Chapter 61: Penelope Blows Up A Mountain
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m4gpier
Getting sticky.
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"Aitkens! What the hell?! How long did you think updating these priors would take?!" Penelope hissed as she cornered the dwarven man just after dinner.
They were roughly the same height, but the dwarven male was over twice the human woman in width.
Regardless, the man hung his head in shame.
"My oath is to keep you safe and you are very much in the safest place in the world right now and-"
"AND WE'RE GOING TO DIE HERE AS WELL! THAT WASN'T A PART OF THE DEAL! IT CERTAINLY ISN'T SAFE FOR HUMANS TO NOT SEE THE SUN YOU KNOW!" Penelope screamed, shaking the dwarf's shoulders.
"Bah calm ya self lassy, ya takin' the ol' golem's prediction a wee bit too seriously." Meachin said, appearing from the dining hall to separate the two.
"Oh?! How long do you think it'll take for the old man to let us go?! Poor Julia can't handle any more of these 'prior updating' sessions, being leered at by an old man for hours on end isn't fun you know!" Penelope screamed, aggressively jamming her finger into Meachin's chest.
"Uhm, only a couple hundred thousand…" Meachin admitted.
"Lass look, how about I let you and the golem out tomorrow evenin'? I can't letcha go of course but-" Aitkens offered before being interrupted.
"SEE!? FALSE PRETENSES! WE WERE SET UP!" Penelope screamed, arms flailing up as she stormed off, Emily quickly appearing at her side, writing a note.
"Is something the matter Madam Penelope?"
Penelope looked angrily at the golem and nodded.
"Aitkens thinks this is the safest place in the world? Well we'll see about that." Penelope thought with a scornful look as she returned to her dorm.
…
"I can't do this anymore…" Pinklia groaned as she returned to their shared dorm later that evening, a prepared stock of aether cubes laid out decoratively by Emily on a serving tray, with Emily staring at a wall.
"Yep, and based on what Henrek's saying the skirmish is starting in a few days. We want to get back before Rolfcons gets swamped with Oldser knights." Penelope nodded as she continued carving a hex and a series of scriptures onto a clay tablet she'd 'borrowed' from Aitkens.
"I thought the idea was just distracting Rolfcons… No King involved." Pinklia grimaced, noting the odd positioning of Emily.
"Is uh, she okay?" Pinklia whispered.
"Ems? Oh yeah she's fine, just ordered her not to look." Penelope explained casually as she finished writing the scripture into the clay, covering it with a blanket and handing Pinklia a note.
"Shove that in front of her face." Penelope demanded bluntly.
Pinklia looked down, not really able to read the note.
"It says she's allowed to look again but not touch the cloth here." Penelope sighed as she took the note from the struggling Julia and shoved it in front of Emily's face.
"Why…?" Pinklia asked.
"She can read our lips, and if she saw what I was about to do hoo boy she'd stop me." Penelope explained with a grin as Emily turned around to examine the room, clearly wanting to look under the conspicuously covered clay tablet.
"What are you planning?!" Pinklia asked incredulously, earning a quickly jotted down note from Emily.
"What are you planning?" Emily's note said, handing it to Penelope urgently.
"Relax! I just have a surprise for the old bastard Hume… Plus get some sunlight." Penelope smirked, pulling out a torn note that Aitkens had given her after her little outburst earlier that evening.
"Accompany these two outside," with the rest of the message that specified when they had to return by clearly having been ripped off.
Emily could tell, but since the signature from Aitkens was still visible, she had to accept the command.
Emily cocked her head before quickly writing a note.
"This appears incomplete, additionally your next prior updating session will occur throughout daylight hours tomorrow." Emily wrote.
"Heh, relax." Penelope sounded out, looking at her makeshift device.
"I think Utarou has rubbed off on you… You're making crazy plans…" Pinklia grumbled.
"I prefer the term, inspired," Penelope declared smugly as she placed a hand on her chest and looked up dramatically.
…
"Hmmm…" Hume grumbled, glaring at Pinklia's skill tree. The growth had slowed down, meaning Hume occasionally barked out an updated prior.
Penelope had joined this prior updating session, with a fairly inconspicuous bag containing her usual notebook and the mysterious clay tablet.
"Prior 330! Updated, lamb no longer requires grilling before eating!" Hume shouted, one of his apprentices quickly scribbled it down and ran off to spread the word just as another returned.
Penelope rolled her eyes and took this opportunity to strike, sneaking up to a working apprentice, the man was pouring mana into runic weapons and had been extremely focused, up until the moment Hume updated a prior forcing him to recite the dwarven prayer.
