155. [POLSKA] Like Father Like Daughter (Part 1)

[Designation: TAMPER]

[Instrument Class: ZEALOUS]

[Anchored Realm: PRETJORD (Immortal)]

[Item Description: What does it take to be a leader of men? To set down roots and become warden, gardener, nurturer to a people who'd known nothing but hunger and the basest ways to act on it? A fundamental shift in nature. Tamping down the rough edges of your own self—that you might extend the same calming influence across a war-torn, flame-ravaged Realm.]

***

The first thing Renna had to do was remember.

The shape of her childhood home, peeped from her hiding holes and pieced together by yearnful solitude. The scale and nature of her father's fighting prowess, passed down through centuries of storytellers. And her own inner fire, that with which she'd once tamed the very elements—as a lonely, awkward girl with no smite nor crime to her name.

Whether by chance or providence, Renna found herself on the western half of the fiery divide. It meant she had a direct route to the dining hall—or as direct as the flames of [Avici] would allow. There, with any luck, her next opponent will be waiting. A Realm to save and a score to settle, at least a decade and more in the making.

As impatient as Renna was to settle said score, she also knew better than to go completely unarmed. She'd have to recover DREDGER eventually, but until then, any old 'tool' would be better than nothing.

A harpoon gun. Judging by the way it lay haphazardly on a burning staircase, it'd likely been dropped there by a panicked Kronheer soldier. Well, assuming he was now part of the 'pyre' that fed into [Avici], his gun would be put to better use in Renna's hands.

With makeshift weapon in hand, she weaved in and out of the fire with a surety of foot that surprised herself. This 'open' passage was not the aspect of the palace she'd grown up in, but she now made her way through it freely, unshackled by judgment.

The dining hall was as large and spacious as she'd left it. But that was about the only thing that hadn't been transformed by [Pacification]. Gone were the tables and chairs, the candles and chandeliers. In their place rose mounds of dirt and shredded leaf, with more and more piling on from the crumbling ceiling above.

At the far end sat the largest Tamped cube Renna had ever seen, filling nearly the entire width of the room. As nondescript and perfectly sanded as the cube was, its identity couldn't be more obvious.

Until this moment, Renna hadn't even considered the possibility that her father might use his own magic on himself. But it made sense in a way. As taxing as it would've been to cast a Realm-wide spell, even Tyr Djofulsen needed to recover and preserve his strength. What better way to do so than to turn himself into a lifeless box?

Lifeless, maybe. Hungerless, certainly not, if Renna knew anything about the bull-shark King. She began to reach for OYSTER, intending to grab a [Pearl of Strength]. But she stopped immediately, bitterly reminded that she'd brewed nothing but [Serenity] during the last several days of her captivity.

There was nothing for it. She'd have to start the fight with an utterly ordinary harpoon gun, and find a way to move the venue as soon as possible—hopefully somewhere with a credible chance of finding DREDGER. She still thought the throne hall was her best bet, Rathor's occupation of it notwithstanding.

Think. What's the shortest route to get there, now that the central footpath is blocked? But she quickly realized there was none. Which meant she'd have to create a shortcut from scratch—inevitably with her father's help.

Renna weaved in and out of the piling debris with the surety of purpose needed for the task. She didn't have to go far before her chosen opponent responded to her challenge. The giant cube Untamped itself in short order, revealing the form of a mountainous bull-shark and his 'landscaping' Instrument:

[Designation: TYR DJOFULSEN—the Warmonger]

[Aberrant Race: Gestalt of the Ripples]

[Aberrant Class: Dungeon Boss]

[ZEALOUS Instrument: TAMPER]

The similarity between her and her father's weapons—and the poetic irony in it—wasn't lost on Renna. When it came down to it, TAMPER was simply DREDGER if its blade had been flattened and turned on its side. Yet that simple reconfiguration made all the difference in intent and effect.

[Pacification] had already left its mark on Krongard and would progress through the rest of the Realmtree. Its latest rendition had been a feat of enormous scale and expenditure, and therefore unlikely to be repeated anytime soon. But that still left three of Tyr's four signature spells—one for each serving of [Frostkrillboon] he'd partaken in through the ages.

