DREADWOLF

◈ Chapter 165:

 

Lyra and the water mage met as she was plucking an appetiser from a passing butler, hand halfway to mouth as she turned to find Lyra standing before her.

 

"...Yes?"

 

"Hi." said Lyra.

 

There was a moment of awkward silence.

 

"Sorry, but… who are you exactly?"

 

"I'm, uhm, like here for the party, and stuff. And for you!"

 

Rain groaned and buried his face in his paws, just how drunk was she?! It had only been one drink for god sake!

 

"I… see, did an acquaintance ask you to meet me? "

 

"Oh you could say that, they definitely know you, and me, a mutual acquaintance if you will." Lyra waggled her eyebrows at the increasingly confused water mage.

 

"I don't know who you are talking about."

 

"That's fine, we can still talk, we both have a life changing emotional connection to him you know."

 

"M-my ex-boyfriend? b-but that was so long ago?!"

 

It was lyra's turn to give her a confused look.

 

"No, no, not your ex, like emotional impact, you know we used to be the same you and I."

 

"What?"

 

"Like s-super scared of him, you know."

 

"No I don't know, I don't know who you're talking about."

 

"You know, you know." said Lyra, putting tension into her slurred words, "So scared, I know, you know, we know, really just listen to what I have to say would you, we're like, sisters you and I, we know."

 

"No, I-"

 

"I was so scared of him, just looking at him made me want to run screaming, and then s-somehow I stopped being quite so scared and then before I know it I'm accidently having sex in the forest like some wild animal, and then, oh god the guilt about secretly loving it, and then looking at him not out of raw fear but out of raw attraction, but I still couldnt do it, I still couldnt, despite cumming so fucking hard whenever he went into my wool. But then I nearly died and I realised, I realised I freaking loved him! So I lied, I told them that I wanted to do it to feel better about nearly dying, but really I just wanted to make passionate love before it happened again because next time I- I don't think I will make it!"

 

Rain and opal stared at each other in wide eyed horror, their ears pressed up against the dark wall. "What is she saying!" cried Rain as Lyra unloaded her soul on the person he had come to kill.

 

Eliza looked between Lyra and her fancy drink, clearly wondering just how drunk this lunatic sheep girl was, and becoming increasingly red cheeked as Lyra started to go into more and more graphicly sexual detail.

 

She tried to pull away, she really did, but Lyra was relentless and her voice was steadily getting louder.

 

After a minute the water mage started to waver, and then when the sheep girl started talking about gallons of cum she broke.

 

"Gods if you have to tell me this could we please at least do this in freaking privacy!?" she cried, glancing frantically around at the heads turned toward them, quite clearly listening.

 

A rosy cheeked Lyra hiccupped, blinked, then seemed to brighten up.

 

"Oh, yes, he wants that too, let's go to a private room and talk it out, girl to girl."

 

Eliza made an unhappy face but not being assertive enough to shove drunk Lyra away she had to agree.

 

Lyra linked arms with the water mage and led them through the party to the backroom drawing and smoking lounges. They popped their heads around a few doors until they found one unoccupied and slipped inside, closing the door behind them.

 

"Now could you please explain what any of this has to do with me, I have never met anyone in my life who we both kno-"

 

"You have though, you know, tall, dark, and handsome."

 

"Brax?"

 

"No, no, way taller, way furrier, you know…"

 

"Wait… What are you saying?

 

"isn't it obvous, the one you murdered, Rain!"

 

Eliza took a quick step back, eyes going wide.

 

Too late. An arm exploded from a cloud of wool beneath Lyra's skirt and grabbed for the mage, massive paw wrapping around her shin and engulfing it.

 

Eliza screamed as she was hauled in, dragged beneath Lyra's skirt, her feet disappearing into the billowing cloud of wool, then her shins, then her knees.

 

"No no no no NO!" 

 

She lifted her fists, all ten fingers jammed with dozens of rings, each carrying a chunk of glowing blue azurite. She thrust her fists inside the wool and screamed.

 

Inside wool space Rain blinked as a pair of gem encrusted hands appeared directly in front of his face.

 

And then the world exploded. 

 

It was like a river had suddenly opened up and dumped on his head, and he was blown backwards hauling in Eliza with the same motion as he still gripped her. In just under a second the room that was woolspace was half filled with water, in the next two it reached the ceiling and rain found himself floating in liquid, peering down at the glittering gold floor, bubbles rising in streamers. Opal and Eliza and Red were there, flailing in a panic, singular streamers of bubbles rushing from their mouths, their clothing and hair floating around them.

 

And then with a roar the water began to drain through the wall.

 

A whirlpool formed as the water rushed back out with nothing to stop it, a torrential torrent of water that dragged Rain along like he was nothing, the power of water currents crashing him against the barrier and yanking him from woolspace like a piece of flotsam.

 

He found himself splashing down into a pool of water outside as behind him water exploded in all directions from a panicking Lyra. Her legs, her arms, the cute little fluff above her mons and sternum and even her black hair was shooting water in all directions as she flailed about in complete animal panic.

 

"HElp halp!"

 

Rain spat water from his mouth and struggled to his feet, finding Opal doggy paddling nearby and Red clutching at a floating chair. The drawing room was rapidly filling with water.

 

Eliza was there, slogging through the hip height water toward the door as fast as she could, eyes wide with fear.

 

Banging sounds were coming from beyond the door, fists hammering, exclamations and questions about what was happening within.

 

He lunged for her unthinkingly, mindless with rage, a wolf running down vulnerable prey.

 

She turned with a squeak of fear and jumped back against the door and flicked out her hands. 

 

Water exploded up from the pool and shot directly into Rain's mouth, he tried to drink it down, to prevent her from drowning him, but to his surprise he found the water suctioning to the surface of his throat and shooting straight into his lungs.

