COMPASS OF TRUE LOVE - CHAPTER 39

Chapter 39: Mother Mother

-Marion-

When I woke up, I was wrapped up in the warm embrace of Lorelei. One of her hands was resting on my waist, while her other arm was propping up my head. I enjoyed the warmth for a while until Lorelei noticed my stirring.

“Morning sleepyhead,” she whispered before planting a soft kiss on my forehead.

It was unfair, really, making me a blushing mess this early in the day. Not that I wanted her to stop. Gods, anything but that, actually.

“Morning, Lolo,” I mumbled back, a mess of hair covering half my face.

Lorelei giggled and gently moved away some of the out-of-place strands.

“I want to wake up like this every night,” I whispered, teasing another one of those beautiful giggles out of my princess.

She slowly shifted upright and sighed. “The kids are already out and about, exploring the city.” She noticed my frown immediately. “Don’t worry! Kamir’s with them, he’ll make sure they’re safe.”

“Okay… still. Who knows what’s lurking around in this place. Kamir can only do so much…”

She kissed me on the forehead again. “You’re right, you’re right. Let’s go and find them… Then get out of this place.”

We both extracted ourselves from the bed – reluctantly, in my case – and started searching the city for the rest of our party. Usually, it wouldn’t be any trouble finding them. My magic sight had long since attuned to the powerful magic surrounding Liana at all times, but the magic disrupting runes were still very much active, so we had to do it the usual way: Calling out their names loudly.

From the moment we’d left the safety of our sleeping quarters, I felt a discomfort. Almost as if passing through an invisible barrier, the body started to tense up. My hairs stood up, my eyes darted around faster than usual. It was a familiar discomfort, although one I didn’t feel often: I felt watched. A constant gaze fixed on me from somewhere; at least that was what I was feeling. It gave me all the more reason to find the kids quickly. I wanted – no, needed – to leave this place behind as fast as possible.

Thankfully, it only took a few minutes until we heard Kamir’s howls responding to our calls. Shortly after we found the two teens chasing one another around a large fountain. Kamir sat off to the side, watching over them protectively.

Liana quickly spotted us and ran over to hug me, slinging her arms around my waist. “Are we leaving?”

“Do you not want to?” I asked, gently patting her head. Not that I would allow us to stay longer if she did, but I still wanted to talk to her about it, at least.

“No, no! I definitely want to leave; this place has some super creepy corners! There’s a mine entrance that way that goes down so super deep… I dropped down a rock and I never even heard it clatter!”

“That is very scary. I think we should leave as well. I have a feeling this place is not nearly as abandoned as it looks and the longer, we stay the more likely it is something comes for us.”

Liana nodded along sagely. “If something comes after us, you and Lorelei can easily defeat it, though. You defeated that water demon, no one can stop you!”

As much as I appreciated the enthusiasm, it wasn’t quite right. “We ran away from the maw demon, we didn’t defeat it, Liana. Which is why we’re going to be very careful about where we’re going from now on!”

Liana looked up at me confusedly.

“What I mean is, going off to explore a creepy abandoned city isn’t a careful thing to do, even if Lorelei says that it’s okay. I was very worried for the two of you, you know?”

Liana nodded again, slowly this time. “Sorry Marion for worrying you. I-It wasn’t smart of us… We just wanted to do something with just the two of us… that’s all,” she explained solemnly.

I patted her on the head again. “And that is completely okay to do. You have so much to catch up on, I know. But there will be plenty of time for the two of you to get to know each other better when we’re in a safer space. Can you wait with the running off until then?”

The little princess looked at me for a while, pondering, then she sighed and replied, “Okay, yeah. We can wait… We’ll be in a safe space soon, right?”

I smiled gently. “Yes, definitely soon. We’ll be in Rizishma in a few days and I’ve heard it is one of the safest places in the Realms.”

With that, Liana happily danced away, back to Rosie and the five of us began to make our way out of the underground city. All the way, the intense feeling crawling over me became stronger and stronger. I started eyeing each and every nook and cranny suspiciously and my hand was gripping the hilt of the sword on my side tightly.

Only when we entered the large entrance hall, where the morning sun illuminated the ancient stones and each shadow was long an ominous looking, did the feeling suddenly disappear. Gone, in an instant, almost as if I’d passed another invisible barrier.

I released a sigh of relief, only to notice Lorelei tense up in my stead.

“Everyone, stop,” she whispered sharply. All of us came to a halt and Liana and Rosie looked around in confusion. “Someone’s here,” Lorelei warned.

My eyes darted around again as well, judging every single shadow in the hall. Then I saw it. A shadow that didn’t belong. It was well hidden, right next to the one of one of the pillars, but still, the outstretched darkness didn’t match with the façade. Something was hiding there. And despite seeing nothing, I felt the moment we locked eyes and it knew that I knew it was there.

“Lorelei,” I whispered and saw in the corner of my eyes how her gaze followed mine towards the invisible source of the unnatural shadow.

“Got it,” she whispered back. “Stay here, keep close to the kids.”

Then she stalked towards our opponent, unsheathing her blade on the way.

Within a blink-second, the shadow-owner lunged at Lorelei. There was a flash of steel and a loud clang as Lorelei parried the other’s blade. The air warped slightly and a humanoid shape became visible where the source of she shadow should be.

The shape lunged again, two daggers flashed forward. Lorelei parried the first and side-stepped the second, but the shape didn’t relent. It disappeared and reappeared behind the elven princess with an unfathomable speed, daggers striking right at Lorelei’s unguarded neck.