Even at 75%, Tyr Djofulsen would easily be one of the most dangerous foes Renna had ever faced. And to do it when she herself was limited to a mere fraction of her own power!

Well, no point crying about it. Time to get to work. In fact, even her opponent appeared to be of the same mind. Presently, the bull-shark towered over her in a relaxed posture, with TAMPER's plate resting harmlessly against the dirt floor. The 'ghost' of Tyr Djofulsen smiled tauntingly at his daughter, unable to speak but sending a clear message all the same:

Come at me.

Renna did. A two-handed shot with her borrowed harpoon gun.

It'd been over a decade since she'd handled one of these, and it was the recoil that took her by surprise. Indeed, it knocked her onto her buttocks, caught only by a dirt pile that was right behind her. Which made it even more surprising when the harpoon's spearpoint somehow found its mark.

[85!]

The damage was pitiful, barely making a dent in the bull-shark's considerable HP pool. But it was a clean hit nonetheless. The spearpoint buried itself into a muscle-bound shoulder, drawing blood as well as the splash of a second, translucent substance.

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The only reason it hit, Renna mused as she hopped back on her feet, is because Tyr let it.

Indeed, the bull-shark hadn't moved a muscle to avoid the harpoon, despite its wobbly flight allowing plenty of room to react. Neither did his smile falter one bit as the attack landed. And he continued to smile as he plucked out the spearpoint and tossed it back to Renna, with all the nonchalance of a fisherman recasting his line.

Renna caught the harpoon and hastily loaded it back into her gun. She kept her bemused and wary eyes on her bull-shark opponent, who now rotated his injured shoulder once or twice, as if to limber up. Tyr then picked up TAMPER with both hands and raised it over his head.

That was pathetic. And now, it's my turn.

Did she imagine her father's voice? Or had the ripples spoken for him? Either way, she felt a sudden chill in her spine and decided to obey its warning. She'd just begun to take a step back when—

Slam!

A thunderous explosion of dirt and debris, followed by an earthquake that shook the entire hall. Renna managed to dodge it by less than an inch.

Tyr's already mountainous figure swelled to new heights as each of his bulging muscles became mountains unto themselves. The plate of TAMPER now lay completely flat where Renna had stood a moment ago. Indeed, it was now the only spot unaffected by the explosion and subsequent room-quake.

Renna shuddered to think what would've happened if she'd backstepped a second too late. And this had been without Tyr activating one of his spells! It didn't strike her as a very efficient use of Stamina, but she was nevertheless thankful for her opponent's apparent restraint.

I can't be caught exchanging blows with that. Renna stated the obvious to herself. I need to find my way to DREDGER before Tyr could land too many more strikes with TAMPER…

So much for the harpoon gun being useful in her hands! Renna dropped the gun (only extra weight at this point) and abandoned all thought of fighting back in her current state, instead turning her focus fully onto renovating the royal chambers.

To that end, she made a mad dash to the far corner of the dining hall. For it was adjacent to the guesthouse—one of her earliest hiding places as a child and now her 'ticket' out of this one. But as she ran from a bull-shark brute, the ripples spoke to her again:

Ah, I remember this well. A hunter and his scurrying prey. Well, you won't get far on those webbed feet of yours—especially when I do this!

[TAMPER Spell: COMPACTION]

Tyr raised his weapon again, but this time only to waist-height. He then swung it from side to side, cutting out a column of space with the flat of TAMPER's plate.

Renna felt as though she'd been shoved out of her plane of existence—a truly bizarre sensation, given her utter lack of a frame of reference! But she set that precedent now, as she lost her footing and levitated into the air.

No, that wasn't quite right. What actually happened was that the floor beneath her and the wall she'd been running toward had all fallen away into grains of dirt. Next thing she knew, she found herself plopped down inside a cutout of the guesthouse—a neat, perfect cube of a room. Instead of layers of Crown-leaves, this guesthouse was walled in on all sides by 'solid' sheets of a translucent material—the same substance that had burst out of Tyr's shoulder moments ago.