 

He coughed violently as water started to fill his chest, water spraying around his teeth as he closed his mouth. But he found he had no way to stop what she was doing as the water merely started flowing into his nose.

 

Instead he lunged for her with his paws, a blind confused attack meant to crush her head against the door.

 

She dropped down, vanishing through the water, disappearing in an instant teleport as his paw collided with the door.

 

The door shattered under the impact and the dozen or so guests and servants on the other side cried out in shock as the now head height for Lyra water roared through the doorway.

 

Rain stumbled through with the current, falling into the hallway which had now been made a river. 

 

Eliza was there, standing on a table further down somehow, her clothing bedraggled, but a light of genuine fury in her eyes.

 

She lifted her hands and even more water flowed up around Rain's body, flowing toward his mouth. He clamped his lips shut even as an inch of water stuck to his body. He lifted his paws, flinging them out.

 

Dark shadow poured from his fur, a maelstrom of mindless centipedes and owls and tigers, a design made not from thought but from pure predatory rage. The horrifying multi winged thing roared down the hallway toward the suddenly terrified water mage causing her to fall backwards, but not in the same moment she thrust her hands high, fingers curled like claws.

 

The floor promptly erupted. 

 

If there had been a lot of water before, there was now tenfold. The power of an underground river focused and redirected exploded up from beneath the marble, striking the dark mass of predation like a high pressure geyser and obliterating it as it smashed it through the ceiling and through the floors above.

 

So much water entering the hall instantly filled it to the ceiling and Rain found himself floating once more, then being hauled along by the current, flying down the hallway as the butlers and guests around him tumbled, screaming as they drowned, bubbles flowing from panicked mouths.

 

The literal river roared forth until it found the end of the hallway and exploded out into one of the great halls, tossing out Rain and every one of the screaming guests. The water was well above their heads in the hall leaving only Rain to find his feet and stand.

 

His head rose above the water line to see a great set of stairs at the end of the hall and a wild eyed Eliza standing there, clothing hanging limp around her, blonde hair bedraggled.

 

Her eyes locked onto him and she screamed her rage.

"Why won't you die, just fucking die, just fucking die Rain DIIEEEE!"

 

Water roared and formed as she lifted her arms, swelling and forming, the underground river feeding it. Rain found himself once more underwater and with little breath. 

 

He struck out, swimming for one of the doorways which could be seen amongst the fifty odd drowning guests around him. But it was no use, he swam and the current forced him back, keeping him in the center, keeping him away from the edges of the great volume of water. He couldtn use his strength to his advantage as there was nothing to grab hold of, and the water could use his entire body as a surface to apply force against, he was essentially helpless just as any animal trapped in a current.

 

Fine. There was always one way of dealing with a great mass of liquid.

 

He opened his mouth and began to drink. 

 

It was slow at first, but then quickly the water started to form a vast whirlpool, focused on his maw as water rapidly drained into his mouth, vanishing out of existence as his body subsumed it. He had to push away struggling drowning guests as they were drawn toward him by the current, but he was having an effect, he could see the water level above him start to lower.

 

He had her!

 

Or at least he thought he did, until the floor below suddenly erupted, a second underground river flowing into the room to join the first. The water level started to rise again and he began to choke as the need to breathe overtook his ability to drink, spluttering and gasping as bubbles rose from his mouth.

 

Things were starting to go a little fuzzy at the edges as he tried once more to desperately swim toward air, swim to escape, anything!

 

He was held in place by manipulated water. He could see the one responsible even as consciousness faded, see her from below the water's surface, looking down on him from the stair, a sneer of hatred on her lips.

 

The dark place in Rain's mind festered.

 

It was over, he was returning to that place at the bottom of Lynthia's dungeon, that ancient grave, where he belonged, where he had never left.

 

Then to his surprise a flash of motion caught his eye and he looked up in disbelief to see a soggy goblin girl flying tackle the mage from the side as a drunken sheep girl tripped and crashed into her from the other.

 

The combined double strike flipped the mage end over end and smashed her head against the marble step.

 

In an instant the manipulation keeping the water in place collapsed and the water level dropped like a lead brick as water was allowed to flow through the entirety of the mansion.

 

Rain found himself flopped on the marble amongst half a hundred guests vomiting up water.

 

He crawled onto his knees and looked up to see Lyra and Opal on the stairs.

 

Eliza was curled up as Opal kicked her a few times and then a still quite drunk Lyra tried to punch her in the head. She missed wildly and tripped over her, sprawling across the steps in a tangle of wet dress.

 

In an instant Eliza snapped around, pulling a knife from her clothing and held it over the fallen Lyra's chest, the point pricking at her skin.

 

Rain froze.

 

"You bastard Rain! Do you even know the fear you've made me feel! How small and weak and terrible!"

 

Lyra hiccuped and pawed weakly at the hand holding the knife, Eliza ignored her, smacking her hands away with a snarl.

 

"I know that you found someone Rain, you found this half woolie, a freak as much as you were to want a monster."

 

Lyra let out a groan and waved her hands around, trying to vaguely push the water mage away and failing.

 

"Now you get to feel something so much worse. Just know, you caused this bitch's death!"

 

Eliza lifted her hands to plunge the knife down even as Rain cried out, water pouring from his lungs.

 

Lyra hiccuped.

 

And the black knife materialised in her hand. Her hand pressed against Eliza's chest.

 

Eliza froze, eyes drifting down to see the knife sticking out of her heart.

 

"Huh, it really can materialise inside people," slurred Lyra.

 

"Wh-what?"

 

Eliza's arms slowly eased down as her strength left her, her dagger falling from her lifeless fingers to clatter and roll down the steps one by one.