Chapter 131

They had left after Warwick stormed off, leaving the slums and returning to the library. Hesitantly of course, as they were unsure if the Librarian was going to immediately attack them.

She didn’t attack however. Even when Rain stood directly in front of her and waved his paws in her face, she simply had no idea they were there. It seemed that outside of her glowing transformed state the Librarian had no way of sensing them, and her night time hunt had just been bad luck. The Librarian had realised something was wrong but not what.

Deep inside the library Vash had been allowed out once more and set to work searching for something, anything, even the slightest little hint on Rain’s species, even one little sentence describing something like him.

Rain no longer held much hope for Vash’s success so he had sat down with Opal and taught her to read.

It had gone extremely well to his surprise. It seemed like her repeated practice had allowed her to pick up words quickly, startlingly quickly, far faster than he would have thought possible. Already she was able to figure out basic sentences from context clues and was rapidly improving, improving even as he watched. It was shocking, but it also made him feel warm and fluffy with pride. She was a natural.

They’d moved from the reading desks after a time, Rain gathering all the pillows from every armchair he could find, then throwing them in one of the rare rooms with windows. He’d built up a mound under a sunbeam then flopped down on it, placing Opal in his lap, her back pressed against his stomach.

A book was resting on her belly and she slowly read aloud from it, stories of leveler heroes defeating big scary monsters. There weren’t a lot of choices when it came to fictional stories that she could read as a novice, basically all of them followed that same theme: Leveler hero, evil monster.

He’d closed his eyes listening to her sound out the words as the sun warmed his fur.

This was bliss.

Just lying there with his Opal, his breath coming slow and peaceful, feeling the weight of her.

Lyra ran into the room as he was drifting off into a gentle nap and he jerked awake as the dimensional bag was tossed onto his chest, darkness already spilling back into his fur from its strings.

“He’s here! He’s here right now! He’s here in Florens!” cried Lyra pacing around in a stress and running her fingers through her hair.

Rain blinked at her.

“Who’s here?”

The sheep girl stopped and turned on him. “Lord Wranvrye! The one trying to have me killed, the one who freaking framed me for killing his wife!”

Rain sat up and Opal scrambled to her feet.

“We’re going killing? Feeding Rain? Oh Hell yeah! That’s way better than reading dumb stories about stupid dumb levelers!”

“Er, r-right, killing.” Lyra swallowed. “H-he needs to- He needs to die. Even if it wasn’t about me, he still killed those two innocent women I rescued, and then his wife, in cold blood. If there’s any justice in the world then that noble needs to face his karma.”

“It’s fine Lyra. Don’t work yourself up. You are protecting your family with this.”

Lyra hunched down a little, her voice small, “O-of course...”

They prepped quickly, snatching up Red and Vash then leaving through the front entrance. Just as when they entered the Librarian had no idea they were there and they were free to leave. Finding the Lord turned out to not be very hard. They headed toward the noble estates and quickly found the streets crowded with excited people.

A caravan of carriages was the cause of public interest. Formidable looking things, they were pulled by great black stallions the size of cart horses whose lips were parted with long fangs and with large curved black horns on their heads, the front edge sharp and serrated.

The carriages forded their way through the streets, crowds of curious people on either side, many having to leap out of the way of the monstrous horses for fear of being crushed under hoof.

It almost looked like a parade now with all the people following, parades being something the citizens of Florens seemed to form out of habit more than anything. The carriages made their way through the city until they came out onto a wide open cobble square, which felt unusual to Rain now as he had quickly gotten used to the lack of open space in the city. The entire far end of the square consisted of a formidable wall, one that easily put Lynthia’s or Silvara’s walls to shame. In the center of the wall was a set of massive gates.

Rain realised he was looking at the entrance to Lord Wranvyre’s estate, a vast thing, it was like a town in of itself had been built within the city walls.

The carriages pulled up outside the great gates and Lamia spilled from the flung open doors. Rain examined them carefully. The Lamia’s had human-like upper bodies, but their lower bodies were snake-like and covered in colourful scales. They were greeted by many more Lamia at the front gates. Many of them were wearing black in mourning, although many weren’t. Many of the Lamia weren’t pure and were half breeds, Elf-Lamia and Gnoll-Lamia were a common mix. The half breeds seemed in less favour than the pures and kept to the back.

“That’s his extended family,” whispered Lyra, “Lamia have big clutches and are, ah, promiscuous, so combined with how attractive his stature and his wealth is to many, well, I wouldn’t be surprised if many of that crowd of Lamia was his own spawn, bastards or not, his and his wife’s children from various flings.”

Rain eyed the crowd. It was a lot of Lamia. Dozens and dozens.

A small square dais had been put up in preparation, and after a lot of embracing and entwining of tails Lord Wranvyre approached it and slithered over its slight step, approaching a podium.

He gripped the sides of the podium and leaned over it, eyes scanning the crowd. The crowd grew silent under his cold gaze and then he began to speak, his words solemn and harsh.

“This should have been a joyous return. Friends, family, employees. We should have returned with her, with Glyrieth. Returned to feasting, singing, drinking, and dancing. But ... we did not. Glyrieth was murdered in mindless greed for mere coin, a half woollie slit her throat in rage, an emotional anger that her demands for tens of thousands of gold were denied. A disgusting act by a leveler who is no better than a monster. Yes, that leveler trash, that sub-sapient filth, struck with a blade out of nowhere, too late for my dear wife to stop as she had implicitly trusted the half woollie, this Lyra Bellerhorn, a monster in leveler flesh.”

