Chapter 63 - Round Two, Crushed
I stood up, I had heard enough from eight lifetimes, and it was time to go see the Witch one more time before I have to go back to what I was doing.
"If I go out the door, so I just take the stairs down?" I asked.
"Yes… We can send you out if you want," Perdita said with a strained look on her face, but I shook my head no.
"No, I think one more little wee short talk is in order between Nixi and me. You will all stay up here though, because I plan on pissing her off, so you might even still feel it up here," I said, and all the dark blue skin started to get pale, but none argued, but Frieda, who had been silent the whole time nodded to me.
"I'll send you down, and then you have twenty seconds to say what to want, then you will be ported above the castle. Mex won't be expecting you, but I think that you are tough enough now to survive," Frieda said with a knowing smile; then, I was standing in front of the small table and two chairs that had been destroyed earlier.
"What do you want?" Nixi growled up at me from her chair, holding her tea away from me.
"Clesh, no more, you leave her alone. If you want to know something, you can come and ask me directly from now on, and you will stop acting like a terror to your family," I told her fast, and Nixi glared back at me.
"Oh? What will you do to make me?!" She stared up at me, so I horked and then spit.
I expertly hit the teacup Nixi was holding but then quickly dodged the cup and the spray of hot tea, but the damage was done. Nixi was starting to swell up again, but I had seen this coming, and I had hoped that my assumptions about Nixi were correct, and it seemed like I was on the right track.
Nixi wasn't even half as big as she was before, but I was sure that she was still more than strong enough to kill me, but that was not my point. It looked like Nixi's power was linked to her family, which made her child-like attitude and how she dealt with things make even less sense.
"If you don't, I will leave you here when I go, and I will take all of your family with me. I am pretty sure that I could do it right now, and you wouldn't be able to do anything about it, right? Your power has something to do with bonds, just like mine, and that very likely means that you are a shaman, but you are linked to this castle, so you can't leave. So, smarten up, or enjoy rotting alone while I take your family to safety because, for some reason, it means more to me than you!" I said in as much of a rush as I could, and before Nixi could open her mouth, the wind was rushing at me.
"Great," I said out loud, but my words were devoured by the rushing wind as Im started to plummet to the grass in the back part of the courtyard.
The ground was coming fast, but I noticed a set of doors in the ground near the far back corner of the castle. If I survived, I would check that out, and it was going to take less than five seconds to find out.
"I do not suggest trying to fly without a pair of wings," Mex said as he grabbed me about five meters from testing my resistance to dying.
"Yeah, I remember that the next time I get shit out of a paint can. What the hell just happened to me?" I asked, trying to play it off, and Mex already had an explanation waiting for me.
"Wumpus Holes, they happen in the area a lot, and there is really no way to predict them. So, when you disappeared, but Mary was still here, I knew what it had to be. So, I was watching for you, but my Wife distracted me. Also, you had better go deal with that woman, or she might start tearing down the castle to find you!" Mex said with no smile and then made me grin a bit as Mex set me done.
"Your wife distracted you?" I asked curiously.
I found it hard to believe that Nixi would act so fast, but how was I supposed to know how things worked? Everything in this world was so far out of what I considered the norm, that I wasn't sure which way was up at this point.
"Yes, Clesh came to apologize to me and said that she would stop watching over me. Strange, but it's not like I can complain! Now she will stop getting so mad at me every time I leave the Keep!" Mex said and then started to laugh.
I was still trying to wrap my head around Mex and the Sphinx, but as soon as my mind got into the details, I realized that I wasn't THAT interested. Still, I was glad that she actually listened to me, but now I had a feeling that I would be seeing a whole lot of her.
"Okay, well, thanks for saving me," I said, rubbing the back of my head, but Mex laughed at me.
"Saving? That wouldn't have killed you! Pft, a broken bone or two, but you would be back up in a short bit. I guess you haven't had a chance to hurt yourself yet, so...hmm, yes, I don't think that you will need this right away to entertain her," Mex said casually, but then out of nowhere, grabbed my hand and crushed it in his grip, breaking an untold number of bones.
The pain was pretty bad… but my hand had just been crushed, so… pretty bad was pretty good, I guess. Yet, when Mex let go of my hand, it was thoroughly mangled to the point where it hardly looked like a hand anymore.