NOVEL WEB book 4 chapter 24
Hecatolite blinked at the retreating man, watching as he stumbled over one of the roots before disappearing around a corner. “What?” looking down at the intricately woven bracelet he had all but thrown at her.
Furrowing her brow, she tried to come up with… anything that could explain what had happened. She had woken up this morning in the tree with Eryl… then they went to All-goose’s house where everyone was making bad plans, so she decided to fix everything and even got All-goose’s wives to help.
She had a nice walk with Fae and… Fae’s wife; where she learned a lot about elves and gave Fae a bag… she felt a little bad about giving her a bag full of glitter, but she didn’t seem to mind; besides Fae seemed like an artsy person so she would probably find a use for it eventually.
Then she made “stupidd box hat” … Wait, she called Siofra first. She needed help writing an apology letter to the elves, and Siofra is an elven goddess, so she had felt like that was best bet. Well, that and Eryl was busy doing… Eryl things.
I should pay more attention to what Eryl does, show interest in my wife’s hobbies and all. She hummed to herself as she rolled the bracelet in her hands, thinking about it now… She didn’t know much about Eryl at all. She knew lots about Saffron, like how she likes to sew and cook; or that she reads smutty books on Babylon when she thinks Hecatolite isn’t looking. She knew Saffron’s body language too, how her tail will go really still when she’s angry or that faint little smile she has sometimes when she tries not to laugh at her…
But Eryl… Hecatolite knew about her job, what she did with the system and how that works; but what about… her as a person? Eryl probably doesn’t read smutty books like Saffron, but she has to have hobbies, right? Other than yelling at Hecatolite for breaking things…
The bracelet nearly fell from her hand causing her to look down, her mind snapping back to the present as she blinked at it. I was thinking about this… why did that guy throw this at me? Reminding herself of her current conundrum, she promised to spend more time learning about Eryl before spending a moment catching up to herself. Where was I… Oh yeah, I called Siofra.
She had been super helpful too, which wasn’t surprising at all. Siofra is really smart and the goddess of elves after all… what was surprising was the message asking if she could watch Hecatolite make the relic.
Not one to miss out on a chance to see her favorite goddess, Hecatolite quickly set up the mirror link spell only to be… slightly disappointed to find a crowd of people.
The Sis-con was unsurprising, he is always there when they call Siofra; always with some excuse like “having tea” or “living in the same realm now”. Really, it can’t be healthy to keep denying his clear infatuation with his sister; not that Siofra is helping him any by coddling him.
She gets it, really. Wanting to protect your siblings is an inherent trait, but eventually even Amethyst will have to grow by herself, it is just part of life. It won’t be for a long time, nevertheless eventually every fish must be thrown out of the nest… she didn’t know how the fish were supposed to fly but hey, if they are raised right, they can figure it out.
Putting his strange feeling for Siofra aside, Soter looked… different. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she was certain that the elven god had changed… It was his beard! He finally shaved, that was it; and it looked good on him. He was a handsome man after all, and without the patchy facial hair he looked a lot more like his sister; you could actually tell they were related now. Good for him, some men just shouldn’t grow beards… maybe he is growing up some, not that Hecatolite wouldn’t tease him for his crush.
Aside from Siofra and Soter, there were others there too. Hecatolite recognized them from when they were inside the fake ferryman’s eye. It did strike her as odd that before whenever they had called Siofra before it was just her and her brother, but now there always seems to be more people there. That’s a good thing though, Siofra had seemed kind of lonely before but now she has a bunch of people around! Hecatolite was happy for her friend, and she got to meet their club!
There was Alb… Veritas, she was very angry when Hecatolite got her name wrong before. Hecatolite hadn’t gotten a good look at her last time, given how small they all were while driving the fake ferryman, but the goddess was… something else. Veritas was a little shorter than Hecatolite thought, only reaching Siofra’s shoulders when the two stood side by side; but the slim woman with long raven black hair and piercing dark eyes was beautiful, and her wings were stunning. Nothing compared to Saffron’s wings of course, but Veritas' large birdlike wings with their jet-black feathers gave the woman an almost angelic look.
Hecatolite liked Veritas, after all she helped Plague with his zombie, and she seemed like a nice woman if a little stern… the devil with a fake smile had to stop her from lecturing Hecatolite about tampering with other gods’ domains; something about interfering with the formation of a contract… Hecatolite didn’t remember what she was talking about but that wasn’t important.
Then there was the cookie-cult devil. He was… interesting. A tall spindly man with a black horns and purple skin, Hecatolite could tell he was a devil immediately. Not because of his appearance, plenty of people with horns are good people after all. But nearly everything about him just felt… fake.
