Ch180-Prepared For Trouble (Patreon)

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Ch180-Prepared For Trouble

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“Have you had a chance to speak to Faust?” Tera asked, and for the first time in half an hour stopped talking long enough for Sylver to answer her question.

Aside from the fact that the house seemed to be made of what Sylver had realized was solidified thread, it looked like your average house.

As if someone had simply picked up the house Bruno had on his farm and brought it down underground into the dungeon. Although now that Sylver got a better look at the interior, it would be more right to call it a recreation.

Everything from the cutlery, cups, plates, sink, windows, sofa, chairs, even Tera’s clothing, upon closer inspection turned out to be some form of woven thread.

“I haven’t, the uhh… Chrys mentioned he was drinking himself to death, his fiancée broke things off,” Sylver said, as he returned his focus onto Tera.

“I feel like there should be a word for what he’s been doing because just calling it “drinking” isn’t enough. I’m pretty sure he died at one point, but apparently, his organs shutting down isn’t enough to kill him,” Tera said, as she stood up from her seat again and began to pace around the room.

“Yeah, once cultivators get past a certain point, their metabolism is powerful enough to render most poisons and toxins useless… I’ll talk to him,” Sylver promised, as he continued looking at the small golden creature sitting on top of Tera’s head.

“Bruno found a species of crawfish that could detect predators by sensing intent. Took him 2 months’ worth of tinkering, but he figured out how exactly they were doing it, and he created these girls,” Tera said, as she lifted one hand towards the top of her head, and pulled off the motionless creature.

She placed it down in front of Sylver, and the spider-looking creature’s feet made a clicking noise as they touched the surface of the table. As Tera went back to pacing, the creature stared directly at her and constantly adjusted its position so that its body was always towards her.

“I named mine Boni. Her abdomen used to be a lot flatter when she was younger, and the spikes were soft and kind of limp, she looked like a bonnet is what I’m trying to say. Are you going to tell me where you were for the last 5 years? And that huge group of dark elves, I take it they’re with you?” Tera asked.

“If you need to go to the bathroom, just go,” Sylver offered as the small woman continued walking back and forth.

“You know, you made the right choice disappearing for a bit. I struggle to imagine how you would have reacted if those pretentious bastards did what they did while you were around. The head priest of Ra would have backed you up. They’re not fans of the undead, but they’re far too prideful to let a foreign clergy manhandle people in their territory. It helped that everyone could say with total honesty that they had no idea where you were,” Tera said.

Sylver very gently placed his cup back onto the table, and the small golden spider creature started to make a noise that sounded somewhere in the middle of a teapot's whistle, and a child’s scream. Tera practically ran over to it, and picked it up, and used her finger to stroke the flat space that Sylver assumed was its head.

“Stop that, she can sense bloodlust, you’re scaring her,” Tera scolded, except she said it quietly and softly as if she was speaking to a child, so as not to further spook Boni. Sylver heard a barely audible hissing noise on his left and saw a somewhat familiar forked tongue flickering at the edge of one of the windows.

“Great, you riled Slinky up, thanks for that. Now he’s not going to calm down until he’s patrolled the perimeter, I was hoping he would get some rest today,” Tera complained, as Sylver unclenched his jaw, and released whatever tension there was in his body.

“As I said, it’s a good thing you weren’t here. Bruno at least had the sense to resolve things peacefully, albeit I very much doubt that would be his response if they came here now. It’s one thing when you’re up against a group of priests and there’s a family behind your back that can’t defend itself. If they tried to threaten him here, even with their level 400 paladins, Bruno would have murdered them,” Tera explained.

She started pacing back and forth again but was now rocking the small golden spider and repeatedly rubbing the area where Sylver would have thought its fangs would be. It made a different noise, that sounded like purring, but the pitch was much higher somehow.

“Are you saying there were priests in Arda looking for me, and that they were interrogating the people associated with me?” Sylver asked, just to be certain.

“Not all of them were priests, there were mages, wizards, and sorcerers too, apparently the curse on Kitty’s family is somewhat famous. One woman, some kind of ‘curse expert,’ demanded a duel with you to prove she was the undisputed authority in all things dark magic. I think there was even a coven at one point, although I saw 2 men there, so is it still a coven?” Tera asked.

