◈ Chapter 131:
They had left after Warwick stormed off, leaving the slums and returning to the library. Hesitantly of course, as they were unsure if the Librarian was going to immediately attack them.
She didn't attack however. Even when Rain stood directly in front of her and waved his paws in her face, she simply had no idea they were there. It seemed that outside of her glowing transformed state the Librarian had no way of sensing them, and her night time hunt had just been bad luck. The Librarian had realised something was wrong but not what.
Deep inside the library Vash had been allowed out once more and set to work searching for something, anything, even the slightest little hint on Rain's species, even one little sentence describing something like him.
Rain no longer held much hope for Vash's success so he had sat down with Opal and taught her to read.
It had gone extremely well to his surprise. It seemed like her repeated practice had allowed her to pick up words quickly, startlingly quickly, far faster than he would have thought possible. Already she was able to figure out basic sentences from context clues and was rapidly improving, improving even as he watched. It was shocking, but it also made him feel warm and fluffy with pride. She was a natural.
They'd moved from the reading desks after a time, Rain gathering all the pillows from every armchair he could find, then throwing them in one of the rare rooms with windows. He'd built up a mound under a sunbeam then flopped down on it, placing Opal in his lap, her back pressed against his stomach.
A book was resting on her belly and she slowly read aloud from it, stories of leveler heroes defeating big scary monsters. There weren't a lot of choices when it came to fictional stories that she could read as a novice, basically all of them followed that same theme: Leveler hero, evil monster.
He'd closed his eyes listening to her sound out the words as the sun warmed his fur.
This was bliss.
Just lying there with his Opal, his breath coming slow and peaceful, feeling the weight of her.
Lyra ran into the room as he was drifting off into a gentle nap and he jerked awake as the dimensional bag was tossed onto his chest, darkness already spilling back into his fur from its strings.
"He's here! He's here right now! He's here in
Florens!
" cried Lyra pacing around in a stress and running her fingers through her hair.
Rain blinked at her.
"Who's here?"
The sheep girl stopped and turned on him. "Lord Wranvrye! The one trying to have me killed, the one who freaking framed me for killing his wife!"
Rain sat up and Opal scrambled to her feet.
"We're going killing? Feeding Rain? Oh
Hell yeah!
That's way better than reading dumb stories about stupid dumb levelers!"
"Er, r-right, killing." Lyra swallowed. "H-he needs to- He needs to die. Even if it wasn't about me, he still killed those two innocent women I rescued, and then his wife, in cold blood. If there's any justice in the world then that noble needs to face his karma."
"It's fine Lyra. Don't work yourself up. You are protecting your family with this."
Lyra hunched down a little, her voice small, "O-of course..."
They prepped quickly, snatching up Red and Vash then leaving through the front entrance. Just as when they entered the Librarian had no idea they were there and they were free to leave. Finding the Lord turned out to not be very hard. They headed toward the noble estates and quickly found the streets crowded with excited people.
A caravan of carriages was the cause of public interest. Formidable looking things, they were pulled by great black stallions the size of cart horses whose lips were parted with long fangs and with large curved black horns on their heads, the front edge sharp and serrated.
The carriages forded their way through the streets, crowds of curious people on either side, many having to leap out of the way of the monstrous horses for fear of being crushed under hoof.
It almost looked like a parade now with all the people following, parades being something the citizens of Florens seemed to form out of habit more than anything. The carriages made their way through the city until they came out onto a wide open cobble square, which felt unusual to Rain now as he had quickly gotten used to the lack of open space in the city. The entire far end of the square consisted of a formidable wall, one that easily put Lynthia's or Silvara's walls to shame. In the center of the wall was a set of massive gates.
Rain realised he was looking at the entrance to Lord Wranvyre's estate, a vast thing, it was like a town in of itself had been built within the city walls.
The carriages pulled up outside the great gates and Lamia spilled from the flung open doors. Rain examined them carefully. The Lamia's had human-like upper bodies, but their lower bodies were snake-like and covered in colourful scales. They were greeted by many more Lamia at the front gates. Many of them were wearing black in mourning, although many weren't. Many of the Lamia weren't pure and were half breeds, Elf-Lamia and Gnoll-Lamia were a common mix. The half breeds seemed in less favour than the pures and kept to the back.
"That's his extended family," whispered Lyra, "Lamia have big clutches and are, ah, promiscuous, so combined with how attractive his stature and his wealth is to many, well, I wouldn't be surprised if many of that crowd of Lamia was his own spawn, bastards or not, his and his wife's children from various flings."
Rain eyed the crowd. It was a lot of Lamia. Dozens and dozens.
A small square dais had been put up in preparation, and after a lot of embracing and entwining of tails Lord Wranvyre approached it and slithered over its slight step, approaching a podium.
He gripped the sides of the podium and leaned over it, eyes scanning the crowd. The crowd grew silent under his cold gaze and then he began to speak, his words solemn and harsh.
"This should have been a joyous return. Friends, family, employees. We should have returned with her, with Glyrieth. Returned to feasting, singing, drinking, and dancing. But.... we did not. Glyrieth was murdered in mindless greed for mere coin, a half woollie slit her throat in rage, an emotional anger that her demands for tens of thousands of gold were denied. A disgusting act by a leveler who is no better than a monster. Yes, that leveler trash, that sub-sapient filth, struck with a blade out of nowhere, too late for my dear wife to stop as she had implicitly trusted the half woollie, this Lyra Bellerhorn, a monster in leveler flesh."
The crowd grumbled their discontent. This Lyra person sounded like bad news.
"My house has been wronged, I have been wronged. I demand redress from this world. I demand redress from the gods. I demand vengeance. And as you may know my vengeance pays well. It pays
extremely
well. Bring her not to me alive, bring her to me dead, bring me her head sawn from her body so that the first thing I see is her glassy lifeless eyes. That is the only thing that can assuage my sorrow. Come my city, show your loyalty to Florens, to a noble Lord of Florens, to
ME