The crowd grumbled their discontent. This Lyra person sounded like bad news.

“My house has been wronged, I have been wronged. I demand redress from this world. I demand redress from the gods. I demand vengeance. And as you may know my vengeance pays well. It pays extremely well. Bring her not to me alive, bring her to me dead, bring me her head sawn from her body so that the first thing I see is her glassy lifeless eyes. That is the only thing that can assuage my sorrow. Come my city, show your loyalty to Florens, to a noble Lord of Florens, to ME. Kill this wicked girl and become unbelievably wealthy!”

The crowd roared their approval. Yes! This was great! A villain, an injustice, and a fabulous fortune. What wasn’t to like?

As the Lord spoke Rain felt Lyra’s hands grip his ears harder and harder until she was digging her nails in.

“That evil snivelling wretched fuckhead!” she whisper hissed, “Not only does he paint me as the baddest of bad guys but he’s demanding I be killed before I can speak against him! So I can’t tell anyone about what he did!”

The Lord glared at the roaring crowd, sniffed, then slithered away, storming down from the dias and toward the main gates, his long black tail lashing behind him.

His very large family watched him go and then after a moment began following him inside.

Rain eyed the gate, considering simply walking straight through it with them, but he was brought up short the moment he thought to move. There were halves there, more specifically half Elf-Lamias and they each had violet spectacles dangling from chains hung around their necks. The estate really was like a small town, and like a small town it had provisions to stop the magically evasive from crossing its threshold.

“What are we to do?” he whispered as the three of them watched as one by one the Lamias disappeared inside and the crowd filling the square slowly drained away.

“I- I don’t know! This is supposed to be our chance while they are dealing with the chaos of his return, but it’s too secure! There’s no way we’ll get through the front gates with those half Elves hanging around.”

“So what then? We find a side entrance?”

Lyra’s head rose in hope. “Yes, actually that could work! We just neeeed- There!”

A finger jabbed out from above Rain’s head and he followed it, looking across the square to where the Lamia were. Some of the Lamia were not going inside, some of them were leaving on business in the city, heading toward their side of the square and the path away from the expansive estate.

However one Lamia was not heading toward them. No, she was following the wall, closely following it as she headed out to the side of the square unlike any other Lamia.

“You think...?”

“No, I don’t know anything for sure, but we can look, it’s not like there’s another option.”

Rain slunk amongst the alleys they were hiding in. Catching sight of his target between buildings. A pink scaled Lamia, an older teenager. She wore a short flitty skirt on her hips and a puffy blouse. Her obnoxiously bright pink tail swaying behind her as she moved.

He soon moved closer, their paths converging on the buildings that butted up against the estate’s walls. To their delight she approached a small iron gate in the wall. It was a side entrance, just as had been theorised. She approached it ... aaand then walked past it, flatly ignoring it.

Disappointed, they followed after her. Was she not returning to the estate after all?

Down side streets and alleys she went, the further she came away from the main wall the dingier and darker the alleys became, it seemed like the servants of the estate lived in this run down place.

What she was aiming for eventually became clear, a seedy looking Drake stood from where he was leaning against a wall, acknowledging her approach.

Beside him was a large windowless prison wagon, its painted sides chipped and peeling.

“You have it? You have my Ogre?”

“Of course, you paid, and here we have it. Simple as. Simple as.”

The Lamia bounced on the spot excitedly, her skirt fluttering as her coils lashed. Rushing up to the wagon she pressed her hands against the wood and peeked through a gap in the slats.

There was an awkward pause.

“He’s a little ... small.”

“Small? Why would that matter?”

The Lamia set her lips in a line.

“I wanted a large Ogre not this, what is this? A teenager? a kid?”

The Drake shrugged languidly, his motions easy. “No, they just come in various sizes, different breeds. You did not specify which kind of Ogre you wanted in our contract.”

The Lamia’s expression soured further.

“I see. That is ... unfortunate.”

“I can find you larger if you wish, in a separate deal, but specifying larger will come with additional costs.”

“It will have to wait,” she sighed in annoyance. “Getting this smuggled in cost all of my allowance on its own.”

As she spoke she unlatched the door and swung it wide. A muscular grey skinned form charged out, leaping from the raised door, tackling her, growling and snarling, a savage long tusked thing in a loincloth.

The Lamia barely budged, humming as she took hold of the Ogre’s neck, lifting him up into the air like he weighed nothing at all, her arm as unbending as steel.

The Lamia teenager was clearly extremely strong and the Ogre was left utterly helpless, his feet kicking at thin air. It was true he was on the short side for an Ogre, although the Lamia herself was large. Had she been a human she would have been at least six and a half foot tall standing, as it was the Ogre was at least half a foot shorter than the top of her pink haired head.

She looked over his body, one eyebrow rising as she spied his loincloth. Her tail tip darted forward and flipped it up allowing her to examine his privates.

The Drake gaped at her.

“Wh-what are you doing?”

“Hmm? Oh just checking my purchase over. Have you never vetted a horse before? This is quite normal, checking for disease, inflammation, you know how it is.” She squeezed the Ogre’s neck and he was forced to open his mouth. She examined his teeth, checking for rot.

“ ... Okay?” said the decidedly unsure Drake.

After a moment of watching the Lamia’s extremely thorough examination he decided he wanted nothing more to do with this and leapt up on the front of the carriage. Snapping the reins he moved off, leaving the teenage Lamia alone, a diminutive Ogre held in her hand.

The Lamia sighed and muttered darkly under her breath as he left, clearly dissatisfied with what she’d gotten for her money.