Sylver struggled to keep up with Tera’s ever-changing topic of conversation.

“What was it called…” Sylver asked as he reached up with his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“Summer solstice,” Spring answered.

“The summer solstice, is that where they found out about me? Did no one try to keep that information under wraps? Why didn’t Lola tell me?” Sylver asked.

“Because they were annoying, more than they were dangerous. For starters, not one of them actually knew who you were, all they knew is that you’ve accepted a quest from Arda’s adventurer’s guild-”

“Did anyone get hurt?” Sylver interrupted.

Tera stopped her pacing and turned to look at Sylver.

“No... Lola’s bodyguard was, but that’s his job, nothing permanent. They stopped coming after the monster outbreak, the only reason I told you about them is so that you’re not caught off guard if one of them tracks you down because of it,” Tera explained, as Sylver further relaxed.

Bullshit was unavoidable. He didn’t expect Lola to manage to prevent every single stubbed toe. He attempted to change the subject.

“Do you know what you’re having?” Sylver asked, with a gesture at Tera’s stomach.

“Bruno doesn’t trust any of the clerics capable of finding out, and his soul-sensing ability is apparently not good enough to tell anything other than that it’s alive…” Tera said. Her next sentence didn’t even start as she just stared at Sylver, and seemed to realize something.

Sylver heard a very odd noise outside, that wasn’t dissimilar to the sound the small gold spider had made.

“Come outside, you’re going to want to see this,” Tera said, as she walked over to the front door and opened it. Sylver followed behind her, and it took him a couple of seconds to figure out where the whistling noise was coming from, due to how much it was bouncing around the cave walls.

Although it felt wrong to call the area they were in a “cave.”

A cave didn’t have an artificial sun, extremely fertile soil, several herb gardens, and a fucking river.

From Tera’s explanation, Sylver learned that Bruno had a major mental breakdown when his farm was destroyed and his cows were slaughtered. The friendly honey-flavored cheese maker buried the cows and used what little remained of the spider chimeras to start over, underground.

After he created a few that were capable of fighting, Bruno went down into the dungeon and using his trained monsters, conquered and sectioned off a portion of the dungeon for himself. From there he began a slow cycle of tinkering with their genetic code, while he slowly expanded his territory, and used the defeated monsters as fuel to feed and grow stronger monsters.

Sylver looked up and saw a perfectly smoothing creature attached to the ceiling. It had 10 appendages sticking out of its sickly dark grey color body, with the 2 at the front being significantly larger than the other 8. He couldn’t put into words what he felt when it came into the range of his soul sense, but if he could, they wouldn’t be nice words.

“Is that a fucking crab?” Sylver asked quietly, as the crustacean’s top part, the part that was facing Sylver since it was upside down, began to open up as if it was a beetle about to reveal its wings. He could see a dark pink bumpy mess inside, that was hidden under a layer of steam and seemed to be slowly cooling down.

“It’s more lobster than crab. We discovered that if they’re given enough Uprum during the gestation period, a very small portion are born with an overdeveloped cerebrum,” Tera said, as she gestured with her hand towards the small golden spider sitting on top of her head.

“These girls are her kids. They’re weak physically, but we’ve engineered it so that they’re the queen bees, while the others are all drones who follow their orders. Magically enhanced pheromones, an intellect that puts them above dogs, and training, and voila, an army of monsters,” Tera explained, as Sylver watched Bruno walk out of one of the hexagonal holes on the ceiling.

Sylver watched as the man released the magic that kept his feet glued to the ceiling, and then watched as his descent was stopped by a string that hadn’t been there before. He was slowly lowered to the ground, and in the end, landed a couple of steps away from Sylver.

There were some minor changes in Bruno’s appearance, he was a little fatter, his ears seemed a bit less pointy, he was taller and hidden underneath his hair, Sylver could see 3 sets of eyes that had a dark green shine to them.

“I’m going to leave you boys to talk,” Tera offered, as a spider fell down from the ceiling, attached to her back like some sort of backpack, and then lifted her up and away into the ceiling.

“I’ll show you the hatchery another time, there are a bit too many untrained spiderlings running around up there for now. If they get a taste for…” Bruno’s words trailed off as Sylver continued staring up at the ceiling.

