Lemmy
After several days, hiding at least 4 separate times from hordes of bloom-touched, and having an argument with Maria over the taste of a purple nut they found growing off a large tree, they had finally reached a city. Not the one they were heading towards, but one that at least could offer them shelter and somewhere that didn't need them to constantly check their surroundings in case hundreds of corpses being controlled by plants decided to swarm them-
Lemmy's wings retracted as they came closer to the city, she managed to somewhat learn how to manipulate her body parts, nothing too extreme like growing extra limbs on demand or gaining new abilities. Just making her body a bit more durable by focusing mana into her skin, or making her punches hit harder by adding a couple extra muscles. Though Lemmy could only test it on trees and rocks so far as Maria said the Bloom-touched could overwhelm her even with the extra power. Lemmy trusted her, but she didn't like hiding so much…
They stopped for a moment as Maria began to cast a few illusions on Lemmy, Bucket looked around, their metallic head checking around for anyone looking a bit too closely at them. The guards at the gate occasionally looked over, but hopefully they looked really small at this distance, so hopefully they couldn't see Lemmy's face from here! After the Glamor spell and a few basic illusions, Lemmy was ready to go inside!
The guards wore decent armor, unlike the conscripts from the last city, their entire body was covered head to toe in some sort of metal, it wasn't iron or steel like Bucket was made out of, it seemed to be copper maybe? Or perhaps bronze? Either way their helmets were open, giving Lemmy a good view of their faces. One of them looked at Maria closely, as if he recognized her from somewhere. Though as they got closer, the guards stiffened their posture and attempted to look intimidating. "Name and purpose for coming here!" The larger guard barked out, causing Maria to nod as they looked at her crystallized arm. "I am lady Maria Hastar, and this is Lemmy… no last name, we're simply passing through." Maria said simply as the larger guard took notes, while the more normal sized one seemed much more interested now.
"Maria? You came here 36 years ago, right?" The guard asked curiously, causing Maria to think for a moment before tilting her head. "I believe so? I travel often so apologies if I don't-" The guard's dark eye lit up as she admitted this. "Oh you're the same woman who saved my father's farm! Or well… what was left of it, there wasn't enough land to divide between me and my brother, but at least there was something he could have. Oh uh, anyways my name Harold, I'd invite you to a drink but I don't think my wife would-" the larger guard lightly punched the man in the shoulder, causing him to cough a bit. "Ahem- Anyways, I don't see anything too suspicious, er well except for the automation behind you two, but… well if you own it, I suppose it's fine." Harold said with a smile as he got out of the way. "Please head inside, hope you enjoy your stay, even if it's brief!" He said happily as the three went inside and looked around.
Lemmy looked around, the city looked a lot cleaner and we'll maintained than the last one! There were still a few pieces of trash on the street, a couple ran down buildings, but most looked at worst like they needed a new coat of paint! Preferably with a new color, she personally thought the seemingly popular shade of green the people used around here was kinda ugly, but she wasn't going to judge their bad tastes! There were also nice smells that reminded her of flowers, and food, and- wait why was there a guy painting on a wall? The painting looks like weird letters, maybe? She couldn't make out what it said, oh there were also a lot of people! Noisy people- okay maybe Lemmy doesn't like cities- too much noise! She quickly went from excited to uncomfortable as more and more people made noise, were they looking at her? Did her disguise fail? No wait Maria would fix it if something was wrong-
—
Bucket
The three of them stood out quite a lot, unlike the last city, there were hundreds of people on the streets, yet all of them seemed rather interested in the three of them. Bucket themself was an automation, something that would be rather difficult to find, much less make even with more recent advancements in the deadlands, then there was Maria… mages were very rare, so seeing one would definitely attract attention, especially since her left arm had nearly crystallized fully, sacrificing her arm's mobility in exchange for power and mana tolerance. Then there was- actually… Lemmy likely stood out the least, she did have crystals sticking out her neck, but they were barely visible unless someone focused on her neck. With Maria's magic she should look like a human child, or maybe a halfling? Either way, but noticed something as they stared at her… she looked rather anxious.
Bucket hesitated for a moment, before placing a hand on her shoulder, Lemmy quickly looked at them, before Bucket silently nodded, making Lemmy seem more confident as they strolled through the city. She might've been curious, yet she literally grew up in a cave, or well she's still growing up… but still that combined with the time they spent traveling, she did not have many interactions with other people. While Bucket wasn't designed to take care of what they assume is a teen, they doubt it's healthy for someone her age to be rather isolated-
Yet as they walked around the city for an Inn, Bucket noticed a spider crawling on their mechanical arm and flicked it off.
—
Sister Widow
Widow was dazed as the spider under her control was flicked off, she was used to controlling multiple, but when she focused closely on one she began to share its senses, which made that quite disorienting for her.
