My Best Friend is an Eldritch Horror - Chapter 272 (Patreon)

He stepped toward the door, raising a hand to grab the handle. Before he could, it swung open to reveal Whisp, her hair frazzled and a large cup of red wine in her hand. She glared at him, then sighed.

“My favorite two students. I don’t suppose you’re here to sample wine?”

“Afraid not,” Damien said. “I see you’re doing well, dean.”

“Don’t get snarky with me. Come in, so I can get rid of you faster.”

Damien and Sylph walked into the room and Whisp flicked a hand, slamming it shut behind them. The room had a small wooden table with four chairs arranged around it. Bottles of wine were piled on top of it, only around half of them unopened.

“So? What do you want?” Whisp asked, flopping down into her chair and leaning back to kick her legs up on the table. She took a long drink from her cup, nearly draining the entire thing. “I was enjoying the peace and quiet while you were gone. Has the transfer ended already?”

“We decided we’d learned everything we were going to,” Sylph said. “So we came back early.”

“Since when do students decide when they know everything there is to know? I’m pretty sure that was the teacher’s job,” Whisp said, narrowing her eyes.

“My professor agreed with me,” Damien said with a shrug.

“And mine said the class had taught me everything it was going to,” Sylph added. “There was no point staying at Kingsfront any longer.”

“Lovely. The only two students that actually like Blackmist,” Whisp said. She grabbed another bottle of wine and refilled her drink. Damien was pretty sure it was a completely different type than the one that still currently filled around a quarter of her cup, but he didn’t comment on it.

“A lot of people like Blackmist,” Damien said. “And, especially after going to Mountain Hall, I think it’s a pretty good school. Most of the time.”

Whisp grunted. “Sure. So, why’d you come bother me? I speak with Delph, you know. I’m well aware how wrapped up both of you are with the Corruption, even if he won’t tell me why. Considering the situation we’re all in, it’s not like I’m going to really care what you’re doing. So why report back to me?”

Damien cleared his throat. “Ah… I had a question.”

Whisp took a sip of her wine. She set the cup down on the table and shifted to sit properly in her chair before leaning forward. “You want something.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

“Did you kill anyone?”

“No. Why does everyone always assume I’ve done something terrible?”

“Because you’re a menace,” Whisp replied. “And we both know it. We don’t need to have this conversation again – I don’t care. Jayce was a waste of space and got what he had coming. I’m not holding it over you, and nobody’s going to look into it. I’ve taken care of that situation, so there’s no reason to pussyfoot around it.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Damien said, keeping his face expressionless.

“Sure you don’t.” Whisp rubbed her forehead and sighed. “Just tell me what you did and what you need.”

“When I was at Mountain Hall, I defeated some of their students in a fight. Because of my actions, one of them was removed from the school. She’s shown to be more capable than Mountain Hall believed, but she needs a new Mage College. I was hoping she could come here.”

“You nabbed a student from those pricks?” Whisp burst into laughter. “Done, if only to piss their dean off. Oh man, I can’t wait to see the look on his face.”

“Two students,” Damien corrected. “I also freed one from a brick of crystal. She’s bound to a Deathwight, but it seems to be a decent companion, all things considered.”

“A Deathwight? Curious. She’s got it under control?”

“As far as we can tell. It’s Quinlan’s sister,” Damien said. “Quinlan is–”

“I know who the top student at Mountain Hall is,” Whisp interrupted. “You stole her sister?”

“I wouldn’t exactly put it that way. We’re friends.”

“Close enough,” Whisp said, rolling her eyes. “Don’t care about the reason. I can get two students added to Blackmist with no difficulty. Particularly if they’ve been stolen out from Mountain Hall’s nose. Is that all?”

“Uh… oh, Kat is probably coming to Blackmist as well,” Damien said.

Whisp paused. “Who?”

“Kat. She’s an instructor at Mountain Hall. She’s looking for Delph,” Damien explained. “I think she probably sent in the paperwork or something to get a temporary transfer over here. I don’t know how that part works.”