Spring informed him of thousands upon thousands of large liquid-filled sacks, with hundreds of tiny spider-like monsters floating around inside of them.

“Did you know you’re a fictional character?” Bruno asked, and Sylver shifted his attention away from the ceiling, and the giant crab/lobster.

“In what sense?” Sylver asked, as an enormous smile formed on Bruno’s face.

“Do you remember a bard by the name of Lorn?” Bruno asked.

“No,” Sylver said.

Spring tapped out a description of the man, he was the bard who had followed Sylver around when he had stopped the mini rebellion.

“Yes,” Sylver said.

“Do you remember teaching him a very very catchy tune, that goes a little like-” Bruno hummed out 3 notes before the memory hit Sylver like a warhammer to the head.

It was the extremely generic bullshit Sylver had provided the bard with, to make the story he told better.

“His story is so famous; that there are fewer bars that don’t sing it. A necromancer being “good” in a story is just short of being cliché at this point. It all but flipped the public opinion on the matter. They even teach classes about the books in the Silian academy,” Bruno explained, with a grin that made Sylver want to bury his head in sand.

“I say all that, so you don’t try lecturing me on how having an army of spider-based monsters will set back people’s opinion on dark magic. I’ll tell you this, Lorn didn’t get lucky, a lot of money went into him becoming as successful and famous as he is,” Bruno explained, as Sylver covered his reddening face with his hands, and felt a level of embarrassment he hadn’t been aware was possible.

“Aside from that, I’m glad to see you’re back. It hasn’t been an easy 5 years, but as far as I can remember, it’s been the best 5 years of any of my lives,” Bruno explained, as he walked over to Sylver, and attempted to embrace him in a hug.

Sylver’s chest was a bit too large for him to wrap his arms completely around him, but Sylver appreciated the attempt and hugged him back.

He smelt strongly of metal.

“You’re having twins,” Sylver whispered into the overly confident man’s ear.

He could almost feel Bruno’s heart skip a beat.

“Both boys, congratulations,” Sylver added, as Bruno pulled himself away from the hug, and stared Sylver in the eye.

“Are you sure?” Bruno asked.

“Really strong too. They’ll be great when they grow older,” Sylver said, as Bruno had to look away to wipe the tears that had formed in his eyes.

All 8 of them.

“How was the weather in whichever realm it is you disappeared into?” Bruno asked, and almost caught Sylver off guard. Knowing him, he probably could sense the other realm on Sylver’s soul or something.

“Kind of cold, and the locals were horrible. On the bright side I found out that death lords can be forced to hold a physical form, and I have a direct path to Edmund,” Sylver said.

Bruno froze in place and very slowly turned his head towards him.

“Death… lords? There were two, how did you-”

“Three.”

“…”

“Did I mention the dark elves I brought with me might be decedents of my master?” Sylver offered.

Bruno just silently stared at him for a while.

“You know what? I don’t need to know the details. I’m glad you’re back and safe, and if I’m reading your soul and mana channels right, sounder than you’ve ever been,” Bruno concluded.

“Almost forgot about that, there was a skeleton, a golem, that called itself “Sylver,” who was using a hand that belonged to my old body to cast death magic. And also-”

“I want to know the details. Follow me, I have a good spot where no one will be able to listen in,” Bruno said, as he gestured towards the area behind the house.

***

Aside from the giant serpent that snuck up on them, and then pestered Bruno until he scratched the monster’s nose, Sylver’s retelling of events almost sounded like a report a subordinate would give to a superior.

Bruno was the only person Sylver could genuinely consider an equal.

He liked Lola, he trusted Lola, he relied on her, and as much as he hated himself for even thinking in those terms, Lola was far too young for him to see her as someone he could confide in.

Bruno listened intently, he interrupted only when Sylver hadn’t made a certain piece clear enough, and even though Sylver didn’t consider this wise, he told the ancient reincarnator about the “prophecy” the book had screamed at him.

For a good 10 minutes, they stood next to each other in silence. Sylver spent the time observing his surroundings, the inside of a small hole that had been carved into the wall. It contained a table, two chairs, and enough anti-scrying spells that Sylver felt physically sick for the first 5 minutes.

