Ravensdagger_Dead_Tired

Chapter One — Rem’s Revenge

Chapter One — Rem’s Revenge Rem jumped across to the roof next to the one she was on, then she ran with only the faintest pitter-patter to the edge of the next roof.The homes here were mostly covered in thick tiles, the better to protect them from the ashfall in winter. They tended to be a little noisy when stepped on though, unless one knew exactly where to put one’s feet. Rem knew, because it was an ambush predator’s duty to know just where to step so as not to be heard.If the maid person was going to take the alleys, then in all likelihood they’d need to exit...Rem found the right place, and with one leg over the edge and her body bent forwards just-so, she waited around the corner. To any onlooker she would look like some sort of cloth-covered addition to the side of the building, maybe something hanging out to dry.It wasn’t the most stealthy position to be in, but the maid would only have an instant to catch her before Rem struck, she could afford to use less-than-ideal camouflage this one time.Footsteps came, clicking lightly on the cobbled ground, and Rem tensed.The maid appeared, face placid and bored under her little white bonnet, basket pressed up against a hip and filled with stuff.Rem hissed as she shot out, legs pushing her down, scythes swinging from the maid’s neck.The maid looked up, and their eyes locked for just a moment before the maid’s arm swung upwards so quickly that even with all five eyes locked on her, Rem couldn’t quite follow the motion.There was a mighty smack, and then Rem felt herself tumbling through the air.Fortunately, the world went dark before she landed.

* * *

Rem woke up in someone’s living room.That someone, and their family, were all gathered in the corners of the room, staring at her.She twitched. Her everything was in an incredible amount of pain. It took a moment for her to recall what had just happened, then she hissed.The humans scattered away with terrified screams while Rem worked herself out of the wreckage of a table. There were bits of roof all around her, busted and cracked from her landing. She felt a little busted and cracked herself.A bit of motion confirmed that everything was where it was meant to be. She hadn’t lost any limbs, at least. Still, everything hurt.“What was that!” Rem spat. That maid had been strong! No one told her the maid would be strong!The maid looked like a maid. Not someone strong. Strong humans wore gaudy robes, with gold and medallions and smelled like incense and sweat. The maid had smelled like soap! Soap wasn’t strong.Rem grumbled and tried to ignore the ache in her back. That’s where it hurt the most. Probably from landing on the roof.She shook her robes to free it from some of the dust that had landed on it, then skittered out of the house before guards could show up and start asking questions.Jumping up, she landed on the roofs again and looked around. The sun didn’t look like it had changed positions much, so it couldn’t have been a long time. The maid was probably still around the same area.Rem wouldn’t be fooled this time. Her last ambush was rushed, and she had made a noise on striking, a beginner's mistake. She could learn from that and do better next time. No one needed to know. No one would know after Rem ate all the witnesses.It was a perfect plan!She found the maid some time later, the woman was talking to another maid-like person carrying a broom and cleaning out the entrance to a large estate near the centre of the city.Rem avoided those places because they often had cultivators and they would get very angry if she distrubed their meditation or whatever. Making them angry didn’t bother her, but some of them were tough, and they were human so Rem wasn’t allowed to eat them unless no one could find out.Moving carefully, Rem predicted that the maid would continue down the same road. She circled around and much to her luck, found a beggar leaning against one wall not too far away and just around a bend in the road.It was a nice spot for an ambush.Rem hissed at the crippled man until he ran away, then shuffled under the stinking pile of rags he was using as bedding. From there, she peaked out one eye from under the covers and watched the road, scythes at the ready.The maid came around, shoes clicking and clacking on the cobbles, same as before.Rem moved her mandibles, acid building up in anticipation of eating the stupid maid once and for all.The maid came closer, and closer and closer...Rem struck, rags flying out of the way and scythed spreading wide to chop down into the maid’s tender tender flesh.She caught a close-up glimpse of the maid’s basket a moment before her face crunched and she blacked out again.

