Ophelia was splitting her attention, two of her bodies were out getting a lay of the land, while her third was tending to her younger daughters. Almost immediately after her conversion, she had obtained a Skill that allowed her to more easily divide her focus, and she was immensely thankful for it. Without it, she would be having a much harder time bringing out the full potential of her bodies. And, by the rate at which it was leveling up, it seemed that it saw near-constant usage.
Currently, her main objective was to determine what had happened to Ira’s monsters after Amelia left, and she had yet to come to a concrete conclusion. It wasn’t that she couldn’t find evidence of them, the area was absolutely filled with destruction they had left in their wake, but that she couldn’t determine what had happened to what.
There were no bodies or other signs of a major struggle, and she had mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, it meant that none of those powerful monsters were lost forever, but on the other, it meant that it was likely that one or more of them was still in the area. And, of course, it was her job to figure out which of them was still around. From her recollection, there had been six other monsters, a dragon, a griffin, a nightmare, an emperor lion, a manticore, and a phoenix.
Fortunately, most of those monsters had distinct signs that they had taken up residence in an area. Dragons had a tendency to use their breath weapons in hunting, leaving scorches everywhere, manticores left their spines embedded in the terrain, nightmares left “uneaten” corpses in their wake, and emperor lions left huge, unmistakable claw gouges near their nest or wherever they had hunted.
Griffins and phoenixes were a bit harder, though. Griffins tended to only leave marks when they landed or took off, and those marks were relatively small when compared to the other monsters on the list. Furthermore, griffins didn’t hunt often, so oftentimes their presence was felt by the lack of any other strong predator in the area. And, finally, the phoenix was the least of their worries; for monsters, phoenixes were extraordinarily docile, hunting only once every few months and preferring to avoid conflict where possible.
And, really, only one of those would end up sticking around the area. The only monsters on that list that weren’t highly territorial were the nightmare and the phoenix, and the phoenix being around was basically the same as not having a big monster in the area. If they were lucky, that was what would end up happening; they could work out a plan to convert the nightmare, and then they could take care of the phoenix at their leisure.
But that was just a hope, and given Ophelia’s luck, what was overwhelmingly probable is that they would end up with the worst outcome, the dragon taking up roost in the area, and that was much harder to get around. Admittedly, Amelia had shown that she was capable of handling the dragon if her abilities were unbound, but Ophelia didn’t think they could count on that. The activation window for her unbinding ability was frustratingly vague, and a person could only knowingly lie to themselves so many times before the lie started to lose its effect.
As for her current working theory…well, she couldn’t conclusively say much. Her two bodies were following the trail of the emperor lion and the manticore, and it seemed like they were leaving, as they were heading in different directions in basically straight lines, but Ophelia wouldn’t be satisfied until she had followed the trails for at least fifteen miles, or she came across conclusive evidence one way or the other.
And, after a few hours of tracking, her search came to an end. As the body that was tracking the manticore crested a ridge the surroundings grew darker, as if night had suddenly fallen. That was an unmistakable sign that the nightmare was close, and there was no way it would remain this close to the site of the battle after this long if it hadn’t taken up residence here.
Now all that was left was to do was locate it and determine if it was injured. So, she began walking back the body that had been tracking the emperor lion, put Anna down with her other, and allotted as much of her attention as possible to the body near the nightmare. She took a deep breath, activated her stealth Skills, and began to stalk forward.
Many would be tempted to light a torch or use magic to illuminate their surroundings, but Ophelia knew better; a nightmare’s darkness made such things less effective than normal, and they served more as a beacon for the nightmare than as a guide to their wielder. The more proper way to locate the nightmare was to move towards the darker areas, and use the level of light as an indicator for your location in proximity to the nightmare.
You have met the qualifications for the Skill Night Vision!
You have 9 easily attainable Skills remaining before Skills will take more effort to obtain, would you like to gain Night Vision?
Allows the user to see better in the dark.
Level 1: Provides black-and-white vision 10 meters out from where colored vision ends in the dark.
No batteries included, but they’re not required anyway so you lucked out.
Ophelia instantly accepted the Skill, and watched in fascination as she suddenly had ten more meters of vision. This new method of getting Skills was so nice that she couldn’t help but wonder why it wasn’t how things had worked before, blasphemous as that thought was.
She put that thought out of her mind quickly, not only because the gods likely had a good reason for doing what they did, but because she needed to focus on the task at hand. Yes, this body dying wouldn’t have permanent consequences, but it would almost certainly be unpleasant, and she would be crippled for a week. So, she kept moving through the area, trying to remain as stealthy as possible.
You have met the qualifications for the Skill Active Camouflage!
You have 8 easily attainable Skills remaining before Skills will take more effort to obtain, would you like to gain Active Camouflage?
Helps the user stay hidden.
Level 1: For 1 Stamina per second, the user appears somewhat similarly colored to objects near them. This effect is visual only and only affects the vision of creatures other than the user.
Not the greatest when moving, though
Another easy choice. The Skill might not be the best in her current situation, but it would pay dividends later, so she took it, and continued on her way. And, as she moved, she began to realize just how large this area of darkness was. The size of the area was proportional to the strength of the nightmare, and she had already move through twice as much space as she had for the strongest nightmare she had faced in the past.
Yet, there seemed to be no end to the darkness, and were it not for Night Vision, which had leveled up thrice, she would have long-since retreated due to lack of sight, but she pressed on. And, eventually, she was rewarded by the sight of a flame in the dark, a distinctly unusual sight in a nightmare’s domain.
