LIGHTNOVELONLINE 168 – Case Three Closed
Despite her deep and profound sorrow, she mustered the will to enter the building. The old lizard was in his home, and readily opened the door after she banged on it while announcing herself: "Open up, it's me!"
The lock turned and the door swung open, but Garvesh was nowhere near it.
"Close and lock the door. I'm in the bathroom. Come in, it's fine."
"Something happened," Krahe deadpanned as she did as he asked.
"You saw Imraal's cart out front. I took it out on the street, didn't want to disappoint his customers, y'know. Some overly ambitious assclown just came up and blasted me point-blank with a Red Reaper, can you believe that?"
There was effort in his voice, strain even, but the way he spoke about being shot with a Red Reaper carried a tone of disbelief and ridicule more than anything. Krahe was somewhat confused, but it wasn't because of that. It was the aura. Like some giant monster, unable to act in any way befitting its size yet still nearly inconceivable in its immensity.
Garvesh was, indeed, in the bathroom. The old lizard turned his eyes up to meet Krahe's as she walked in. He was sprawled out in the small pool he called a bath tub, leaning on one hand while his other was twisted into a stiff gesture - thumb, index, and ring fingers forming an eye, while the middle and pinkie were held straight. He hovered his hand over his stomach, a thin stream of blue-glowing magic pouring out through the eye to join a large, metallic scale of a blue shade so dark it was nearly black. Slowly, tiny bit by bit, the scale grew. Others around it were also visible, transitioning from solid metallic to ghostly and to nothing. Krahe immediately knew what was happening. Wards. He was repairing his wards.
Across the room, chained up to the radiator, was a gagged man that may have been handsome at some point before the front of his body had been shredded and burned. A baneworm's bulging tendrils could be seen beneath his skin, and some even dangled out of his burst-open stomach, tangled amongst his intestines.
"I'm not moving until this one is finished, so you may as well speak now," he remarked, refocusing his eyes on his stomach. They momentarily flicked upwards at Krahe as he added: "Please tell me you came to tell me Imraal's killer is dead. I need some good news after this shitshow."
Krahe gave a slow nod, still processing the scene.
"...Yeah. I have her souldregs if you want them."
"You said she's dead, so she's dead. You can show me the dregs later," he shrugged. A short time passed in heavy silence as Krahe just looked on, captivated by the complex internal pattern of Garvesh's wards.
"I thought wards were at least partly tied to your attributes."
"They are. I wouldn't be able to form one of these from scratch in my state, and I've got a couple thin spots in places I won't tell you. But as long as one these scales doesn't break, I can fix it. It's bitch and a half, tell you what. The damage this wormy fuck did will be at least a week's work to repair. Just maintaining my wards is hard enough..."
An aura of pure anger and hatred spilled out of Garvesh as he spoke, doubtlessly fuelled by awareness of the meticulous, yet also strenuous work he had ahead of him. Krahe knew it all too well; for several years, she used a type of armor that, despite its high defensive performance, was no longer being manufactured. Manufacturing replacement graph-fullerene without the original machinery was perhaps among her least favourite memories. The inside of Garvesh's ward-scales didn't quite look as complex as a graphene mesh with fullerene balls instead of single carbon atoms, but it probably felt just as complex given that he was rebuilding it by hand. Krahe continued to watch for some time, drawing closer, and Garvesh let her.
"Feel free to try an' copy me, so long as you let me know when you fail so I can laugh at you. You wouldn't believe how many times I've seen someone try."
"I'm sure I'll figure something out. I've been using the same ward design far too long..." she admitted. They had worked well-enough when she needed them, and with the Liminal Coil, simply not getting hit had become her go-to defensive tactic.
"Think Semzar's going crazy and trying to have anyone who dealt with me killed?" she asked, assuming the worst.
"No, he's stupid, but not insane," Garvesh shook his head. "I know why dumbfuck here shot at me, he spilled his guts the moment *I* spilled his guts. One of the side effects of my crippled state is that so long as I do not burn Thauma, I come off exactly as weak as I feel. This fool, turns out, was the one who hired the assassin on Semzar's behalf. He saw me, saw Imraal's cart, and, puttin' two and two together, got five. He thought Imraal had somehow survived and faked his death, so he panicked and shot me."
Garvesh emitted a rumbling, engine-like chuckle.
"He saw a drasaurian and thought a single Red Reaper would kill me. Even without wards that wouldn't be enough, not for me. Ey, you hear me?! Y'forget why yer filthy kind love to steal our bodies so much?!"
The noise didn't wake the baneworm, but what Garvesh did right after his outburst served that purpose. He gathered spit in his mouth, and spat out a piece of the same bluish metal as his ward-scales, enveloped in a thick layer of mucus and spit. It landed right in the would-be assassin's spilled-out intestines, and quickly became enveloped in spitting, angry, blue flame. It looked like white phosphorous, just prettier and without the poisonous smoke.
The baneworm-host awoke and, eyes flashing with panic, tendrils bulging under his skin, began screaming into his gag.
“Shut up or the next one is going in your mouth,” Garvesh threatened, gesturing at the burning mass currently eating its way into the prisoner’s guts, somehow going deeper rather than following gravity.
Outright screaming tuned down to sounds of pain, until the worm’s tendrils retracted from that area of his stolen body, and he fell silent. His gaze almost immediately became an analyzing one, darting back and forth, shamelessly looking for an opportunity to escape.