* * *

“Stupid!” Rem screamed as she woke up.The beggar, who had been sneaking up to her, screeched and ran off again.She was still in the same corner. She didn’t go flying this time, which was good, but now her face hurt as if someone had rammed a wicker basket against it really hard, like some sort of oversized fly swatter.Rem spread her arms and made herself big to show just how angry she was. “Stupid maid!”She shook herself, then jumped up to the nearest rooftop again.This time she found the maid inspecting fruit in a crowded little corner of the city. There were a few carts, with baskets and boring humans selling apples or whatever. Rem didn’t care. All she could see was the stupid maid smiling over some fruit and placing some in her stupid basket.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.Rem couldn’t just run up to her. She’d be spotted. She had to find a way to get close.There was a building nearby with a little garden in the back, and a line of clothes drying with a woman placing them there. She jumped over the fence and landed next to the woman who squeaked.“You,” Rem said. “I need to look different.”The woman looked around, confused for a moment, before locking eyes on Rem. “Pardon?”“I need to look different,” Rem said. “To get close to someone.”“To... get close to someone?” the human repeated.She was a very stupid human, Rem figured. “Yes. Here.” Rem sliced the cord off her money pouch and flicked it to the woman who caught it in both hands.“Oh, oh Emperor, that’s a lot of silver.”“Yes yes,” Rem said. It didn’t matter. “Give me your dress.”“Why do you need my dress?” the human asked.Rem didn’t want to have to explain things to the human. She waved her arms around, but that didn’t seem to help any because humans didn’t understand anything. “I have someone I need to get close to. I can’t like this because...” Rem looked for the right words for a moment. “Because these robes are ugly at hiding.”“Oh,” the woman said. “Is it someone important?”“No!”“Important to you?” she guessed.Rem nodded. “Yes, that’s right stupid human.”“Oh, oh my. I have some make-up too, if you want.”“What?”“Boys appreciate it when a girl puts some effort into her looks,” the girl said.Rem didn’t know what the stupid human was talking about. She just needed a disguise, that was all. Although... make up could maybe help. “Do it fast, stupid human!”

* * *

Rem felt strange. The human woman had gotten very excited about dressing Rem up in layers of cloth, which was fine, it hid Rem’s body a lot which was what she wanted. What was less fine was the veil over her face, and the reddish goop slapped onto her cheeks. Mantises didn’t blush.No one looked at her as she stepped through the crowd in her flower-pattern hanfu. The veil clung to the surface of her big eyes in a very annoying way. She looked forward to ripping it off so that she could better bite into the maid.She found her target just off to the side of the fruit carts. The maid was squatting over and rearranging things in her basket when Rem stepped up behind her and struck.The maid turned, reached out and caught Rem’s scythe with a smack.Rem grunted and pushed harder, but it was like getting caught in a stone. “Let go, stupid maid, so that I can kill you!”Rem raised her other scythe and brought it chopping down. She didn’t get dressed up just to miss her chance so soon.The maid caught Rem’s other scythe and then frowned. “You are very rude,” she said. “If Daddy hadn’t told me not to make a big fuss you would be dead by now.”“Stop talking and die already!” Rem said.“No,” the maid said.Rem tilted her head to the side. The voice... “You’re a boy maid!”“I’m a maid maid,” The maid said. Her ears went flat on her head.“You’re a cat!” Rem said. “Humans don’t have ears like that.” Cats were one of Rem’s favourite snacks, right after dogs. “I’m going to eat you! Then I’m going to kill you!”“No,” the maid said. “You’re too weak for anything like that. So please stop bothering me.”Rem struggled in the maid’s grasp, especially when the maid started to spin around in circles so quickly that Rem’s feet rose off the ground. “I’m going to eat you!” Rem screamed as she was flung over the nearest rooftop, her dress unravelling a moment before she crashed through another roof.

* * *

Rem decided that the best thing to do for the moment was take a moment to sit back and think.That was always a good option. Predators like her were meant to take down prey, and sometimes that prey could fight back. Thinking about things, coming up with clever ideas, those were good ways of not dying and ending the day with a stomach full of fresh prey meat.Not today though. Today she ended the day with a stomach empty of maid meat.Rem wiggled her scythes in frustration and hissed at the bright blue sky above, visible through the roughly Rem-shaped hole in the ceiling.She had to come up with better ideas.Asking for help was right out. Her sisters would just betray her.Ambushes hadn’t worked. But there were other sorts of ambushes to try.Maybe she could frame the maid? Eat some dogs and make it look like the maid did it?No, that was foolish.Rem shook her head and, with a shove to the side, pushed herself out of the pile of detritus that had cushioned her fall. She was in a warehouse filled with boxes of stuff that she didn’t really care to inspect. As good a place as any to take a moment to recoup.The maid would be leaving soon, no doubt, which meant that maybe she... he? Would be joining the bone person Rem was also supposed to kill.If the maid was that strong, how strong was the bone person?Rem didn’t like that line of thought. For now, she’d track the maid and find out where they were hiding, then she’d find another way to eat the maid. And the bone person too, maybe.Mostly it was the maid that angered Rem.“I’m going to find out how to eat you,” Rem promised with a hiss.Shifting around, she tossed off her dress, then started to look for a way out.

