86. The Finless

  [Designation: OYSTER]

  [Instrument Class: ZEALOUS]

  [Anchored Realm: PRETJORD (+1)]

  [Item Description: Once upon a time, there was a girl who fancied herself the best hide-and-seek player in all the land. She ran and hid from anyone who’d come near: soldiers, ministers, ladies-in-waiting, and even the king and queen. She was so good at hiding that, in time, everyone else simply stopped looking for her. Then her game of hide-and-seek became hide-and-never-come-out. That was, until one patient and loving soul—the girl’s one and only friend—found the girl in her perfect hiding place. They held out a patient hand and coaxed in a loving voice, “Open up your shell, child, and look out with your own two eyes, unclouded by judgment. And you’ll surely see the truth of it—that the world really is your oyster.”]

  ***

  The Finless’s bulky silhouette slimmed down considerably as she unslung her shovel—DREDGER, assuming this was that pesky Auxiliary everyone had warned about. She then proceeded to step closer, allowing Serac her first good look at Lady Pink.

  A petite tree-frog-typed body, made shorter (perhaps even shorter than Serac!) by a noticeable slouch. Presently, most of the Finless’s body was covered by a form-fitting hooded suit, except for her bare, webbed feet, as well as a squat face featuring a pair of round, wide-set eyes.

  But Lady Pink’s most striking feature, at least to Serac’s sensibilities, was her skin. Such pure pinkness that it shone through even in the dim, green lighting. It was also remarkably smooth, and coated with an almost translucent sheen. Seeing this, Serac vaguely wondered if ‘the Scaleless’ might be another appropriate epithet to go along with Finless.

  She really is like Froggy… if Froggy could stand on two feet and hold out a giant shovel menacingly!

  Indeed, if it weren’t for the weapon in the woman’s hand and her clear intention to use it if need be, Serac wouldn’t have found the Finless scary at all. The Yaksha woman certainly didn’t have the look of a hardened criminal, nor was she accompanied by an army of Wildspawns as had been described by Palmr Jorgensen. Surely, this was all a big misunderstanding, one that could be cleared up by a little—

  Except that was when the Finless sprang forward on her frog legs, winding up her shovel for a big swing as she did. Serac found herself dumped to the floor again, as Lars let go of her to reach for his STROKE-SIDE OAR. Then the two Yakshas clashed in the middle of the flatrock, with their respective Auxiliaries producing an ear-splitting ‘clang!’ as they met.

  The ensuing shockwave sent Serac tumbling, nearly clean off the edge of the flatrock. She looked up just in time to see that Lars and Lady Pink too had been pushed apart by the combined force of their own attacks. And they clearly hadn’t had enough, as they immediately dashed towards each other for round two.

  Thud!

  This time, the impact produced a distinctly ‘meaty’ sound, as though it’d contained something other than metal-on-metal violence. And as the action slowed in the aftermath, Serac saw that had indeed been the case.

  A third figure—Zacko—had jumped into the fray and wedged himself in the middle of the two combatants. The NINEFOLD master had both of his arms up by his sides in a rare display of [Double Shield]. His brow was furrowed and lips drawn in a thin line, which Serac knew to mean it’d required every ounce of Zacko’s concentration to absorb the Yakshas’ attacks without getting one-shot for his trouble.

  “Let’s all cool our jets and talk about this like adults, hm?” he said through gritted teeth, even as a shovel and an OAR ground against him from two sides. “I think we all have a bit of explaining to do. Especially if we want to get out of this cave situation alive.”

  “What is there to explain?” Lars snarled, with an unusual roughness in his voice that betrayed both his anger and anxiety. “Finless pulled us into the cave. Just as she commands the Wildspawns that haunt the Roots of the Realmtree.”

  “You seriously believe that rubbish?” the Finless spoke up then. “You Stammers really are hopeless, aren’t you? Making up imaginary enemies until you’ve become frightened of your own shadows.”

