Ch 1.24: Parley

Elaina gripped at the arm pressing her into the wall, gasping for breath as Carline shouted out her name. The pain was crushing, but Elaina’s awareness of that was fading, vision going black, mind growing cloudy.

She fell to the ground, clutching at her throat as the woman that had pinned her stepped away. “Sorry about that. I didn’t realize how fragile your kind was.”

“You almost killed her!” Carline screamed, running over and placing her free hand on Elaina’s throat. Relief flooded through her as she could breathe again, windpipe becoming uncrushed.

“Ah, so it is some form of healing aspect,” the woman said. “I was wondering if it was that or an item that allowed her to heal from my slash so quickly, but it seems keeping at least one of you alive was the right choice, for now.” She walked back over to the System, this version of her anyway, and placed her claws on it again, causing another disjointed cry to ring out through the room.

“Hey,” Elaina choked out, climbing to her feet. “You wanted to talk right? Let’s talk, and maybe we can make a deal.”

The woman smirked, looking down at Elaina, not taking her hand off the orb. “A deal, you say? I think you may have misunderstood what I was offering. I wasn’t planning on offering you anything more than your lives, and even that depends on what you can offer in exchange.”

Good. Elaina knew there wasn’t any hope of a real deal with this thing. She had to stall, hope Carline could recover enough mana to do something, hope one of them could think of a plan, hope the thing in front of them made some fatal mistake. “Knowledge. We have knowledge.”

“Everyone has some knowledge, deary. The question is whether or not it’s worth anything. But go ahead, convince me.” She ran her claws down the System, a horrifying, harmonized screech coming from both the nails themselves and the System’s voice.

Elaina needed something. She looked at Carline, herself deep in thought, but obviously coming up with nothing as well. Anything would do right now. An exaggeration, a lie even. A truth?

“I’m the System Administrator!”

The woman’s eyes flicked over to Elaina again. She didn’t take her hand off the orb, but the red lightning coursing into the System stopped, along with the screaming. “You lie.”

“It’s true!”

“Prove it.”

Elaina glanced back to Carline, who was wide-eyed, mouthing “no” again. Elaina stood up and walked up to the pedestal.

“System, who am I?”

“Sys—” The System’s voice cut out, and for a moment Elaina almost thought she could hear panting. “System Administrator Elaina Weaver: Level 1 Masochist Mage.”

The woman smiled. “Very, very interesting.” She took her hand off the crystal and walked up to Elaina, placing a clawed finger under the girl’s chin, raising it up and then running the sharp point under it. Elaina felt a trickle of blood and moaned from the activation of [Pain Response]. At least, that was all she was willing to admit the moan was for. “Have it identify her too.”

Elaina gulped, knowing she was only one wrong move from death. She’d seen the speed this person moved at, felt her strength. It would be effortless for her to puncture Elaina’s throat at any second. “System, ah, identify Carline.”

“System User Carline Forsythe: Level 1 Voyeur Vitalist.”

“Oh, that’s cute,” the woman said, giggling. “Two little perverts ending up in a party together. Tell me, how did that happen?”

Elaina wanted to ensure the System’s safety too, but that had to be secondary right now. They couldn’t save her if they were dead, after all. No, she had to be conservative. “Promise me you’ll let us live.”

The women frowned, pressing her nail deeper into Elaina’s jaw and causing her to scream out in pain. “What I will promise you is that I can still end your life anytime I please. Do not tell me what to do again, or next time I’ll take my blades to the one of you that can’t be healed. Understand?”

“Yes, yes!” Elaina said, feeling the nail pull away as she did.

“Go on, heal her,” the woman said, walking back and sitting on top of the pedestal, on top of the orb. Her balance was uncanny.

Carline did as she was told, rushing over to heal Elaina’s throat for the second time. “Elaina,” she whispered, “we have to get out of here.”

“I can still hear that, you know. You’re not going anywhere without my say-so.”

Okay, new plan. Once she could figure one out, anyway. She was glad she hadn’t pressed for the System’s security as well in her demands, at least. “How about we give you some different crystals? There are plenty here, in the dungeon.”

“Funny, but you know I’m not interested in those tiny fragments. I’m here for the core.”

Elaina really wished she knew as much as the woman assumed she did. “Okay, well, I’ll tell you anything you want. Just— just as soon as I know what that is.”

“That’s more like it. Now, how did a level one become System Administrator?”

Elaina bit her lip. She still needed to stall, but she had to conserve as much information as possible. And there was no way she could mention the school. “I found one of these, the crystal cores. In a cave, in the forest.”

“What forest? Where?”

“Near my home, a— a village in the mountains called Hearthstead.”