"PRIORS UPDATED! FOR LOGOS!" The apprentice shouted just as Penelope placed her hidden clay tablet on the table, while Emily watched from a distance.
"Sooo, what was that prior?" Penelope asked casually.
The apprentice looked at the human woman with an annoyed glare but obliged, the prior that required information surrounding logic to be shared freely had yet to be updated.
"Tis the prior what defines our eatin', can't say what Priormaster Hume figured but the dissection will happen afterwards." The apprentice explained, noticing the clay tablet Penelope revealed.
He didn't recognize the spell but he could clearly identify it as one.
"Awesome now, can you do me a teensy tiny little favour? I've been wanting to test a scrying spell I got from the Aviosian Churchs' library for ages, I had this absolute hunk help me out but I just haven't had any good mana! Poor Pinklia is all preoccupied with Hume and I wouldn't want to bother her, plus she wants to see her family and-"
"Bah! If it'll get you away from me woman so be it, just need to pour the mana in like any runic spell aye?"
"Yes sir!" Penelope grinned evilly.
The dwarf obliged, pouring mana into the spell Penelope had found and modified with the help of Templar Adam, though it wasn't a scrying spell.
It was an explosive spell timer.
As soon as the mana filled the spell on the clay tablet, a fiery countdown began, exploding out with energy from the clay tablet, demanding everyone's attention.
"WHAT IN THE SAVIOUR'S MENU IS THAT?!" Hume shouted, immediately grabbing his gun and shooting the clay tablet which did nothing for the already activated spell.
After swiping a few aether cubes that were sitting on a work bench, Penelope ran back to Pinklia and Emily as Aitkens looked at the fiery timer that was rising and creating an area of effect warning.
"Hey so, I don't think it's safe here anymore~" Penelope cooed as Pinklia freaked out.
"W-what?! You… Oh you're good." Aitkens growled as he realized what Penelope had done, grabbing her by the arm.
"W-where are you going?!" Meachin asked incredulously.
"I MADE AN OATH TO KEEP THEM SAFE!" Aitkens shouted angrily, Pinklia and Emily following.
"PENNY WHAT DID YOU DO?!" Pinklia screamed as she ran down the hall, the swarm of magically inclined dwarves running to try and disable the spell.
Unfortunately, archaic high level Avoisan church magic that's been hastily modified by an overly ambitious witch was not the easiest kind of spell to disable.
"MY OATH IS TO KEEP YOU SAFE! THIS MOUNTAIN IS NO LONGER SAFE THANKS TO THIS DAMN WITCH'S SPELL! THIS IS WHAT I GET FOR TRYING TO BE A GOOD HOST AND NOT THROWING YOU IN THE DUNGEONS!" Aitkens screamed as he tossed Penelope into the elevator, Pinklia and Emily following swiftly behind.
"T-t-thank you for… not locking us up…?" Pinklia offered as she watched the Errata scroll past, the elevator ascending as quickly as it could in this emergency.
Penelope quickly wrote a note and gave it to Emily before Aitkens could react and override Emily's command to accompany them on the surface.
"Cover your eyes for 3 minutes."
"I can't believe this… We let you in, apologised in accordance with the priors, and THIS is how you repay us?! You know this is how you earn your spot in the Errata and beyond." Aitkens fumed, he was furious, looking at the golem covering her eyes.
"AND YOU! DON'T THINK YOU CAN JUST… Argh… Bloody hell I'm going to lose my position for this." Aitkens sighed, falling to the floor in despair.
"Well sorry, but staying here until we died wasn't exactly a part of the plan." Penelope smirked as the elevator reached the top.
"L-Let's hurry…" Pinklia muttered as she grabbed Emily and Penelope, dragging them away as quickly as she could, leaving Aitkens sitting on the elevator in a defeated pose.
Soon they emerged from the mountain's entrance, a few dwarven women and children had escaped from other exits and had already opened the main gate.
The sun burnt everyone's eyes except Pinklia's, who carried Penelope and Emily over the crowd and to the nearby forest.
Eventually, they'd escaped, and Emily had uncovered her eyes, looking around in bafflement at what they were doing in the middle of a random forest clearing just off the main dwarven path.
"W-why did you do that?! You're seriously killing them all?! Oh my god that's insane you're-" Pinklia shouted in a panic before being interrupted by Penelope's uproarious laughter.
"Relax! It's a dummy bomb!" Penelope laughed, wiping a tear from her eye, giddy with the thrill of the escape, and looking at her haul.
She had her notebook filled to the brim with exotic dwarven information and more than enough mana between Pinklia and these aether cubes to do whatever she wanted with.
"W-wait, it was a fake?" Pinklia asked, Emily looking behind them at something in the distance.