Ripples. Renna understood implicitly, as difficult as it was to believe. These were the visual representations of ripples made solid by TAMPER's magic. And no wonder the same substance could be extracted from the bull-shark's body, given that this version of Tyr was the product of a similar phenomenon.

It was all coming back to her now. [Compaction] had been Tyr Djofulsen's favored crowd-control spell—creating a Tamped cube out of space rather than soul. Renna had managed to bundle her way into her intended destination, but now, she was also trapped inside it.

The bull-shark walked up to the 'cage', looking rather pleased with himself. He'd set TAMPER down on the ground, seemingly uninterested in picking it back up. No words, but it was clear he meant to simply watch and see what his captured quarry might do.

Renna knew she had to respond, but her scholarly mind was momentarily distracted by a curious brainteaser.

Moments earlier, Tyr had gloated about 'remembering' how a hunter ought to deal with his prey, before demonstrating exactly that with [Compaction]. Was it just a coincidence? Or could it be… that this so-called [Gestalt of the Ripples] was remembering how to fight, bit by bit and clue by clue? As outlandish a theory as it was, it might explain why he'd opened the exchange with an unimbued strike.

No doubt Renna's hypothesis would be put to scientific rigor as the fight wore on. First though, she had to do something about this [Compacted] prison. To that end, she turned to inspect the rest of the guesthouse.

Much to her surprise, the room had changed very little since she'd last been its occupant some ten years ago. A fresh roll of Nether-kelp bed. Shelves of books and scrolls to keep a lonely but deeply curious girl occupied. And even the dusty remains of a mushroom garden where she'd gotten her first taste of potion-brewing…

Renna sucked in a sharp breath, hitting upon yet another outlandish idea. She crouched down next to the garden and dug around in its long-desiccated soil, paying no heed to her father's shimmering gaze. After several attempts, she found what she was looking for.

A garden trowel. It was a quaint little thing, with a wooden grip only big enough for one webbed hand. A fraction the size of DREDGER, but it had to be better than nothing. Surely worth a try, at the very least?

But that was when the [Gestalt] of her father deigned to speak again.

That too brings back memories. Oh, how you used to leave a trail of excavation everywhere you went. Did you really think I wouldn't notice?

A heartfelt confession, mixed in with an ominous warning.

In truth, Renna really did think her father wouldn't notice her sneaking around the palace—or that, even if he did, he wouldn't care enough to remember any of it. And yet… what was she to do with this knowledge now? She bit her lips and pressed on with the task.

A Wayfarer could sometimes 'fool' Pathsight's rigid knowledge base with imitations of existing magic. For example, Renna had heard tell of a certain pair of sturgeon twins who'd employed such tricks on an Iskolle rink.

She herself had a much less frivolous application in mind. But as she stood next to one of the guesthouse's ripple-wrought walls with an ordinary garden trowel in hand, she suddenly felt ridiculous—a child with childish dreams.

Renna hesitated, her mind in no state to perform a complex technique with a genuine Auxiliary let alone its tiny substitute. But as she stood frozen in inaction, a pair of shimmering-black eyes appeared before her. Tyr brought his shark face within an inch of the translucent wall and grinned, baring his teeth and all the derisive taunts implied therein.

"Drown the King in brine," Renate Sandvik swore—softly yet with enough rippling emotion to pass through walls and carry across decades.

She gripped the trowel in one hand and smashed it against the wall before her anger could dissipate. The impact produced a visible and readable crack in the barrier, but not nearly enough to break through.

Again, she told herself, then added as an afterthought, with two hands this time.

Yes. How could she have forgotten about this fundamental component of DREDGER's magic? The garden trowel wasn't big enough to accommodate both of her hands, so she wrapped one over the other and swung once more, dredging past and future alike:

[Auxiliary Technique: ELEMENTAL SURGE]

The ripples dredged up by Renna met those tamped down by Tyr—and achieved resonance. The barrier shattered to smithereens, allowing a pink frog to leap past its fading shards.

That's more like it! The ghost of Tyr Djofulsen opened his mouth wide and laughed—soundless yet deafening. Come, daughter. Join me in this deadly dance—that we may yet find our selves amidst the roiling ripples!

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