“LOLO LOOK OUT!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, throwing my hands forward to do anything, but the runes still supressed my magic with a merciless force. Frustrated, I suddenly remembered my crossbow. I slung it out, nocked a bolt and waited for my moment.

Lorelei had spun around, barely managing to avoid the vicious steel of the shape. It used the lapse in her guard immediately and a mass of purplish energy shot from its hands, accompanied by an enchantingly beautiful voice. It spoke, I realized shockingly. Magic words, sure, but still, the shape could speak.

Then I realized the even bigger revelation. The shape could cast magic. Why wasn’t it supressed? What the hell were those runes good for if they couldn’t stop an actual thread?!

Lorelei couldn’t avoid this strike, for once. The purplish energy zapped towards her like a lightning bolt and tore through her. She was knocked back, her body was smoking and she was coughing heavily. Tears were starting to form in my eyes.

The shape was just a few metres away from Lorelei, but it would be the furthest away from her for a while. And for this one moment, it didn’t move. It felt… almost smug about it. Having overwhelmed its opponent. But it was a mistake. It stood still and I fired.

The bolt zipped through the air, right towards the shape and it still didn’t move. Then, just as the bolt was about to impact, it simply burned away to ash. Steel tip and all.

The shape turned towards me, grinning triumphantly.

I gulped.

I was fucked without my magic and now its attention was on me – no – on us. I’d endangered the kids, just because I couldn’t stand watching Lolo fight and not do anything to help. But it was wrong, nonetheless. The kids took precedent and I’d failed them.

The shape lunged at me, crossing half the hall in but a moment. I sudden force impacted me, wrapping its hands around my neck, its contorted face right in front of me, gazing deep into my eyes.

Its lips began to move. “Cute toy, Lolo,” the melodic, beautiful voice of the shape spoke.

What the fuck? Did it just call Lorelei ‘Lolo’?

The elven princess rose up in the background. “Fuck off.”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s good to see you, too!” the shape answered, letting go of my neck and turning back towards Lorelei. “Especially after getting to kick your butt. It’s not often I get to kick you into the dirt, but I enjoy it all the more for it.”

“Bitch, you only won because you’ve got magic. How are you even able to cast, anyways?” Lorelei snapped, walking back over to us.

The shape slowly shifted, the blurry parts becoming sharp, colour filling in. More and more, the shape turned into a woman. An elven woman, just slightly smaller than Lorelei. Her eyes were completely black, not a speck of white or any colour of iris visible. She had dark red lips, skin as pale as Lorelei’s and short blackish-blue hair with a purple streak in it that matched the purple glowing freckles on her face.

“BiTcH, I could use magic because I knew to change the damn runes to exclude me from the spell before entering. You know, cuz I’m not a total idiot like you~ “ she mocked.

“Rune manipulation on that scale is impossible!” Lorelei spat, finally arriving at our group.

The other elf sighed. “Only for dummies like you. You’re terrible at magic, always had been. Just agree that I’m better than you and we can move on to the important things~ “

I couldn’t help but be slightly entranced by her melodic voice, even though she was actively verbally attacking my girlfriend.

“Never!” Lolo growled back.

“Psh, fine. I don’t care about that anyways. Mother’s wondering what’s taking you so long. Sent me to investigate, though, I already have an idea of what slowed you down.” She glanced back at me with a knowing smirk and I gulped again.

‘Mother’ she’d said. So they were siblings? Lorelei’s sister? They had very little similarities, to be honest. Aside from maybe the pale skin and the pointed ears, but that seemed to be a dark elf thing in general, so hardly a signifying feature.

Her gaze wandered further and rested on Rosie for a moment. “Two more people than expected. Care to introduce me to your new party, sister, or do I need to do it myself?”

Lorelei sighed heavily. “Marion, Liana, Rosie, this is my younger sister Lumielle. Lumielle, this is my girlfriend Marion, our cousin Liana and her friend Rosie.”

When she introduced me as her girlfriend, my entire body tingled with excitement. She called me her girlfriend. In front of her sister. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh this is so great! I wanted to scream in happiness, but that would be super embarrassing, so I didn’t. Instead I just smiled like an idiot and missed about a minute of ongoing conversation.

“-so we’ll head straight for home now? I did want to spend some time in Rizishma. Marion and I promised the kids that they could explore a little bit. It’s their first time in the south, you know.”

“You know how mother is – wait did you just call them ‘the kids’?! Don’t tell me you adopted them!”

“No! We’re just… taking care of them. And they’re kids. So we call them ‘the kids’…” Lorelei replied shyly.

“They’re teenagers!”

“Teenagers are still kids,” I threw in and immediately regretted it as all eyes became fixed on me. “I- I mean technically speaking. T-They’re still children, so calling them kids isn’t wrong per se, so…”

Lumielle turned around and began walking towards the giant gates. “Oh my gods, my sister adopted children with the girl she just met. FFFFFucking lesbians I swear!” She shot a spell at the gateway and the enormous doors swung open on demand. “And she’s not even a good parent! For fucks sake!”

“S-so? We’re following her?” I asked carefully.

Lorelei glared at me and her expression immediately softened. “Yeah… I guess.”

We made our way out of the underground city and behind us I heard Rosie whisper to Liana quietly. “I never had a mom before…”

Liana whispered back. “Me neither…”