* * *

Chapter Two — Shelf-ish Shopping

Chapter Two — Shelf-ish Shopping Seven Hills was a small community just on the edge of the territory known as the Flaming Steppes. It was, for all intents and purposes, a trading town.I found it vaguely amusing that some things have remained the same, even after all these years. The way humanity progressed, at least on the level of cities and towns, seemed to have stayed the same.This was, as far as I could tell, once merely a stopping point along the road. A place for travellers to pause and rest. Then soldiers garrisoned here, and they required more infrastructure and attention. And with that, the stop became a little village.Constant traffic, the steady flow of gold, and the need to supply everyone passing by, turned that village into a town, and now it was on the cusp of becoming a city.The same story, repeated once more.I suspect that if whatever resources coming from the north dried up, the city would soon crumble. It didn’t have the air of a place that was able to sustain itself.I ruminated upon all of this while sitting upon a rather comfortable seat at one of the busier intersections. Across from the little table I was sitting at sat the limpet, nose buried in an old tome I’d translated for her about the art of evocation, and between us, some light foods and some teas.Eating wasn’t something an old pile of bones like myself was keen on, but it helped to keep up pretenses. For the moment, anyone looking my way would see a rather well-dressed, but not too well-off merchant, possibly with his daughter or a young assistant.Nothing out of the ordinary in such a place.My goal, for the moment, was two-fold.One, I was seeking out any stories and tales about something I had heard of in passing. Notably a ‘Dread Knight’ or a ‘Dead Knight.’I had a few hypotheses about what that might be, but true discovery was more fulfilling than baseless speculation.Two, I was on the hunt for some of my phylacteries. Not all of them. Leaving some hidden was perfectly fine. Even hiding them from myself was wise. But if the new gods had turned some of my soul containers into tools to increase their own power, then I would have to kindly ask that they return them to me.I sensed that one of these, the items they called the Five Fonts, was in the Flaming Stepps even now.“Limpet,”The girl across from me raised a hand in a ‘one moment’ gesture, then finished the line she was reading. “Yes master?”“Now that we are effectively within the Flaming Stepps, I think it would be a good time to learn about the region, wouldn’t you say?”The limpet patted down her dress, then fished out a bookmark from within and carefully slid it between the pages of her book before closing it. “The Flaming Steps... I hear that there are actually parts of the steppes to the north that are constantly on fire. The ground is cracked and filled with boiling earth, but that’s mostly where the undead reside, so no one goes there. Other than that, the steppes are known as one of the most dangerous areas in the Empire.”“It’s considered dangerous after taking into account the undead and what seems to be the presence of some volcanic activity?” I asked.The limpet nodded. “The area is filled with beast-people. Dangerous ones that will try to eat travellers. The cultivators from this region, from the four sects here, are all considered kinda crazy. But they’re also really strong.”“I can imagine,” I said. “Constant practice does lead to increased strength.”The limpet made an agreeing sound as she took a sip from her tea. “I guess so. None of them wanted me though. They said I was too skinny and weak.”“I see. Is there a place here where the local gods gather?”The limpet tapped her chin. “I don’t know? Maybe?”“Not knowing is fine,” I said. Pulling a silver coin from my pocket, I placed it atop the table as I stood. “I do believe it’s time we do a little bit of investigating ourselves.”“Will Alex be able to find us?”“Alex will be fine, I’m certain.” I gestured deeper into the little city, and the limpet hopped to it, following along as I took a leisurely walk towards the markets.“So where are we going?” the limpet asked.“Most cities of this size will have a library, or at least a shop that sells books,” I said. I snapped my fingers and pointed to a likely suspect. A smaller storefront, not too gaudy and very discrete. The sign above the door read ‘The Word Playce.’ “Like that one.”“I’ve been to a lot of bookstores,” the limpet said. “I don’t think I ever found anything with information as good as the books you already have. I mean... they don’t have that much, but they’re, I guess laid out? In a way that’s easy to understand.”“There’s a certain gift to writing guides,” I said. “It’s important to present the information you want to teach someone, but it’s more important to lead that person towards that information in a way that they’ll understand.”“Um,” the limpet said. “I think I understood that?”I chuckled. “I could give you something like this,” I said as I tugged a book out from my breast pocket. It was a simple thing, old well-worn leather, with silver-gilded letters across its spine.”“What’s that?” the limpet asked.“One of my spellbooks,” I said. “Twenty-two variations on the Apocalypse spell, each able to exterminate all life and occasionally unlife on this fair planet.’“Um.”