“Shit,” Whisp said. “That’s probably not good, but I’m going to pretend like it’s not my problem. I don’t read the paperwork. I’ve got people that do that for me, and I’m sure one of those idiot paper-pushers have already okayed it. Oh well.”

“Do you know her?” Sylph asked. “Should we be worried?”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Whisp said, waving her hand dismissively and draining her cup of wine. “Have you broken anything or otherwise somehow dragged us into any other problems?”

“Nothing I can think of right now,” Damien said.

“Maybe there really are gods,” Whisp said. “Then get lost. I haven’t finished my lunch.”

Damien and Sylph glanced at the pile of bottles on the table.

“That can’t be healthy,” Sylph said.

“If I wanted your opinion, I would have asked,” Whisp said. “Leave.”

They left. The waiter gave them a wide-eyed stair as they walked out of the Rusty Cauldron, but he didn’t say anything. Damien got the feeling that Whisp probably paid them pretty well to keep silent about, well, everything.

“Man, she’s going to start putting up signs in her bedroom pretty soon,” Henry said, emerging from Damien’s shadow to float by his shoulders. “Pretty wooden ones with swirly handwriting.”

“Where did you even see any of those?” Damien asked.

“Your mom had one in her wine cupboard.”

“Ah,” Damien said, shaking his head. After a quick, wordless communication, they set off toward their room at the top of the mountain. “Oh well. At least this went a lot better than I thought. I fully expected to have to argue with Whisp in favor of letting them in.”

“I guess she just likes pissing off the other schools even more than she dislikes doing any actual work.” Sylph laughed. “I wonder if Quinlan will join us as well.”

“It’s possible, but I’ll let her figure that out. She’s basically graduated,” Damien said. “I’m sure Blackmist would find a spot for her somewhere if she wanted. And to be honest, the more power we have in our corner, the better. The Corruption has been still for too long.”

Sylph’s grin faded and she nodded. “Yeah. I thought so. I assume Delph and Dredd have still been hunting it, but I don’t think Second is going to just let us get away with training constantly.”

“Probably not,” Damien agreed grimly. They reached their room a short while later and they headed inside. He’d expected it smell stale but, because the door didn’t seal very well with the rocky ground, the air was surprisingly fresh.

Can’t complain, I guess. Hidden benefit.

“Don’t pass your shitty door installation job off as you planned anything,” Henry said, prodding him with a tentacle.

“Hey, always look on the brighter side of life,” Damien said with a shrug.

“Who said that? Sounds like a quote,” Henry said.

“I – I’m not sure. Can’t remember,” Damien replied after a moment of digging through his head. “It did feel like a quote, though. Maybe I’m just a fountain of meaningful and inspirational knowledge.”

Henry didn’t even grace that with a response. He just snorted and slipped back into his shadow.

“Don’t look at me,” Sylph said when Damien turned toward her. “You’re good at a lot of things. I don’t think you’re getting any invites to noble parties for your speech-making abilities anytime soon, though.”

Damien grunted and sat down on his bed. It wasn’t nearly as comfortable as the ones in Mountain Hall or Kingsfront, but it felt right. Sylph sat down next to him.

“How long do you think we’ll have?”

“Until the Corruption does something?” Damien asked.

Sylph nodded.

“I don’t know. I wish I did. The Void and the Corruption just don’t work at the speed we do. Years don’t matter as much to them as they do to us. I’m hoping we’ll run into Delph soon and he’ll have figured something out. Either him or Mel. Considering everything they’ve done to get this far, they better.”

Sylph nodded, her eyebrows tightening in anger. “I still can’t believe he lied to us like that. He’s got a lot to make up for.”

Damien nodded. “Yeah. Knowing him, though, he’s probably waiting for the most inopportune moment to pop back out and–”

He trailed off and stared at the door. Sylph followed his gaze.

“He’s waiting outside, isn’t he?” Damien asked.

“Almost certainly,” Sylph said. They rose back to their feet and Damien pushed the door open.