There was also a bunch of blankets on the floor, that Bruno wordlessly kicked away into the corner.

“Ignore it,” Bruno decided.

“That’s the plan,” Sylver agreed.

“If it’s a real prophecy, you won’t be able to stop it, not at the level you are now. And if it’s a fake just to fuck with you, ignoring it will render it powerless,” Bruno explained.

“It’s already fucked with me… But I agree, trying to search for the names isn’t going to achieve a whole lot…” Sylver said.

Another minute of silence passed.

“How do you mean she isn’t affected by magic?” Bruno asked.

“I’ll bring her over to show you, or come to my house, she’s currently acting as Chrys’ translator. Her soul is massive, and she has another function that I’m not at liberty to speak of,” Sylver said and felt a companionship he hadn’t realized just how much he would miss, up until he lost it.

Being an ancient lich was a fucking curse if you didn’t have an ancient healer to talk things over with, joke around with, someone to bounce your thoughts and ideas off, to make sure you haven’t gone insane.

“You said Schlagen mountains, right?” Bruno asked.

“Hmm? Yeah, at least according to Lola’s notes, that is the most logical place to go to. I’ll be able to triangulate his position anyway, but I don’t know if he’s moving, or in one place,” Sylver said.

“Raw mana though… How do you stain a sword with raw mana?” Bruno asked.

In the distance, the slightly dark orange cows made a noise that Bruno described as a “moo” but to Sylver’s ears sounded more like someone’s first time playing the tuba.

“In Edmund’s culture, a person’s weapon, specifically a sword, is a representation of them, but it’s also an extension of them, like a child. In his eyes a sword that has a chip, that’s scratched, that doesn’t have a polished handle, is like seeing a parent with a starved child. It’s indecent,” Sylver explained.

It was a concept that he himself didn’t fully understand, but understood enough to know to always keep his daggers and weapons clean and presentable.

“Faust mentioned something like this. I’ve seen him pick fights with other swordsmen because their leather scabbard was tarnished,” Bruno said.

“This part is hard to put into words… In his culture, you’re supposed to get 1 sword and use 1 sword. His people have a whole ceremony where the warrior enters a room full of blades and picks one out for himself. They have this thing, if you take a sword from that room, you have to bring it back.

“A proper warrior doesn’t die in battle, he survives everything, returns to that backwater shithole of a city, and puts his sword back into that room, and spends what little days he has left passing on his wisdom to the next generation. Now, there is a sort of exception to this,” Sylver said.

“When it’s broken, right?”

“Exactly. If your sword breaks, that means your spirit wasn’t tough enough, the blade didn’t accept you, long story short you can get a new one if you can bring them the broken blade. In the Ibis it’s customary for apprentices to be given to other masters to study under. One of Edmund’s was this hermit, lived inside the skull of a dead giant, super weird guy, made tea from elephant turds,” Sylver said.

Even now could remember the feeling of that slimy liquid disappearing down his throat as that old fuck told him what he had just drunk. The fact that it actually tasted quite nice, didn’t matter.

“Very rare that a “master of the sword” actually does something. They love hiding in the middle of nowhere though, to “train” their mind,” Bruno nodded along.

“Anyway, he taught Edmund this one neat trick. You know how archers can adjust the path of their arrow by heating or cooling the metal tip to make it bend a bit so it will go in a certain direction?” Sylver asked.

“Sure.”

“Well, Edmund being a pyromancer, he figured out a way to do that to his sword. Not just a little, but enough that his blade was liquid. Ignoring that it’s considered a “form” when he does it, but “cheating,” when I do something similar, it really is a good strategy. The power of a sword, and the unpredictability, and flexibility, of a whip,” Sylver reminisced.

“I think I can see it. He uses the same spell to bend the sword of his opponent to render it unusable. But because it isn’t “broken” the warrior is required to break his own sword, if he plans to continue being a warrior,” Bruno said.

“Yep. Although he only used it 3 times that I’m aware of. To him doing that to an opponent’s blade is the ultimate sign of disrespect. Because in his eyes, what’s he’s doing is crippling his opponent’s child, and thus forcing them to kill it with their own hands. It’s a pointless act, the people he did it to just got a new sword… well, I mean they died, but if he hadn’t killed them, they would have just gotten a new sword,” Sylver tried to explain.

