Chapter 84

By a route obscure and lonely,

Haunted by ill angels only,

Where an Eidolon, named Night,

On a black throne reigns upright,

I have wandered home but newly

From this ultimate dim Thule.

Dream-Land, Edgar Allan Poe

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I follow my brown haired daughter towards Cindy and Richard’s place, and start to worry about telling Jeff’s parents that he got killed by a zombie. I tell Citrine and Snow my worries, using my small body, and my golden haired daughter sighs. “You didn’t have anything to do with it, so let me tell them. I’m their granddaughter at least and I haven’t met them yet.” Citrine says, and I guess that makes sense, I wasn’t even his girlfriend. “Okay sweetie, once this is all over I can go with you to meet the Taylors. Oh I bet his uncle is going to be sad.”I say.

I don’t remember seeing him in Liberation, so I ask Sapphire about him, but Jessica answers “Stan and the gnomes started an underground settlement near Ruby’s Rest, they should be fine since it’s difficult to find if you don’t know where to look. It’s also extremely easy to defend against attacks like this one.” Stan seemed really nice, so I hope he doesn’t take Jeff’s death too bad. Jessica continues “We would have made underground camps ourselves, but we found out elves and humans usually have a very hard time living underground. I think it has to do with the lack of trees, but Cindy has told me she thinks it’s the lack of sunlight.” I could do without so many trees sometimes, and I don’t think I need sunlight to survive, so maybe I’ll enjoy a visit to Stan and the gnomes.

I tell Citrine about where her uncle is and she says “Gnome warrens are known to be kind of depressing places to be for most races. If he lives in one as a human, then I can only assume he has a love for mushrooms, or maybe short women.” I still need to make some gnome babies for myself at some point, since they are pretty cute being so small… is that why all my daughters want to hold small me? I guess that makes sense now. Well Citrine thinks that at my current growth it will only take a few days or so to reach full size again. I don’t know how exactly that works, since I’m already half her height, but all she told me is “Growth is just weird mom, I don’t know why it starts off so fast.” Oh well, at least it means I might still be able to throw myself before getting too big.

“I hear zombies coming through the trees.” Snow says, her fluffy ears wiggling. I see some zombies coming out of the woods and immediately try to use Gloaming Call, but it’s blocked. So I guess that it’s probably not going to be a small attack and yell “We’re about to be attacked, everyone get ready!” That way some of the elves nearby will go tell the ones still at the fire pits or in their homes. This is what we had planned earlier, since it wasn’t certain Opal’s Home would even be attacked. I tell Jessica and Sapphire with my other body that I’ll let them know if we end up needing help here.

Once again, I wish I had more bodies. Onyx should be safe as long as Liberation doesn’t get attacked again, but I should get a message if it is.

Ding!

Your Land (Opal’s Home) is under attack by a zombie horde. Defend it, or leave it to it’s fate.

Good luck Player.

Like that one. I guess it didn’t need to tell me this time though, since I’m watching the zombies come out of the woods myself. Dumb trees hiding zombies, I guess they don’t know any better though. I see a big zombie, that looks like it’s just bones step out of the woods. It has a hat made of green fire, or would it be called a crown? I’m not sure what the difference is sometimes with different words, so for now I’ll just say it’s a fire hat. The fire hat zombie, or I guess from the name above it’s head -Lich-, starts waving its hands and zombies start crawling out of the dirt too.

Typical dirt, I never liked it anyways. It makes sense that it would hide zombies from us. I ask Citrine “Can you fly carrying my current body?” I know she can’t fly with my full sized bodies, but I have a super smart plan if she can carry me now. Citrine grabs me and lifts me up, I see her beautiful wings flapping, and sure enough we slowly rise into the air. She laughs happily and says “This is great mom, I can carry you with me places now, maybe I don’t need to find some random man to have babies with.” I answer her with the harsh truth “Well, you can for a few days maybe.”

I feel her slump a little and ask her “Can you carry me really high up and then drop me on that Lich guy, he keeps making zombies, and it sounds like a lot of fun.” She sighs and says “I was worried that’s why you asked if I could carry you. You’re so predictable sometimes mom, but this time I think it might actually work.” She flies us up into the air, and away from the zombies. It’s kind of interesting seeing things from so high up but I ask “Aren’t the zombies the other way?” She responds “They are, but if they saw us flying towards them like that, they’re more likely to dodge when I drop you.” Oh, so since it’s night she’s taking me far enough away for them to not be able to see.

We start getting higher, and then she turns back towards the zombie army. I realize I’m naked and have very white skin so I ask “Will they see me falling and dodge then?” I look up at her and she’s shaking her head “It should be fine as long as you don’t yell on your way down, people don’t really have a habit of looking up unless they hear a noise.” I wonder if zombies count as people, but I’ll trust her, the worst that can happen is we miss the Lich anyways. Even then the fall shouldn’t hurt me much, and I can attack him from there. Probably.

I look down and can see the fire hat pretty far below us, it does give a pretty good target. “Are you ready mom?” Citrine asks, but I remember a skill that might help from my Pack Bitch class and use it.

Fetch: (40 Stamina)

Your body is shifted slightly for 5 seconds to increase the chance of being hit by targeted enemy.

I remember using it with the hounds, since they weren’t the best at… hitting their target, and it could get a bit frustrating with some of them. I’m hoping it will shift my body like it did then, it won’t really be him hitting me though, so we’ll see. “Okay sweetie, I’m ready, wish me luck.” I hear her giggle and she drops me. I look down at the glowing hat, and sure enough, my body shifts a little to the side.