She couldn’t quite put her finger on it but his cold calculating gaze as he matched her grin with one of his own just seemed off to her; his smile that didn’t reach his eyes, and his over-the-top bravado seemed more like a mask than anything.
Hecatolite decided she didn’t dislike him, but she would keep an eye on the devil. He didn’t feel like an evil person, and even felt trustworthy for the most part; but he was hiding something, and she would need to be careful about his scheming.
Finally, there was Jaki. Hecatolite didn’t actually get to talk to her, the tiny bunny woman had hidden behind the others the whole time. She was cute, with big floppy ears and dark fur… Hecatolite didn’t know why she was so scared but she was the one who fixed up the moon so she couldn’t be bad. She needs to spend more time with the cookie-cult, some of that confidence would do her well.
With the five of them watching she then made the “Stupidd box hat”; why Soter had said it was an “insult to enchanting as whole” and “worst relic he had ever seen”, she had no idea. How could she have done it wrong anyway? You just enchant the item and put a tiny little piece of your soul into it… then again Jaki had passed out when Hecatolite made it so maybe she did do it wrong?
No, she had to have done it right, after all the skull turned into a relic; in fact, it turned into to ten little relics… she did have to eat just a little bit of a deer’s soul to fix her toes, but it worked so she had to have done it right. He was just jealous that everyone else was impressed by her amazing enchanting ability, that was it.
After making the relic though, Hecatolite ran into a small problem. She didn’t know how to get the skull into the council meeting! She had planned on finishing the relic before the meeting started but she had gotten distracted, and there were a few snack breaks, so she needed another plan to finish her first plan.
Thankfully it had been easy to come up with one, after all on her way back she saw Fae and her wife heading towards the meeting hall! She just needed to get the skull into the bag and when Fae was showing off her amazing new bag of holding, they would find it. Simple, and as it turns out the cookie devil was really good with space magic!
It had been risky of course; making a deal with a devil but Hecatolite was confident she could take him if he tried anything funny. He did try to make some excuse about not being able to cast magic into the mortal world; but she was sure that was just an excuse to try and get more out of their deal. She didn’t really mind, after all he just wanted a blessing like Soter and Siofra had, there really was no need to lie to her about it though.
Saying he couldn’t cast magic between realms; how did he think the mirror spell worked? Such a flimsy lie… maybe he is a young devil, that would explain why he wasn’t very good a bartering.
It’s fine though, she played along and let him think he was getting a good deal. She even put on a good show if she did say so herself. Acting as if she was untrusting and making him haggle a little bit, she had even refused to pay until he cast the spell. It was a proper deal with a devil after all, and he clearly needed the practice… Though she may have showed off just a little bit when she did the blessing.
In her defense she was happy to see her friends making more friends, and she felt a little bad for taking advantage of a young devil; so, she blessed Veritas and Jaki too. She did owe Veritas for helping Plague after all, and Jaki had fixed the moon… Well everyone says she “fixed” the moon but there was still a hole in it… she needed to ask Eryl why people keep saying that.
With that all taken care of, and all the bribes handed out Hecatolite went about her day. Everything had come together nicely, she even waved at Amethyst when she saw her looking out a window. Hecatolite did consider going to the meeting just to be sure everything was ok, but Eryl was there, and Amethyst and the others need to learn how to do these things on their own; she gave them everything they would need and even gave all-goose a way to get closer to Cemi.
Everything was wrapped up in a nice little bow. Feeling good about how everything turned out she went hunting, after all she needed to eat something to regrow her soul toes… so after catching a deer, sadly it was just a normal one; the vine guy had scared everything away again, she was sitting just outside of the city when that strange elven man appeared.
He didn’t seem dangerous, after all he was just staring at her, so she kept eating; being extra sure only to eat a little bit of its soul so no one would get mad at her. Then he just ran up to her, threw this bracelet at her, and ran away while muttering something.
He definitely said something like, “Here, just take it…” but she couldn’t hear over the crunching sound of the deer leg she was eating. By the time she had finished chewing so she could reply, he was gone.
“Did… did I mug that guy?” Hecatolite asked out loud as she stared at the bracelet. It made sense, elves don’t give gifts, she had learned that earlier, and she definitely didn’t know that guy so she doubted this was a union offering or he would have waited to hear her answer.
Shrugging Hecatolite grinned, she had to be an amazing pirate; after all she accidently mugged a guy! Wait… can I be a pirate still without a ship? She frowned as she thought. If she was a pirate without a ship wouldn’t that just make her a bandit? But Bandits are lawless bad people who adventure’s hunt; she definitely doesn’t want to be a bandit. If she was, she would have to fight adventures and Amethyst would be sad that Hecatolite was killing people… Pirates are so much cooler too, they have a code and morals… and way cooler hats! I still own a ship, and it’s a pirate ship; So, I’m still a pirate. Next time I need to wear my pirate hat so people know I’m not a bandit!