Elaina had never been good at lying, but somehow she was keeping surprisingly calm. Her heart wasn’t racing, her breathing wasn’t heavy, her eye wasn’t twitching. Carline! She still had her hands on Elaina’s neck, and was staring with fierce eyes. Was she using [Health] to cover up the bluff? She might actually get away with the lie then. Just hope there isn’t actually a mountain village called Hearthstead.

“Hmmm. I take it the System mentioned it had been dormant for some time? Tell me how long.”

Damnit. Elaina had hoped to hide the dormancy, hide as much as possible, but there was no use lying over something the woman had already figured out. Still, she didn’t have to give everything away.

“Five hundred years, give or take. Five hundred and seventeen, maybe?”

“Hmmm. I don’t know the conversion rate of our celestial cycles off the top of my head. Oh well. Are there any more corrupted cores you know of?”

“Uhm, I’m not sure what a corrupted core is. Compared to a normal one, I mean.”

“They’re the blue ones, ones that your kind can attune with. Hmmm. You really are clueless, aren’t you?”

Elaina bowed her head, trying to put forth the idea that she was ashamed of her ignorance. It wasn’t hard to do, since it was half true anyway.

The woman jumped off the pedestal, gliding to the ground rather than falling. “You’ve piqued my interest. I’ll test you now.”

“Test us?”

“Yes. We’ll fight, the two of you versus me. I won’t use any of my aspects, skills, or items, though you two are free to use anything at your disposal.”

“Huh? What’s the catch?”

“No catch. There’s no hope of you actually killing me regardless, but if you impress me enough, I’ll let you two live. I need some replacement pets anyway, to make up for my lost starhounds.”

The emphasis on pets wasn’t lost on Elaina. There was a morbid curiosity over what exactly that meant, but Elaina still wasn’t too keen on finding out. Is this really it, our only options death or servitude?

“Can we have a few minutes?” Carline asked. She was stone faced, but her breathing was heavy. “To test us properly, I would need a full mana pool.”

The woman smiled. “I suppose that’s fair. How long would your kind need?”

“Uhm, twenty minutes?”

“Fine. I’m not really sure how long that is in your units though, so if I get bored I’m just going to start. I’ll give you a warning first.”

Not exactly a firm answer, but it was better than nothing. Carline grabbed Elaina’s arm and pulled her over to the side of the room.

“Thanks,” Elaina said. “For buying us time.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Carline muttered, glancing back at the woman. She was watching the two of them with hungry eyes. “We can’t really do much planning, since she can probably still hear us.”

“Correct,” the woman said. “It would be inadvisable to try and hatch some secret plot.”

“But it’s better we have some strategy,” Carline continued, “even if she’s privy to it.”

“Yeah,” Elaina said, thinking.

“Remember what you did to Waine, at the end of your duel?”

To Waine? Right! They couldn’t discuss tactics completely openly, but the woman wouldn’t know what they meant if they didn’t say it outright. “Okay, I get you. And you?”

Carline’s eye shifted to her spear tip. “I’ll need you to pull off your job so I can make it happen.”

“Got it,” Elaina said. There was one more thing though, one final piece of information that she needed to get across to Carline without tipping off the woman. “Hey, you remember what Waine said before our duel? To Calivahn?”

Carline thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, but Calivahn’s not here right now, is she?”

“No,” Elaina said, shaking her head and smiling. She’d gotten it across, she hoped. Waine had wanted a duel with real blades, a duel where death was a real possibility. They needed to treat this fight like that, to go for the kill before the strange woman used her aspects or skills. Gods, she did say aspects, didn’t she? Plural. The System had mentioned it was possible, but Elaina still had a hard time believing it. And they were about to fight someone, something from another world, with multiple of them. Two first-year students, on their first day of class. She couldn’t help but laugh as Carline stared at her with confused eyes.

“Sorry, just can't believe this is happening on our first day.”

And then they waited. After a few minutes of silence, the woman cleared her throat. “Time’s up.”

“Carline stood up, holding her hands out. “Can we have a couple more minutes? I’m only a little over half full.”

“No. If you had to use so much to heal such minor wounds, that will just have to be working against you in your little test.”

“Wait,” Elaina said, fully aware she was treading dangerous waters by giving a direct command. She needed to stall a little bit longer though; every sliver of Carline’s mana counted. “My name’s Elaina.”

“Hmph. You seem to think I care. If you survive, I will give you whatever name I see fit, dog.”

“But we don’t even know your name! Shouldn’t we know, uhm, the name of our future mistress? Potential future mistress?”

“Hmmm. I suppose so. I am Myriala of the Red Order.” She raised an arm and pointed at Elaina. “Whether you receive servitude or death, you should consider it an honor to be granted it by my hand.”