Chapter 7: Together Apart, Apart Together

One after the other the sisters closed their mouths, lest spirits come in and take over their minds that were blank with shock. As of this moment, the sisters could only comprehend three possibilities, the first was that Wauldigg was possessed by a very powerful spirit that could resist the crystal spiritsbane brew. The second was that the spiritsbane wasn’t properly brewed. The final possibility that they could think of was that Wauldigg was untouched.

The main reason their minds blanked out wasn’t any of these possibilities.

Dwarves of Kigan, being humans descended from stone, eat stone as food, drink alcohol as water and crystals as absurdly unhealthy sweets. The sisters knew this, so an ignorance of this was not the cause of their shock.

The crystal spiritsbane brew is made from crystal and a number of other things, yes. However, it is a very concentrated liquid, and one that possesses a dense quality of magical absorption. Normally drinking such a thing would wither all the magical power in a being. It would shrivel their patterns, that is to say their spirit.

Wauldigg however was quite fine. A sneaky glance with magesight even revealed that the essences of his patterns were being refined by the crystal spiritsbane, circulating in and out of the liquid resting in his stomach.

“I guess heroes’ bodies really are different” Qusheab muttered.

Wualdigg awkwardly pulled on his beard.

“Sorry for just eating your soup like that, but something in me was stirred, I couldn’t control myself, no I didn’t want to control myself. I’m sorry, I’ll do what I can to make it up to you”

Soup? What Soup! That was crystal spiritsbane! The sisters had the same accusatory shout inside their minds.

Koolah gave a pained smile.

“Don’t worry about it Waul, here…”

Koolah quickly handed him the bag of potions and so on that had been prepared for… well, on reflection it hadn’t been prepared, it had just been set up by the loop magic. Regardless Koolah pushed it into the dwarf hero’s hands.

“…we happen to be quite busy at the moment.” Koolah finished.

“Our apologies master Wauldigg” Jadah said.

She and Qusheab began pushing him out the door, he did not resist them, given that there was no way they’d stand up to resistence. He began to shed loot from various pouches hidden on his person.

“I have to repay…” He began.

“We can deal with it tomorrow” Qusheab said, shutting the door in his face.

“I’ll be back with something good!” Wauldigg cried out behind the door.

The sisters held their breath as they heard him walk away. Silence took over the flow.

Jadah broke the silence.

“Wait, why did we drive him away?”

“Wasn’t he untouched?” Qusheab realised again.

“He’s fairly far in the loop, we don’t have time to deal with that, we need to get wards up” Koolah said.

The sisters began checking various hidden points in the room, and in the process discovered many things the loop had hidden from them. Symbols scratched away, artefacts destroyed… reagents missing.

“Just who or what did this?” Jadah asked.

“We’ll have to find out. Apart from the natives of this loop, and Waul there is four others isn’t there?” Koolah said.

“Yes, some servant of that dragonlord, uh… an elf? Oh, isn’t there that wanderer? Who else was there?” Qusheab said.

Jadah looked away from a savaged wooden pillar.

“Orapele Devourer of Obscure Things” Jadah pronounced ominously.

Koolah worried a claw with her mouth.

“Qushqush, you stay here and repair what you can of the wards, Jadah and I will do a bit of questioning, we’ll see what’s going on outside.”

Qusheab was about to raise an objection.

“We’ll be fine, with these charms, and the loop, something would probably have to kill all of us at once. We’ll be safer apart until we get the ward of the cottage repaired” She explained.

Qusheab quivered.

“You have to be careful, both of you…”

“Don’t leave me alone for the rest of my life” she whispered quietly.

Jadah opened her arms and drew Qusheab and Koolah into a hug.

“We’ll be fine, we’ve made it through a lot together, we’ll make it through this” Jadah murmured.

Then after picking up a bit of this and that, Qusheab’s sisters were gone out the door.

Qusheab was all alone in the cottage.