Delph cocked an eyebrow. “Well, shit. I’ve been found out.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Damien said. “Were you really just going to be waiting out here to barge in? Or were you planning on dropping off another one of your papers?”

“I was hoping I could burst in at a worse time,” Delph replied, rubbing his stubble-covered chin. “This really does take away a lot of my dramatic effect, you know. I work very hard to keep it up.”

“Then you should hide your presence better,” Sylph said. “We knew you were here.”

“Actually, I mostly guessed. It just seemed like a very Delph-like thing to do,” Damien said.

“That actually hurts more than knowing I was spotted,” Delph said, pursing his lips. “Oh well. That’s ruined, so we might as well move on with it. Have you seen any movement from the Corruption?”

“Nothing on my end,” Damien replied, crossing his arms and leaning against the mountain wall. “But I did have to fight with It Who Stills the Seas who – if I recall correctly – you released.”

Delph grunted. “Oops. You won, though. That’s all that matters.”

“I wasn’t fighting the real thing. It was just a very jumped up spell,” Damien said. “They Void isn’t sitting around, Delph. I doubt the Corruption is either. We were both hoping you’d have some information.”

“I do, but nothing good. Dredd and I have recruited several other mages and we’ve been hunting the Corruption whenever it shows up, but it feels like there’s no end to them. On top of that, I’m pretty sure he’s got at least one Corruption Seed that’s about to evolve.”

“Shit,” Damien said. “Actually, I don’t really know what that entails. It sounds bad, though. When a Seed evolves, is it like our cores evolving?”

Delph’s cloak unraveled from his shoulders, taking on a small humanoid form as Havel cleared his throat and put on a pair of gray spectacles – ones made out of the same material as the rest of him.

“Worse. The Seed needs to consume an enormous amount of power to evolve. Very rarely have they ever evolved in previous Cycles. The Void always ends things before they can. But, when they do, they can rival Void creatures in power.”

“Of course they can,” Damien said wearily. “Why wouldn’t they be able to?”

“How do you know it’s about to evolve?” Sylph asked. “And if you know this, why haven’t we gone out to kill it?”

“We know because of me,” Havel said, tapping himself on the chest. “I compared the Seed’s strength to the Seed that evolved many Cycles ago. It’s about eighty percent of the way there, so I imagine evolution could happen any time in the near future. Probably within a few months.”

“Do we know where it is? Sylph is right,” Damien said. “We should take care of it before it evolves.”

“That’s the problem,” Delph said. Havel melted back into a cloak and wrapped around him, returning to his normal position around the Professor’s shoulders. “The Seed popped out of a portal near Blackmist a few weeks ago. Dredd and I felt it, so we went to fight the thing and nearly won, but it escaped to a snowy landscape – I believe it’s hiding in the Void. We can’t follow it there.”

“Damn,” Damien concluded, his lips pressing thin. “It could be anywhere, then. If I knew where, I could probably chase after it. Actually, if I have enough time, I could probably track it down.”

“That’s what we were hoping,” Delph said. “You’re the only one that can both enter and leave the Void. The only human, anyway.”

He reached into a pocket and pulled out a leather pouch, handing it to Damien. He opened it to find several rocks.

“Parts of the Seed?” Damien guessed.

“Yup. They might help you track the stupid thing down,” Delph said. “When you do, make sure you don’t go after it alone. Dredd and I will go with you.”

“As will I,” Sylph said.

Delph nodded. “Sylph too.”

“I’ll do what I can.” Damien closed the bag and tucked it into his belt. “But I don’t have any Void tracking spells right now. It might take me a little while to adapt one properly.”

“Like Havel said, we’ve probably got at least a month,” Delph said. “You think you can do it by then?”

“Yeah,” Damien replied. “I can do that. But I’ve got a more important question, Professor.”

“Oh?”

“I didn’t think about this until just now,” Damien said, his eyes narrow. “But this just struck me. Havel knew what we were trying to do this entire time. He knew the truth about the Void creatures and me. So – how come he let you free It Who Stills the Seas without warning you about it?”