Just in case she pulled out her pirate hat, the one Eryl refused to wear while being the captain and plopped it on her head. It wasn’t the best pirate hat, but she had given the good one to Plague so it would have to do.
Nodding to herself she continued to inspect her ill-gotten gains.
It was a nice bracelet. A very pretty light wood with an intricate knotted pattern that was so complex it was impossible to tell where it started and ended. Not to mention it was super conductive, it would be easy to enchant it… wait…
She prodded the wood with her aether, pushing just a little bit into the bracelet only to nearly drop it as she hissed, “It’s got little bits of Life in it.” No wonder it was so conductive, it was made from a piece of the world tree.
Wrinkling her nose, Hecatolite considered destroying it; she could light it on fire or eat it… but it was really well made. It would be such a waste to just throw it away… what would she do with it if she kept it? No matter what enchantment she put on it she wasn’t going to wear it!
Then it hit her. Elves give special items to their lovers as union gifts! This would be perfect! Eryl, the admin of the world system, would love a piece of the world tree; it is part of the world after all, and she really likes this world. Plus, it was where they had their first time and that’s super romantic… right? And if Hecatolite enchanted it, it would be even more special… specialer… semantics, it would be even better!
She could make it stronger, and maybe even make a small part of it glow so it looked like it had a gemstone in it. Saris had said something about matching stones to eye colors for rings when she and Plague picked their rings and Hecatolite remembered really liking that!
She hummed to herself as she started pacing, her tail dragging behind her tracing a pattern in the loose dirt as she started planning out the enchantment. She would have to be careful given she only had one bracelet and there wasn’t a lot of room on it, but she was confident she could make it the best union gift with just a little planning.
The hours ticked by as Hecatolite carefully considered the bracelet, having scrapped several enchantment ideas already she felt like the perfect enchantment was just on the tip of her tail.
“It’s part of the world tree,” she mused as she tapped the wood with a clawed finger, “I can probably skip the reinforcement enchantment.” With a sigh she glanced at the massive enchantment ring sketched on the dirt, annoyed that she would need to cut several parts out due to the size. Though given the material… “it's already super sturdy, and its not like it will rot…”
Her eyes darted to another part of the enchantment before with a sigh her tail lashed out and erased it. This was a gift to Eryl, it didn’t need to store mana; though she refused to compromise on the mental shielding. The rings to protect against mind control and other forms of soul magic were… large, taking up most of the space in fact. But if nothing else, as long as Eryl remained connected to the system she didn’t need a gimmicky spell; she was the admin and had access to the world's mana after all so the best shield Hecatolite could give her was protecting that connection.
“Ok…” she furrowed her brows as she looked over the large drawing in the dirt. “Mental shielding,” she carefully walked around the image, tracing the rings with her tail as checked them off. A flashing terminal floating behind her as it adjusted the list, again. “Resizing so it will fit snugly, the adjusted light enchantment,” she glared at the custom-made ring designed to mimic a red gemstone.
That particular pain in the ass was a mix of a light enchantment and the color change enchantment on her bands. The main issue was making it to where the whole thing didn’t glow which was surprisingly harder than just turning the whole bracelet into a glow stick; unfortunately, she couldn’t figure out how to make the glowing spot stay still. Overseer had suggested an enchantment Taaffeite created… that took up more room, but it insisted that Eryl would appreciate it.
“And mom’s tracking enchantment.” She nodded to herself as she came to the final ring, the tracking enchantment will cause the “gemstone” enchantment to always point to Hecatolite which is super romantic. Like a little compass so Eryl will always be able to find her! “That should all fit right?” she asked, turning to the terminal. The list flashing once before vanishing and turning into an image of the enchantment rings all linked together.
Checking over the image Hecatolite tapped on the terminal, “That’s going to be super tight.” She grumbled, annoyed as she inspected it for anything she could shave down. Sighing when she didn’t see anything else she could cut out, she shook her head. Summoning a single claw, she gently drew it across the terminal, causing it to flash an annoyed yellow as the tip of her claw carved a tiny line in the obsidian screen. “I will need to be super careful.” She grumbled, inspecting the new groove in the terminal before dragging her claw across it again, her claw leaving a deep rent this time as she pressed just a little harder.
Closing her eyes for a moment, she took a deep breath; her head lulling back as she slowly exhaled. “Ok. I’m as ready as…” opening her eyes, Hecatolite froze as she saw the moons high above her, only then realizing just how late it had gotten before her eyes focused on the figure floating above her. “Eryl…” she managed to squeak out as she looked up into the bright glowing blue eyes that stared down at her.