"Yeah! I'm not evil! Come on, I think we have a few more minutes before they realize it's a fake and-" Penelope began, before being interrupted by the top of the mountain exploding.
They were roughly the same height, but the dwarven male was over twice the human woman in width.
Regardless, the man hung his head in shame.
"My oath is to keep you safe and you are very much in the safest place in the world right now and-"
"AND WE'RE GOING TO DIE HERE AS WELL! THAT WASN'T A PART OF THE DEAL! IT CERTAINLY ISN'T SAFE FOR HUMANS TO NOT SEE THE SUN YOU KNOW!" Penelope screamed, shaking the dwarf's shoulders.
"Bah calm ya self lassy, ya takin' the ol' golem's prediction a wee bit too seriously." Meachin said, appearing from the dining hall to separate the two.
"Oh?! How long do you think it'll take for the old man to let us go?! Poor Julia can't handle any more of these 'prior updating' sessions, being leered at by an old man for hours on end isn't fun you know!" Penelope screamed, aggressively jamming her finger into Meachin's chest.
"Uhm, only a couple hundred thousand…" Meachin admitted.
"Lass look, how about I let you and the golem out tomorrow evenin'? I can't letcha go of course but-" Aitkens offered before being interrupted.
"SEE!? FALSE PRETENSES! WE WERE SET UP!" Penelope screamed, arms flailing up as she stormed off, Emily quickly appearing at her side, writing a note.
"Is something the matter Madam Penelope?"
Penelope looked angrily at the golem and nodded.
"Aitkens thinks this is the safest place in the world? Well we'll see about that." Penelope thought with a scornful look as she returned to her dorm.
…
"I can't do this anymore…" Pinklia groaned as she returned to their shared dorm later that evening, a prepared stock of aether cubes laid out decoratively by Emily on a serving tray, with Emily staring at a wall.
"Yep, and based on what Henrek's saying the skirmish is starting in a few days. We want to get back before Rolfcons gets swamped with Oldser knights." Penelope nodded as she continued carving a hex and a series of scriptures onto a clay tablet she'd 'borrowed' from Aitkens.
"I thought the idea was just distracting Rolfcons… No King involved." Pinklia grimaced, noting the odd positioning of Emily.
"Is uh, she okay?" Pinklia whispered.
"Ems? Oh yeah she's fine, just ordered her not to look." Penelope explained casually as she finished writing the scripture into the clay, covering it with a blanket and handing Pinklia a note.
"Shove that in front of her face." Penelope demanded bluntly.
Pinklia looked down, not really able to read the note.
"It says she's allowed to look again but not touch the cloth here." Penelope sighed as she took the note from the struggling Julia and shoved it in front of Emily's face.
"Why…?" Pinklia asked.
"She can read our lips, and if she saw what I was about to do hoo boy she'd stop me." Penelope explained with a grin as Emily turned around to examine the room, clearly wanting to look under the conspicuously covered clay tablet.
"What are you planning?!" Pinklia asked incredulously, earning a quickly jotted down note from Emily.
"What are you planning?" Emily's note said, handing it to Penelope urgently.
"Relax! I just have a surprise for the old bastard Hume… Plus get some sunlight." Penelope smirked, pulling out a torn note that Aitkens had given her after her little outburst earlier that evening.
"Accompany these two outside," with the rest of the message that specified when they had to return by clearly having been ripped off.
Emily could tell, but since the signature from Aitkens was still visible, she had to accept the command.
Emily cocked her head before quickly writing a note.
"This appears incomplete, additionally your next prior updating session will occur throughout daylight hours tomorrow." Emily wrote.
"Heh, relax." Penelope sounded out, looking at her makeshift device.
"I think Utarou has rubbed off on you… You're making crazy plans…" Pinklia grumbled.
"I prefer the term, inspired," Penelope declared smugly as she placed a hand on her chest and looked up dramatically.
…
"Hmmm…" Hume grumbled, glaring at Pinklia's skill tree. The growth had slowed down, meaning Hume occasionally barked out an updated prior.
Penelope had joined this prior updating session, with a fairly inconspicuous bag containing her usual notebook and the mysterious clay tablet.
"Prior 330! Updated, lamb no longer requires grilling before eating!" Hume shouted, one of his apprentices quickly scribbled it down and ran off to spread the word just as another returned.
Penelope rolled her eyes and took this opportunity to strike, sneaking up to a working apprentice, the man was pouring mana into runic weapons and had been extremely focused, up until the moment Hume updated a prior forcing him to recite the dwarven prayer.
"PRIORS UPDATED! FOR LOGOS!" The apprentice shouted just as Penelope placed her hidden clay tablet on the table, while Emily watched from a distance.
"Sooo, what was that prior?" Penelope asked casually.