“The details are quite precisely laid out. Unfortunately, without instruction beyond the recipe, I doubt you could actually cast anything from this book. It’s filled with raw information, not guidance.” I slid my book away. We’d reached the front door of the shop and I opened it to allow the limpet in first.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.She bowed then scampered in.I followed.There was a certain feel to bookstores that I enjoyed on a purely emotional level. They tended to be quiet places, where knowledge, or at least the receptacle of knowledge, were cherished and loved.The shops from back in my day, that held scrolls and magical tomes, tended to give off that impression in the weave itself. I didn’t feel that now, but... I supposed it was a certain level of nostalgia that I felt.“Hello,” said the gentleman behind the counter at the far end of the room. “Welcome to my humble shop, great customer. How may I assist you?”“We’re looking for books,” I said.“I may have seen some,” the man said. “You seem like the sort of person that took one look at my shop and booked it over.”I grinned. “The building interested me. It’s not every day you see one with so many stories.”“Glad you came over then,” the man replied. “And with such good timing. Sometimes we have too many people over and become overbooked.”“Even with all this shelf space?”“Indeed. Lots of customers at times. It can be stressful. Perhaps I ought to treat my shelf.”I nodded. “Perhaps you should open a library instead? It would be better for your circulation.”“Master,” the limpet said. She sounded as though she was in some degree of pain. “Please stop.”“Oh hohoho!” I cackled. “I think I can stop. We were just prefacing our business. I hope I wasn’t being too forward?”“Nonsense,” the gentleman said. “It was a perfectly warm welcome, which is handy, this place has a few drafts.”“Master!” the limpet whined.I patted the limpet’s head. “Do forgive her, she doesn’t have a mind for humour. I was looking for books on the Flaming Stepps.”“All of my books are on the Flaming Stepps,” the man said. He seemed appropriately proud of that one.“Oh hoho! Indeed. Do you have anything on the local gods?”“Only some gossip and a few tomes,” he said.“I’m glad we’re on the same page. I’ll take both.”The limpet moved out from under my hand and shuffled to the corner, hands over her ears.The shopkeeper stood up and waved me over. “We do actually have a few books that touch on the subject of our local deities. None of them are strictly about them though.” He moved towards one shelf in particular and tugged a book off. “This is an accounts of a general in the army to subjugate the region. It’s a great historical text from the point of view of a very methodical cultivator. Not much in it about the general’s secrets about his power, but there are detailed retellings of meetings with some of the gods that inhabit the region.”“Interesting,” I said as I took the book. It was leather-bound and surprisingly thick. “I assume that’s not all it’s about?”“No. There are some tales about battles and troop movements. Some praise for officers and nobles that participated in the subjugation. It’s why the book was reprinted so often, a lot of noble clans can trace their ancestry back to the people mentioned here.”“Propaganda?” I asked,“Plenty, though not much on the subject of the gods.”I tucked the book under my arm. “Anything else?”“A few odds and ends,” he said as he moved to the front of the shop and opened a chest. There were stacks of scrolls within and he picked one from the lot. “This is a detailed map of the region. It should help. There are some locations marked on there that have the temples to some of the local deities. Some are a little more secluded, I’m afraid.”“I’m mostly looking for the more powerful ones,” I said.“Then you’ll probably want to visit the Ashen Forest. It’s a large temple just to the north. The sect there is relatively polite.”I thanked him, but was interrupted as the door to the shop opened and Alex stepped in. “Thank you,” I said as I fished out a couple of gold coins. “I’ll keep on perusing things for a while. Give me a moment?”The man nodded, eyes widening just a little as the book and scroll he’d given me both fit into my jacket’s too-small pocket. The widening increased as he inspected the coins. “Certainly, honourable customer.”Alex waited quite patiently until the shopkeeper moved back before joining me. “Hello Daddy,” he said.“Hello Alex. Did you find everything you needed?”“Not yet,” my butler admitted. “I found a place where we can stay, and a few of the supplies we’ll need. I came back sooner because I will need to start preparing lunch for the limpet, and I was ambushed three times.”“Oh? What do you plan on making?”“They have a sort of chicken here that’s very small and delicate. I think I’ll make a chicken kiev with some of the local herbs. They seem a little bitter, but they also have a sort of lemon that grows nearby that is very strong. I think the contrasting flavours will be nice.”I hummed in agreement as I scanned the books. “And the ambushes?”“Oh. I was attacked by some sort of mantis person.”“A... mantis person?” I asked. That was curious.“Yes. She was green, with long scythes for forelimbs. Fairly strong. I didn’t kill her, since Daddy told me to be subtle.”“I see. If she attacks you again, do capture her. It might be interesting to see something so strange.”Alex nodded. “Of course. Are we going to be staying here for long?”“A day or so,” I said. “We’re not in any hurry, are we?”