Brother Toad told her to watch Lemmy and her friends while he took a nap, she was tired too, but if her older brother said to do something she had to do it. Getting her bearings together she severed her connection with the spider before trying to find out which spider out of the thousands in the city could still see the three. She felt… worried? She didn't know why, wait what city were they in? It was New Beliot if she remembered correctly, one of the masters was planning on something over there. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to investigate him instead…
She focused on a spider far away from the city, trying to check up on master Albert to see what he was planning exactly. Controlling an orb weaver she stared at him talking to someone, his body was rather large, not just height wise but also… Well, despite his claims, master Albert was fat, and for some reason he always smelt of sea water despite avoiding the sea at all costs.
She made the spider walk closer, looking through its eyes as she attempted to listen in on the conversation. The master was talking to some sort of weird man, the man was wearing the skull of some sort of three horned buck while their body was mostly covered in leather made from various creatures. Yet their back was completely covered in hundreds of small, dark green crystals that seemed to glow inconsistently, each one flickered independently from each other.
He spoke, yet each word sounded as if it was being sung by an invisible choir. "In exchange for helping the holy forest grow, we shall grant you command of the blessed ones, but you must know, the blessed will not finish a hunt unless their prey are none." The strange man said, Widow could see a bit underneath his mask, several small vines seem to be busy holding the mask up. His voice sounded surprisingly haunting, and his eyes didn't seem to stare at the master.
The master however, did not care about his voice nor sight. "I know, just simply tell me how I can help so we can get this deal over with. Every second I remain put here is a moment I could be doing something far more productive or comfortable than talking to a half-mad druid!" He said impatiently, his bloated face glaring at the man as he waited for him to continue.
"We shall grant you command of three titans of the land, you shall wreak havoc amongst the children of the city, while you do we shall perform a ritual under the light of Yunan, so that none shall interrupt as we make the land holy."
Albert pinched the bridge of his nose as he tried to understand what the man was saying. "Alright so basically, cause a distraction while you perform a ritual… Now what are these titans of the land? I imagine they're rather powerful if you expect them to cause chaos in such a large city?" Albert questioned as the strange man raised his arms and spoke in what seemed like five separate voices, all of which spoke in unison in a language Widow had never heard before.
Three massive Goleths rose from a nearby forest, their bodies covered in darkened bark and amber, vines were growing across their infested bodies and nearly reached the ground as they seemingly moved on their own, attempting to grab onto anything that dared get close to it. Flowers bloomed out of several of their eyes, and yet their vision gazed upon the master.
"Hmmm… Goleth have rather strong immune systems, I'm surprised you not only have one, but three. Tell me, did you just find these or-" Albert attempted to question the strange man, who quickly interrupted him in a more irritated tone.
"Be aware that while we're allied, we're not friends. Once we've fulfilled our deal, our partnership shall meet its end." The man said, his voice sounded a lot more straight forward now, as if to emphasize how they dislike working with master Albert.
Albert clicked his tongue, but continued speaking. "Whatever, anyways get your damn ritual ready, I'll bring these things to the city." He said as he walked towards the Goleths, his lifeless eyes staring up at them as he mumbled to himself. "Of course I'm the one in charge of controlling something filthy bloom-touched beasts, bring the royal steward back from the dead just to play beast master-" he said in an annoyed tone as he pointed up at the Goleth in the middle. "You! Bring me up and place me on your back!" He demanded, which caused the Goleth to let out a deep grumble before complying and bring its tentacles down to pick up the master and place him gently on top of it.
The massive Bloom-touched beasts began marching to the city, it should take at least a day for them to reach, the strange man began to leave as Widow went back to her own mind and felt a bit worried… should she warn Lemmy? She might get in trouble if the masters or brother Cobra find out she didn't tell them about finding someone like them, speaking of which… she saw Cobra's shadow slither past her room in the hallway, she froze as she briefly saw his deformed figure pass by. Did he already know? If he did, he might tell the masters- or worse… use his venom again- she began to back away towards her bed and hyperventilate at the idea, beginning to panic as she remembered the paralyzing pain she felt the last time she lied to Cobra about something… maybe… maybe if she blamed brother toad, he'd punish him instead? She looked at brother toad sleeping, wondering what the correct thing to do would be-
—
Lemmy
She complained once about her hair being hard to wash, and suddenly Maria is cutting her hair with some scissors made from ice… despite the little bat girl's protests, Maria did not let her go and with Bucket's help. The room Maria had rented was covered in lots of silvery and lemon yellow hair as they finally managed to cut Lemmy's hair. The longest strand of hair was roughly chin length, lemon-yellow hair stood out amongst her pale silver locks, a single tuft of hair stood up near the back center of her hair while her bangs were in-between her eyes.