The apprentice looked at the human woman with an annoyed glare but obliged, the prior that required information surrounding logic to be shared freely had yet to be updated.
"Tis the prior what defines our eatin', can't say what Priormaster Hume figured but the dissection will happen afterwards." The apprentice explained, noticing the clay tablet Penelope revealed.
He didn't recognize the spell but he could clearly identify it as one.
"Awesome now, can you do me a teensy tiny little favour? I've been wanting to test a scrying spell I got from the Aviosian Churchs' library for ages, I had this absolute hunk help me out but I just haven't had any good mana! Poor Pinklia is all preoccupied with Hume and I wouldn't want to bother her, plus she wants to see her family and-"
"Bah! If it'll get you away from me woman so be it, just need to pour the mana in like any runic spell aye?"
"Yes sir!" Penelope grinned evilly.
The dwarf obliged, pouring mana into the spell Penelope had found and modified with the help of Templar Adam, though it wasn't a scrying spell.
It was an explosive spell timer.
As soon as the mana filled the spell on the clay tablet, a fiery countdown began, exploding out with energy from the clay tablet, demanding everyone's attention.
"WHAT IN THE SAVIOUR'S MENU IS THAT?!" Hume shouted, immediately grabbing his gun and shooting the clay tablet which did nothing for the already activated spell.
After swiping a few aether cubes that were sitting on a work bench, Penelope ran back to Pinklia and Emily as Aitkens looked at the fiery timer that was rising and creating an area of effect warning.
"Hey so, I don't think it's safe here anymore~" Penelope cooed as Pinklia freaked out.
"W-what?! You… Oh you're good." Aitkens growled as he realized what Penelope had done, grabbing her by the arm.
"W-where are you going?!" Meachin asked incredulously.
"I MADE AN OATH TO KEEP THEM SAFE!" Aitkens shouted angrily, Pinklia and Emily following.
"PENNY WHAT DID YOU DO?!" Pinklia screamed as she ran down the hall, the swarm of magically inclined dwarves running to try and disable the spell.
Unfortunately, archaic high level Avoisan church magic that's been hastily modified by an overly ambitious witch was not the easiest kind of spell to disable.
"MY OATH IS TO KEEP YOU SAFE! THIS MOUNTAIN IS NO LONGER SAFE THANKS TO THIS DAMN WITCH'S SPELL! THIS IS WHAT I GET FOR TRYING TO BE A GOOD HOST AND NOT THROWING YOU IN THE DUNGEONS!" Aitkens screamed as he tossed Penelope into the elevator, Pinklia and Emily following swiftly behind.
"T-t-thank you for… not locking us up…?" Pinklia offered as she watched the Errata scroll past, the elevator ascending as quickly as it could in this emergency.
Penelope quickly wrote a note and gave it to Emily before Aitkens could react and override Emily's command to accompany them on the surface.
"Cover your eyes for 3 minutes."
"I can't believe this… We let you in, apologised in accordance with the priors, and THIS is how you repay us?! You know this is how you earn your spot in the Errata and beyond." Aitkens fumed, he was furious, looking at the golem covering her eyes.
"AND YOU! DON'T THINK YOU CAN JUST… Argh… Bloody hell I'm going to lose my position for this." Aitkens sighed, falling to the floor in despair.
"Well sorry, but staying here until we died wasn't exactly a part of the plan." Penelope smirked as the elevator reached the top.
"L-Let's hurry…" Pinklia muttered as she grabbed Emily and Penelope, dragging them away as quickly as she could, leaving Aitkens sitting on the elevator in a defeated pose.
Soon they emerged from the mountain's entrance, a few dwarven women and children had escaped from other exits and had already opened the main gate.
The sun burnt everyone's eyes except Pinklia's, who carried Penelope and Emily over the crowd and to the nearby forest.
Eventually, they'd escaped, and Emily had uncovered her eyes, looking around in bafflement at what they were doing in the middle of a random forest clearing just off the main dwarven path.
"W-why did you do that?! You're seriously killing them all?! Oh my god that's insane you're-" Pinklia shouted in a panic before being interrupted by Penelope's uproarious laughter.
"Relax! It's a dummy bomb!" Penelope laughed, wiping a tear from her eye, giddy with the thrill of the escape, and looking at her haul.
She had her notebook filled to the brim with exotic dwarven information and more than enough mana between Pinklia and these aether cubes to do whatever she wanted with.
"W-wait, it was a fake?" Pinklia asked, Emily looking behind them at something in the distance.
"Yeah! I'm not evil! Come on, I think we have a few more minutes before they realize it's a fake and-" Penelope began, before being interrupted by the top of the mountain exploding.