He never fully grasped the idea of “dishonoring” someone before their death.

If Sylver wanted someone dead, he killed them, torturing them achieved nothing and was a waste of time since they would be dead all the same.

Now, if he needed information out of them, or needed them to suffer for a ritual, that was an entirely different matter, Sylver could torture if the pain the victim went through served a purpose. Or if he needed to do it to send a message, but the way Edmund did it was completely pointless.

“So you think he fought with the [Hero] and left his mana in the sword? To mark it, or was this a failed attempt to dishonor the [Hero],” Bruno asked.

“I don’t know. I mean, I honestly don’t know. It might not even be his mana.”

“But the woman in white, Rose, she-”

“She said Lola would know where he is. She doesn’t know where he is. I find it hard to believe that it’s a coincidence that a spell only 5 people were aware of, and had the power to utilize, was the spell used to fuck up the [Hero]s sword. But, once again, I don’t know,” Sylver explained.

He reached up to his mouth and wiped away some kind of dirt that had fallen down onto his lip from the dirt ceiling.

“So what’s the plan for all of this?” Sylver asked as he gestured out towards the large field. “End goal, where do you see yourself in 10 years?”

A serious look appeared in all 8 of Bruno’s eyes.

“World domination,” he said as he stared out towards the fuzzy orange cows.

Sylver slapped the man on the back and started laughing.

“No, come one, be serious,” Sylver said, as he continued to laugh.

“I am serious,” Bruno said and turned to face Sylver.

His top right eye twitched.

“Fuck!” Bruno swore as the smile he had been holding back was released and allowed to spread into a giant grin. “Admit it, half a second, you believed me for half a second,” Bruno said, as he started to giggle, and then laugh along with Sylver.

Sylver wrapped his arm around the ancient reincarnator and the two continued laughing like children.

“Alright, not half a second, maybe a quarter, a third at best, you’re too smart to do try to do something that stupid. World domination, I can’t remember the last time I heard those two words together,” Sylver said.

“I think I’ve tried it more than once in my past lives. But you’re right, guess the world can continue being the way it is for the time being,” Bruno said.

“So what’s the plan? 10 years from now, 20 years, 100 years,” Sylver questioned.

“I think I can conquer this whole dungeon in the next 10 years. It runs deep, I’ve never seen anything like it. After that… I don’t know… I started this when I was furious, and then I blinked, and a year passed without me noticing,” Bruno said.

It was a feeling Sylver understood all too well. Bruno continued speaking.

“I couldn’t have done it without Tera, I was a husk for a good month after the outbreak. She helped me get back on my feet, and then provided constructive criticism when I started spawning chimeras, and then acquired with all the illegal ingredients I could ever want,” Bruno reminisced, as he remembered the early days, where every second egg was a dud.

“I noticed most of the kids are missing,” Sylver said, as he let go of Bruno, and the two sat down on the ledge of the hole carved into the wall.

“Silian academy. Nadin, Karina, Oliver, Lukas, and Isaac all left to study. Only Mary, Corina, and Isabell are left… Did Tera tell you about the present?” Bruno asked.

“For who?”

“For you… she didn’t say anything? I thought for certain it would be the first thing out of her mouth,” Bruno said.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Bruno stood up and dusted himself off, and Sylver did the same shortly after.

“It will be easier to show you than it is to explain it. Have you got enough space in your shadow for a couple of chimeras? I bred them specifically for you to convert into shades, the bodies are perfectly preserved, and their souls haven’t moved an inch since the day they died,” Bruno said.

Sylver placed his hand over where he had gotten used to his heart being.

“I’m touched Bruno, really, thank you,” Sylver answered, and the two men hugged again.

“You’re going to love the horse chimera. It is insanely fast. And with just a small amount of mana, it can effectively fly… It’s only got 7 legs, the 8th had to be removed, but I’m not lying when I say that it made it even better when I got rid of it,” Bruno promised, as he and Sylver jumped out of the cave and Sylver caught Bruno with his shadow so he didn’t break anything as they landed.

“I can’t wait to see it,” Sylver said.

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