While Lemmy did like the new hair cut, she did not like how itchy it made her after… or how Maria used magic to clean her off, the water she created was ice cold, and the hot wind she used to dry Lemmy off wasn't very effective- though at least she wasn't freezing, and her clothes were cleaned and smelt rather nice.
"Lemmy, I know you dislike this, but we can't get you a professional barber without revealing what you really are." Maria said as she cut her hair
Lemmy thought about this for a while, even after they were done and she was fully dressed. Why was she born a monster… she wanted to talk and meet people like normal, she looked out a window at a nearby family going out to get a meal together, watching as a pair of children ate some food while the parents talked to each other. Lemmy wondered what happened to her parents, she has to have some right? She must have some too, but why was she in the cavern then? And where were they… Maria looked over her and watched along with Lemmy.
Lemmy looked up at her, Maria stared back with a smile before she spoke up. "Hmmm, how about we go out for a meal, I'll be paying for it of course." She said, causing Lemmy to smile happily as she got Maria's hat on and made her cast the Glamor spells on her before excitedly heading outside. Maria struggled a bit to keep up, trying to rush towards her while Bucket silently followed behind them closely.
The three spent the day wandering the city, eating at a restaurant where Lemmy ate a variety of food, yet her favorite was the various fruit based dishes! While Maria preferred more sweet things, yet that was only one of the more interesting things that happened while exploring. They visited the walls and watched massive half-mechanical monsters drag massive metal contraptions with rather long across the top of the walls, similar to Bucket's rifle but bigger, Lemmy watched in curiosity as they loaded a large metal canister that seemingly radiated mana into the device, before suddenly she heard a massive BOOM Ring out before her ears began ringing, then another, far quieter explosion in the distance. "NGH- WHAT WAS THAT?!?" She yelled out in pain as her head felt dizzy from the sudden noise. It took several moments for her to regain her senses, and far longer for the ringing to stop as she tried to get away from the strange machine.
"Are you alright Lemmy? I wasn't aware they installed Ivorat Artillery … then again, the last time I visited here was… I believe it was a decade and a half ago?" Maria said as Lemmy's ears eventually healed.
"What are… whatever you just said?" Lemmy asked, there was still some pain, but she could at least hear her now.
"Ivorat Artillery, they were named after the inventor, well the man who reverse engineered them, they're based on Valboarian artillery which has greater range but less power- er- apologies you didn't ask for a history lesson. It's basically a big firearm, but unlike Bucket's it doesn't fire unstable mana crystals or use them as fuel for the weapon, it instead contains shells full of powdered crystals mixed in with a natural explosive powder harvested from a species of mutated insects. They're there to fend off monsters that try to break into the city." Maria explained, trying to simplify it as much as possible for Lemmy, though she still struggled a bit to understand the concept of it.
But if it's there to attack monsters, they must be good, though would they use it on her if they knew she was a chimera? She never met a monster that could talk, so maybe she could explain that she wasn't evil? "Maria, do people think all Chimera are evil?"
Maria was silent for several moments, before letting out a deep sigh. "Yes, there's two reasons for this." Maria said, hesitant to continue on, but figured Lemmy would continue asking if she didn't. "First was a group of chimera known as the smiling devils, it's rare for groups of chimera to form since… Well they aren't born naturally as the children of them only have a fraction of their parent's power and lack black eyes, though how they come into existence is unknown… Anyways the smiling devils were a group of outlaws that stole, killed and in some cases even ate mortals. Not sure if the eating part is true though, that might just be a rumor-" Maria said, Lemmy had to hide her appearance because… some people like her did horrible things? That didn't seem fair…
"Second are the monster races, I'm only aware of three that reside in the dead lands, like chimera they have black Sclera." She said as the three wandered closer to the center of the city to avoid Lemmy's ears taking damage from the test firing. "The Kakra which are a race of avians that ride giant reptiles, and take joy in causing the suffering of other races. The second are the man eaters, a race of locust-like monsters that avoid mortals except during the Reign of war, which causes them to go into a hunger induced frenzy. And third are the Arzani, which- well, we actually don't know much about them, they're more strange than dangerous, they speak an unknown language, their bodies are almost completely covered, and they can summon strange bat-like monsters out of their bodies to attack their enemies."
Lemmy listened further, she was both scared and intrigued by the various monsters, they could speak and probably think like her… but they choose not to be like her? She wondered why they were evil, maybe they were misunderstood? Or maybe they actually were that evil… Her ears perked up as she heard something rumble in the distance, more explosions? Maybe, but then she saw something that made her temporarily forget about her worries. A massive, colorful tent that had cheering coming from it and dozens of large creatures surrounding it, she pointed at it and spoke up.
"What's that?" She asked, her voice full of excitement and curiosity.
"A circus, do you want to take a closer look?" Maria responded, to which Lemmy nodded happily.