  Despite the tensity of the situation, Serac couldn’t help but take a moment to process her own feelings about hearing the Finless’s voice for the first time. It was unexpectedly deep and raspy, in a manner that ill-fitted the tree-frog woman’s petite, smooth, and, well, pink features. But then Serac suddenly ‘remembered’ what a frog sounded like… and on that basis, perhaps the Finless’s voice was exactly what one would expect!

  “Do you take me for a fool, Finless?” Lars went on, oblivious to the vitally important debate that raged inside Serac’s mind. “How many more must suffer… how much more of the Realmtree would you see wither at the whims of your madness? If it were not for you, my brother and I would still—”

  “Yes, that’s it, your brother!” Zacko interjected then, even as his face grew purple, not with Erudite energy, but with the sheer effort of acting as a human buffer. “Bubblegum here was just helping me look for—uh, which is it?—Hans Tomasen, even before you showed up. So why don’t you back off and let her speak for herself, hey?”

  Lars did back off then, though likely due to astonishment rather than agreement. Serac then took the chance to jump in and place herself between Zacko and Lars—finding the latter to be surprisingly limp, and therefore easy to push away.

  “You were with Hans?” Lars directed his question to Zacko, sounding much more subdued than just a second ago. “What happened to him?”

  “We saw him a ways above where we’re standing now, trying to fight off a gang of Slangespytts by himself,” Zacko explained as he massaged his forearms. “And you don’t need me to tell you it wasn’t going well for him. Before Bubblegum and I could get to him, he took a tumble off one of the ledges, and well, that’s the last we saw of him.”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “Was it a lethal fall?” Serac butted in. Her question sounded rather grim (and especially insensitive, what with the man’s brother standing right there), but given the company she kept, it was one of a merely pragmatic nature.

  “No,” Zacko replied quickly, “or at least Bubblegum here doesn’t seem to think so. Ripple-reading and whatnot. Apparently, she can do that too, even though she’s a frog”—wow, Zacko, you really have no filter, do you?—“But the strange thing is, Hans kept going lower and lower into the cave, faster than we could keep up. Almost like… he’s got urgent business waiting for him at the bottom of this thing. Anyway, when you guys showed up, I thought he might be with you, but…”

  Zacko trailed off as he eyed the ‘other twin’ meaningfully. Lars, who’d listened to the Manusya’s spiel with slumped shoulders and a blank expression, suddenly tensed again, tightening his grip on his OAR.

  “It is all your doing, is it not?” This time, the question—nay, accusation—was directed at the Finless. “The rivers drying up. The Wildspawns swarming from and within the Roots. Something lurking down below, hell-bent on upsetting the Realmtree’s natural balance. My brother is drawn to it for the same reason as I—to put an end to your witchcraft, once and for all. Well? The Manusya says that you wish to speak, so speak. What do you have to say for yourself?”

  For a moment, three pairs of eyes trained in unison upon a hooded pink figure. Lady Pink herself, however, kept her gaze fixed upon the sturgeon who was at least twice her size. And her grip on her DREDGER hadn’t loosened one bit.

  “I have nothing to say to the likes of you,” she croaked. “Those who’re blind to the ripples are also deaf to reason. I’ll not waste my breath.”

  Serac didn’t know anything about Pretjordian politics or the apparent beef between this particular pair of Yakshas. But even she knew this was the wrong thing to say in this moment. Both she and Zacko moved at the same time, with her putting up PULVERIZER to block Lars, and he to [Shield] against Lady Pink.

  [37!]

  This sucks! Serac thought, even as she gritted her teeth against Lars’s enormous strength. I have to take a hit to my HP just to break up a fight?

  “Alright, enough already!” An exasperated shout from Zacko. “Just calm down and use your head, sturgeon man! If Bubblegum really did lure us into her witch’s lair with witch-ly intentions like you seem to believe, you think she would’ve helped cure my [Poison]? Or tag-teamed a bunch of Aberrants while she helped me look for your brother?”

  At another mention of his brother, Lars’s aggression waned once more. Serac felt the pressure lift from her PULVERIZER.

