said, as Reg grabbed the woman by the side of her head, and turned it sideways with a hard spin until he heard a crunch.

[Human (Assassin+Assassin+Archer+Rogue) Defeated!]
[Due to defeating an enemy 20 levels above you, additional experience will be awarded!

[Necromancer] has reached level 70!
+5AP

[1 perk available for [Necromancer]]

Sylver stayed where he was, and turned into smoke at the same time as a shade wearing a robe and mask replaced him. The shade created a hammer in one hand using [Tools Of The Shade] and bashed the dead woman’s face in while Sylver put an identical mask on.

In less than three hits the woman’s face was no longer recognizable, it looked like a bowl of bright red chili, more than a human being’s face. Sylver’s smoke forced itself into every crook and crevice he could find in her form-hugging armor, and the shade that was dressed as Sylver stood up and kicked her off Will.

Staying inside his tight confines Sylver only had small gaps in the woman’s armor to see what was going on. Her corpse spun as it fell through the air, and Sylver saw a similarly dressed man appear directly beneath her, with his arms stretched out to catch her.

Sylver cursed that this woman assassin didn’t have a cloak or anything, and almost mistimed exiting her armor and reforming behind her, using her spinning corpse to block the man’s line of sight. The man caught the woman a split second before Sylver’s ax passed through his helmet and split his head into two.

[Human (Warrior+Bladesman+Warrior+Rogue) Defeated!]
[Due to defeating an enemy 30 levels above you, additional experience will be awarded!

Sylver turned into smoke and funneled into the rocky ground underneath the two corpses, and waited. He felt the moment Will was killed, although the wyvern was too far away for [Dying Breath] to work.

While still in his smoke form, Sylver opened the umbrella but didn’t activate it. He used some of the woman’s stolen mana to quickly make enough room for himself to materialize and used the extra HP to heal his back and further adjust his insides.

Sylver sat perfectly still for several tense minutes, as he felt two more shades get killed in quick succession.

Sylver heard a noise above him.

“What the fuck!” A young man’s voice said in a tense whisper as he and two more men appeared near the two corpses above Sylver.

“I told you we shouldn’t have taken this job! I fucking told you!” a different voice said, with a forcefully composed tone. It sounded older than the first one. “Fucking necromancer! Defenseless researcher my ass. Can you do anything?”

Sylver’s skin crawled as the healing magic permeated through the dirt below the corpses.

“He killed Thet and Gamm, what do we do now?” a third voice asked. High pitched, possibly a gnome.

“Fix them, use a 90%,” the old man said.

“They’re dead Bet. We’d just end up wasting potions. Eps, status?” the maybe gnome asked. There was a moment of silence as the man with healing magic stopped using it and stood back up.

“Zet, Alph, and Eta said there were two of him that disappeared when they killed the flying thing, but they didn’t get a confirmation, their guess is they were decoys. Bet, it’s your call, what do we do?” the first voice asked.

Sylver wondered if the umbrella would work through the dirt, but decided against it. He used magic to dig directly underneath the two corpses and positioned himself.

“Fall back. We cut our losses, something is going on here, if he killed Gamm we don’t stand a chance one on one, and ambushing him isn’t possible if he’s hiding and on guard…” Bet said, as Sylver heard the faint sound of a sword’s blade catching on its sheath. “Unless of course, he was hiding right HERE!”

Sylver was pinned down against the bottom of his hole as the silver-coated sword passed through his shoulder blade and was stopped by the top of his ribcage, instead of piercing his heart. Sylver heard a shout above him, as the archer shades shot arrows from the trees at the people above.

Sylver grit his teeth as the skin on his hands burned away from touching the silver-coated weapon. He managed to lift the blade for a second before he turned into smoke to avoid contact with it.

Sylver waited in silence for 30 whole seconds, before he peeked out from beneath the two corpses.

He used another one of the decoy shades that looked identical to him and had it materialize near the two corpses and pretended to look around.

They seemed to be gone.

The shades Sylver sent to scout the surrounding area confirmed it.

Sylver kept hiding while the decoy undressed the corpses and looted them. But even after Sylver replaced one decoy with another, no one showed up. Spring returned with Will and the other shades in tow and told Sylver what had happened.

Will was shot with a large arrow, and then a volley of arrows riddled the two decoys that fell from the deceased wyvern with silver-tipped arrows.

Sylver materialized among a crowd of identical-looking shades, black robes that hid everything, along with a plain white mask with a single black line going down the left eye. Sylver crouched down near the two nude corpses and examined them.

“Both had similar training, but not from birth… Right-handed, both of them. The armor is high quality, but nothing enchanted. Either they couldn’t afford it, or they’re used to hunting mages… Probably the latter. Hair is clean, washed recently, they weren’t waiting for me in the middle of the woods, they knew I would be here, they knew when I left Arda…” Sylver said, as he ran his hand through the man’s short hair and let his head drop back on the ground.

“So either the Cord, the Cats, one of the nobles that doesn’t want to pay you, the Black Mane, the temple of Ra, or someone else who doesn’t want you around,” Spring counted out. Sylver used a stick to turn one of the woman’s silver-coated daggers over to see if there were any identifying markings on it.

“First of all, half that list wouldn’t want me dead. Aside from the fact that I don’t believe the Cord, Cats, or the temple of Ra, have any problems with me, they also wouldn’t try to kill me, they’d try to kidnap me. She tried to shoot me in the back and was aiming for my heart. Second of all, even if they did, they know who I am, and what I am capable of, they wouldn’t send people only 30 levels higher than me. So someone who has a grudge against me, but doesn’t consider me dangerous enough to hire someone expensive…” Sylver said, mostly to himself as he tried to narrow down the potential source.

“So what are we doing here?” Spring asked. Sylver stood up and walked around the area, looking for a stick that had the correct shape. He found one that was close enough, and Spring handed him a piece of leather string.

“Leaving. I’m not going to be able to chase anyone down,” Sylver said, as he summoned four explosives using the [Rune Of Infinite Summoning] and removed the triggers from all four. Sylver molded the clay-like material into a flat disc and placed it gently onto a flat rock.

He laid one of the woman’s daggers down onto the rock and clay explosive and used a piece of leather string, a piece of flint, and a bendy stick to create a tension trigger.

“What if a monster or something gets to them first?” Spring asked as he helped Sylver placed the two corpses directly on top of each other and on top of the bomb.

“You know, as someone who works with corpses for a living, I know far too well how much people hate leaving their friend's bodies out to rot. I’ve lost count of how many times I thought I could take my time slowly raising an undead, only to find myself surrounded by the deceased person’s friends,” Sylver mumbled, as he used his magic to pull the string tight and armed the flint and steel.

“Fair point. I’ll keep a lookout while you work on getting Will back into shape,” Spring said, as he and several other shades spread out into the surrounding forest area.

Sylver swung his arms around for a while and continued to adjust his insides as he gathered enough mana to bring Will back.