She stopped in her tracks, squinting at the flame. It was hard to tell with the nightmare’s aura smothering the light, but she could barely make out the shape of a bird within, bent over something she couldn’t quite make out. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ n0velfire.net
That…that had to be the phoenix, right? And judging by the strength of the darkness near it, it was on top of the nightmare, and that posture…it was crying over the nightmare, healing its wounds.
Right, those two weren’t just coexisting, they were actively working together, a possibility that hadn’t even entered Ophelia’s mind. She watched for a moment longer, then began retreating as swiftly as possible; she wasn’t a combatant in the first place, and even with the buff to her stats from her conversion, she had no chance against two of those creatures. She probably wouldn’t have had a chance even if her stats were unbound, and she wasn’t about to test her limits.
After a while, the darkness began to fade and she let out a sigh of relief; she wasn’t being chased, and she could afford to split her attention again. So, she devoted some of it to the body back in the dungeon, and went to make her report.
Amelia watched the children play, an unfamiliar feeling blooming in her chest. Ever since her conversation with Lia and Rose a couple of days ago, she had felt…different. Not just because she had fallen in love with Rose, though that was undoubtedly part of it, but the…dullness that had been a permanent fixture of her life had begun to recede.
Lia had implied that it was supposed to be slower than this, so the gods must have sped things up since their chat. That suited Amelia just fine; if becoming more “normal” would get her to her goals faster, then she’d get “normal” as fast as possible. Or, at least, normal within acceptable limits. She would try “being polite” and “treating people with respect”, but she wasn’t going to become some naïve blindly self-sacrificing idiot. She was willing to sacrifice for those she loved, but she doubted she would end up going out of her way for, say, these kids, not unless Lia or Rose asked, or it would benefit them in some way.
But she couldn’t say for sure. In a way, she was going to become a different person than she had been before, but that wasn’t really a big deal. She had never really gotten why people were so attached to their personalities, but…perhaps that was her projecting her own feelings onto others.
It was something she had never considered before. These past couple of days she had been doing a lot of introspection, and she had made several epiphanies in that time, epiphanies she was sure she never would have been able to come to if she was still under the Urge. Most of those were things she had known academically, but never fully grasped before; things like the fact that people other than a select few had real feelings or were more than just…background characters.
For the first time, she was able to actually imagine how another person might feel in a situation. That had come when she struggled to understand why Lia had been so upset when Amelia had made herself love Rose. Perhaps that was why Lia and Rose had been so insistent she treat others politely; she may be much higher in social status, but if she put herself in their position, she realized that she too would hate the way she was treating them.
She still didn’t really care if that person wasn’t one of her loved ones, their feelings weren’t as important to her, but she would give it a go. Apparently, if Rose was to be believed, doing so would make Amelia feel good as well. She found that a little hard to believe, but Rose had known the Urge before, so Amelia trusted that Rose knew what she was talking about. She didn’t feel anything when she did so now, but that might come in the future.
This research was why she was watching the children play. She had been passing by when she noticed a twinge of an unfamiliar sensation, and now she was waiting nearby, invisible so as to not change their behavior with her presence. She needed things to keep on being the same if she was to correctly identify the feeling, after all.
The feeling was not negative, that was for sure. It wasn’t disgust, fear, hatred, anger, anxiety, or anything of the sort. It felt good, but not in the way that she felt when she was around Lia or Rose. It wasn’t a sharp feeling, it was dull, almost passive in a way. It was…was like the sight itself was fulfilling, a sign that things were the way they were supposed to be. Was it…satisfaction?
Yes, that seemed right. She was satisfied with how things were progressing. The swarm had gained civilians, and it was beginning to seem more like life in a regular city. Things were going according to plan, and that made her feel good. The feeling successfully identified, she became visible again and returned to the dorm she had claimed as her own.
She felt…some sort of desire, again. She wanted to be back in the room she had shared with Lia while they went to school together, and not just because Lia and Rose were staying there now. That room was associated with all sorts of memories, and when she recalled those memories she felt a sort of longing, a desire to relive those memories. Nostalgia, she thought.
But that wasn’t the main reason she was here. She had come here because, when she had thought back to right before she had been asked to call Brom, she had felt…bad. It was like…when she thought back on it, she wished she hadn’t acted the way she did, and if other people found out, she would feel bad as well, like they would think she was being silly.
And, well, she had been silly; it had been right after the whole situation with Ira had been resolved, and Lia and Rose were having sex. She had felt wronged, she should have been the one having sex with Lia, not Rose. At least, she should have been the first. And so, she had been ineffectually taking out those feelings by destroying the furniture in the room. She wasn’t sure why she had chosen to do so, the intensity of her feelings never decreased, as she had made sure would be the case when Lia was involved, but she did so nonetheless.
When Lia had arrived, she had made the place presentable, so Lia wouldn’t be forced to sit in an uncomfortable space, but now, looking back, she didn’t like it for a different reason. Her behavior seemed ridiculous, and not just because she loved Rose now.
Of course, thinking back on the situation, she no longer felt the same as she had previously. The thought of Lia and Rose lying together, having sex, it made her feel warm, aroused, she believed it was called. She still wanted to join in, of course, but instead of seeing herself in place of Rose, she saw all three of them together.
But, again, if she wanted that, she would have to work for it. It was likely to be the hardest thing she had ever done, but she would figure herself out, and become a person who Lia and Rose could truly love. With that in mind, she sat down at her desk, pulled out her notebook, and began writing down the day’s revelations.