  “If she wanted to kill me,” Zacko continued, “she’s had plenty of opportunities to do that, but she hasn’t, and she won’t. In fact, she’s just as fucked up by this whole situation as we are, and she’s also just trying to find a way out. Now, are you going to be mature and sensible about this, or would you rather turn a powerful ally into a formidable enemy?”

  Wow, Zacko, when did you learn to be so diplomatic? And I wonder how Lady Pink managed to cure your Manusya ass of [Poison]. Maybe with those ‘potions’ I keep hearing about?

  Serac was bursting with questions, but she could read the room (if not the ripples) well enough to know when to bite her tongue. Her restraints soon paid off, as Lars relaxed some more—hopefully for good.

  A deep frown darkened the sturgeon man’s usually impassive features. It was clear that his anger and suspicions hadn’t receded, and perhaps they never would. But he’d also calmed down enough to see the merit in Zacko’s words. After all, wasn’t he himself a strong believer in maintaining a cool head in the face of adversity?

  “We work together until we reach bottom,” Lars eventually said, lowering his OAR as he did. His taciturn manners had also returned, which Serac took to mean he’d regained control over his emotions. “Until we find Hans, and until we deal with the presence that gnaws at the Realmtree’s Roots. After that, Finless, you come with us to Stamgard… to answer for your crimes.”

  Serac turned to gauge Lady Pink’s reaction, praying that she’d take the olive branch without further incident. Which was why she physically winced as she heard the woman’s next words.

  “I’ll never go with you willingly. You’ll have to capture me if that’s what you’re after.” But even as the Finless said this, she lifted her giant shovel and secured it onto her back. “But you’re also welcome to try—after all this is over.”

  Several more seconds passed in tense silence. Then Lars let out a noncommittal ‘hm’, before turning around and making his way over to the edge of the flatrock. He’d evidently gone right back to mapping out the next part of the descent, with the implicit understanding that the spelunking party had just doubled in size.

  Serac finally let out a sigh of relief. She herself went right back to ogling the frog woman, purely because she was just so fascinated by her.

  Lady Pink, for her part, now reached into her suit to fiddle with something around her chest. As Serac watched, she caught glimpses of a strange contraption, one seemingly made up of a series of lidded containers each about the size of an orange. Some of these containers swung open at Lady Pink’s touch, revealing yet more strange objects that gave off a distinct gleam within the dim greenness of the cave.

  “What do you want, Rakshasa?” Lady Pink suddenly spoke without looking up. It took Serac a Ksana or two to realize the question was directed at her. Oh no, I’ve been too obvious with my staring. Maybe I should learn a thing or two from Zacko’s diplomacy!

  “Nothing, I’m just curious, that’s all!” she said sheepishly. “If anything, you’ve already done more than enough, getting my friend Zacko down here in one piece. I wanted to thank you… you… er, actually, what should I call you?”

  The Yaksha said nothing, nor did she look up from her task. She was far more interested in her ‘containers’ than acknowledging Serac’s musings.

  “It just doesn’t feel right.” Serac persisted, as was her way when it came to getting to know the locals along her journey. “Just in the last minute or so, you’ve been called three different names. Finless, Lady Pink, Bubblegum—whatever the heck that is—and Pathsight isn’t any help either. I just think, if we’re gonna work together, we should at least know each other’s names, you know? Feels like common courtesy—and I mean that both ways.”

  The nameless woman said nothing. Serac waited patiently for a while, and was just about to give up and turn around when—

  “Renate.”

  Serac stared. The woman still did not meet her eyes.

  “Renate? Just Renate?” Serac then lowered her voice, muttering to herself as she cooked up her latest masterpiece. “Pretty name. I like it. Three syllables, which isn’t too bad, I suppose, but at this point, I’m committed to my art form. Let’s see… Renate, Renate, Renna!”

  The woman froze. Then she finally did look up, slowly and with eyes noticeably rounder.

  “What did you just say?”

  “Well, ‘Renate’ is one too many syllables for a proper nickname between spelunking buddies,” Serac explained happily. “So I’m calling you Renna instead. You’re going to respond to it, and I hope—in time—you’ll learn to like it too.”

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