It gets to me a lot faster than I expected and I hear a loud crash sound, while my vision is filled with flying dirt and gross things. I lost some health, but it wasn’t much. I stand up with my little body and check it. No missing parts that I can see, with some cracks on my legs that quickly get healed. Probably by Citrine who lands near me and starts fighting the other zombies. I look down and I’m is a small crater, the lich’s crushed body below and kind of all around me. It’s fire hat is gone. I go to tell Citrine I’m fine, but have to spit out some gross lich piece first, bleh. “I’m fine sweetie, it worked!” I yell, before joining her in killing the other zombies around us.

We are deep in melee when I hear a chime and get a Flatbox that says

Ding!

Innate skill partially resisted Zombie infection

*Race added*

I pause my fighting and check my Status, it’s not like these low tier zombies have been able to hurt me anyways. There I see a new listing that wasn’t there before. Race: Eidolon I didn’t see the screen with my other bodies, but I check their status’s too and don’t see it listed still. Strange, so it’s like how my bodies have separate marriages? I wonder what a race does, so I’ll ask someone later. Hopefully I don’t forget. I probably should have closed my mouth before landing on the fire hat zombie.

“Keep your mouth closed sweetie!” I yell to Citrine, only to have something fly into my mouth from her direction. I spit it out and see that it was a gross looking finger. I think she heard me, so I’ll keep my mouth shut from now on when fighting zombies. With my small body I find it more difficult to reach and smash their heads, so I start jumping at them, boosted by my Angelic Wings skill. It feels like I’m getting more distance with this body, but it’s probably just because of my height.

I land on another zombie that collapses beneath me, right before I crush it’s head with a small fist. I should have used that potion to make my fists bigger, but I forgot. Oh well, I’ll try to remember for next time. I hear Citrine above me say “Mom, I need to recover my mana and stamina a bit. I’ll be back with the daughters who still have Firm here.” I look up and wave to her, not wanting another strange zombie part in my mouth. She flies back to the fort and I continue showering myself in zombie pieces and fluids.

Opal’s body with Sapphire and Jessica

I decide to tell my daughters what happened with getting zombie in my mouth and the race. I wouldn’t want them to make my same mistake after all. Jessica sighs and says “I feel like you enjoy being reckless mom. I’m pretty sure it’s Firm that’s allowing you and my other family members to partially resist the infection. So we’re going to have to keep anyone without it on our back lines, even if they don’t like it.” Sapphire nods and asks “Don’t you not have Firm sis? Are you going to be okay?” Jessica shakes her head and says “I’ll be fine, a passive skill from one of my classes prevents racial changes. All of my 5th tier classes started with a powerful passive skill.”

“I thought it was just a coincidence that both of mine had, but hearing yours did too, then it must just be a 5th tier thing.” Sapphire says, and I nod, remembering the first skill I got in my Mother class. I tell them that mine was the same and Jessica says “We’re almost there, so get ready to fight.” She then has a sword that looks like it’s made out of light in her hand, and we exit the forest.

In front of me I see a brick wall with a hole in it being flooded with zombies. I spot one that looks a lot like the lightning one I ran into at Liberation, and charge towards it. It shoots some of that green lightning at me, but it stops in front of me and I spot a transparent dome flicker around me. The lightning ceases and the dome disappears, but I’m still running and smash into the lightning zombie. I hear some of it’s bones breaking and start Power Attacking it’s head. Out of the corner of my eye I spot a green blob splash off of nothing and Jessica swinging her light sword. I finish smashing this zombies head and turn my head to look. The big spitting zombie’s head is flying and my shadows are starting to cover a lot of the normal zombies. Jessica looks so cool right now, so I run up and fight next to her saying “You looked so cool chopping off that zombie’s head sweetie, mommy is proud of how strong you’ve gotten.” Luckily the zombie guts splash off of that dome around me again, so nothing gets in my mouth.

I see Jessica smile, and it starts raining. That must be Sapphire’s healing skill since I don’t see any clouds, and I hear cheers from the human camp. I look that way and see zombies fighting against other zombies, but some of the zombies seem to be healing from Sapphire’s rain. Those must be from the Necromancer class they were telling me about, I should probably be careful about smashing zombies now I guess. “We took out the leaders so leave the rest to your summons and the necromancers, even I can’t tell the difference in a melee.” Jessica says, putting a hand on my shoulder. I notice the zombies that come at us now are blocked by some barrier, and Sapphire runs up next to us.

“This is really neat sis. I don’t remember you being so strong.” Sapphire says and Jessica wiggles. She got that from me, so it’s cute. She responds “Well I haven’t been slacking off like you Sis, but thank you for the compliment.” I interrupt by saying “Both of you are my strong babies.” I pull them both into a hug and finish by saying “We’re going to be a strong family together with the rest of your sisters.” I then do my own, by default, superior wiggle since I’m happy right now. I worry about my kids sometimes and seeing them so tough seems to make me feel lighter, and it’s nice.

The fighting at Ruby’s Rest has finished, and the fighting here at Safety looks like it’s ended as well. I’m still fighting at Opal’s Home, so my shadows haven’t disappeared yet, and I see darker spots surround the camp. There must be a lot of them by now, so I wonder if I should send them to Opal’s Home, but Jessica says “Cindy is waving us in, let’s see if she knows how the other human settlements are doing.”

I guess the fighting at Opal’s Home isn’t very hard right now, so the other human camps might need them more. I think the one with the fire hat was the only tier 5 near my fort. Probably.