Chapter 25: The Grand Eye’s Painting Plan

The fortress was not a collection of bubbles, instead each brick of the fortress was a sphere, and these made up the larger spheres. Each of these spheres had a ring of circular murderholes, small openings that projectiles and other things could be fired from.

“How do you make the crystal blue anyway?” Olice causally asked her guides.

The two soldiersv of fortune had been nervously leading Olice and her spirits for a while, only now did they come under the shadow of the fortress Roumotte. Gander had been making threatening faces at them the whole way, as well as radiating hunger, their nerves were as a consequence quite bad.

So, upon hearing Olice speak they both jumped, fell and rolled into a ball, Their head-core clanking off their arms as it tried to spin.

Gander of course cackled at this.

-Shameful- Susasov said, though it wasn’t clear if he was referring to Gander or the soldiers.

“Annoying, want answer” Ka said.

“You two are no fun!” Gander said.

“I am fun, lots of fun, aren’t I Mistress?” Ka asked Olice, a bit worried.

“Of course Ka” Olice said brightly.

Susasov, noticed that she didn’t deny him being not fun. He wasn’t sure that was actually worse than being considered fun.

Olice waited patiently for the soldiers of fortune to stop cowering in abject fear.

…

This turned out to not be the most effective of ideas. The soldiers could hardly decide to do anything when their cores were blocked.

“Gander, this is your fault, help them up!” Olice commanded.

“Ssssorry, but thisss is too amusing, I’m not going to do anything” Gander replied, tears threatening to form in his eyes from his laughter.

“I will help” Ka said.

Ka was currently a hooded cloak on Olice, this cloak’s bottom corners flapped out, the ragged edges forming crude hands. Ka grabbing the little ornamental helmets on the ring body of the soldiers lifted them up.

The core-heads rolled. A two and a four.

“Don’t eat us please!”

“You told him not to eat us!”

“He isn’t going to eat you” Olice said firmly.

-Provided you answer the question, My Mistress asked- Susasov added.

“Gander looks hungry” Ka idly said.

Gander put on a show of smacking his lips and rolled his eyes crazily around inside their sockets.

They rolled again. Two eyes and five eyes this time.

“Wait, what was the question again?” Two asked.

“You’ll get us both eaten! It was how we make the crystal pure, wasn’t it?” Five asked.

Olice nodded.

Again the cores spun, this time three eyes and five eyes nervously kept an eye on Gander, who was more than happy to give a menacing smile to the pair.

“I-I can’t remember!” Three stuttered.

“Misfortunate! We’d be gone if I wasn’t so lucky!” Five claimed.

Olice tapped her foot and Ka shook the soldiers of fortune, this however set them rolling again. Olice sighed unhappily.

One eye and two eyes.

“Uh, something about Roumotte?” One muttered.

“It goes woosh?” Two ventured.

“Ssssomething like that?” Gander asked, looking at the fortress.

All the parts of Roumotte were starting to spin, they were slow at first but then picked up speed, becoming a blur. Then a sparkling blue paint-like substance shot out from the fortress, at first in fitful bursts of beams, then a massive amount just flew out from every part at once.

Gander quickly pulled a tooth out and tossed it into the air, the tooth shattered and shadow burst forth enclosing Olice and the soldiers.

This sphere shuddered as the arcane blueness crashed against it, it continued to shudder, the sphere even cracked and blueness seeped in. More disturbing was how the shadow started to turn a bluish colour.

However, it stopped before the shadow became fully blue.

“Gander, make sure to collect some of this stuff!” Olice said.

With a flick of gander’s tail the shadow was lifted off like a sheet, then formed into a kind of bluish shadowy vase. Gander spat some sort of blackness into the vase and the blueness lessened. The land around them was quite different, gleaming blue and pools of the arcane paint lay everywhere, though it was fairly quickly soaking into the crystal.

Gander quickly scooped some up with his vase and then formed a lid. Making sure the stuff was well contained, he dropped it, not into Olice’s shadow, but his own.

-What is that stuff for? I can feel that it changes the crystal, actually I don’t think you noticed Mistress, but the flows are calmer here- Susasov said.

Olice looked, paying more attention than she had been, and was astonished to see that the flow was much more regular, not at all like the mass of swirling flow that made up the rest of the Red Crystal Realm.

“Yes, just what is this stuff for?” Olice wondered aloud.

“Painting” Gander unhelpfully explained.

The soldiers rolled again, five and four.

“Once the whole realm is purified the Grand Eye will descend upon us! Hail the Eye!” Five said.

“Then we will be rewarded and all of the realm with belong to the Grand Eye!” Four said.

“Who is Grand Eye?” Ka wondered.

-Some mage, most likely-

“What kind of a name isss grand eye anyway? Mussst be a load of things that call themssselvesss that” Gander objected.

The soldiers pretended not to hear Ka, or Gander.

“You can let them go now Ka” Olice said.

Ka dropped the soldiers, who though suffering from wounded pride, were happy enough to be back on the ground.

“Well, lead on” Ka directed, making a shooing motion.

Gander did his part by pretending to clean out his teeth.

The soldiers grumbled a bit but lead Olice and her spirits to the entrance of the fortress.

This was a particularly big sphere, it didn’t look like it had a way in though.

The soldiers’ cores rolled.

A pair of four eyes.

“HELP WE’VE BEEN CAPTURED!” They cried out.

A small sphere rolled out of the way and a soldier of fortune stuck its head out the hole.

“You wot?”