Chapter 1931 – Conspiracy [Lyndell POV]
“A-alright?”
Lyndell wasn’t sure how such a powerful woman could simultaneously be such a pushover. ‘Fascinating,’ she thought and shot up. Holding Lucifrena’s hand, she then strutted onwards. Walking was always a good opportunity to train that sashay that his maids were so proud of. They were all doing it. He obviously liked it.
Although Lyndell spent most of her time in the quiet comfort of her dark room, she had accompanied his haremettes enough to have picked up on a few factors. One was the presence of another female to be pulled into her web of truths. To begin that conversation, she needed a remote place.
Plenty were open for occupation in this city, ravaged by her former kin. After just a few minutes, she found what must have been a restaurant before the attack. It had been spared from the fighting, making it a delightfully clean place. Closed doors had kept dust out and any place without any gore lining the walls was good enough for Lyndell.
A quick scan made the room perfect for her intentions. “Stand there,” Lyndell instructed her lookalike.
“W-why?” Lucifrena asked, even as she obediently positioned herself between the two windows that let daylight into the mildly decorated room.
“Because it puts you in the dead angle.” Lyndell squatted down two steps removed from the right window a moment after. Her grey eyes stared outwards, waiting for the inevitable moment that their pursuer would show up. John had his reservations about her trustworthiness. She knew that. She liked him more for it. Why would she fall in love with a fool?
The black-haired woman froze up when she crossed eyes with Lyndell. She was stealthy, quite so, and wore a face that doubtlessly was borrowed, but the ancient entity was used to trickery. Very slowly, she mouthed the words: ‘Come and witness my conspiracy, I invite you to it.’
“So, uhm, what’s this about?” Lucifrena asked, still so adorably uncertain.
“Your answer will arrive shortly. Have a seat.” Lyndell gestured towards the largest of the restaurant tables. Lucifrena did as instructed. Lyndell removed chairs until only 3 remained. Then, she herself sat down. She coaxed the mycelial roots that lived beneath her epidermis out of her flesh with the promise of magic, sending them outwards in a weave. The spreading web of shades of dark grey was as much part of her as it was a symbiotic lifeform.
Gaps and thicker mats of weaving mycelium laid out the shape of a suppression rune. Once it was completed, it began to pull the mana from her. She regulated the flow through chokepoints in the connections, weakening the spell in the favour of the longevity of the rune. The physical space was not too pleased by interruptions to the natural order that were too blunt or forceful.
There was a knock at the door.
“Come in,” Lyndell answered.
The door opened and the woman that Lyndell had seen stepped inside. She was remarkably plain, a ravenette with the beauty of an Abyssal woman that did not stand out. In a crowd, she would have simply disappeared. That was the point, the forlorn woman understood.
“You must be F,” she continued, before the woman could ask any question. “Come inside, I am masking us from observational magic.”
Immediately, the woman did as requested, then closed the door behind her. “What gave me away?” she asked, her accent perfectly metropolitan. “Why do you call me F?”
“Lorelei informed me there was another servant. It was either F or O. The former was more likely. Have a seat.”
The false faced woman regarded her with a long stare, before moving towards the chair. “I trust Lorelei, not you,” she stated, “and the guarantee of Lucifrena’s presence.”
“Okay, so that’s my use in this situation?” the adorable angel asked. She was so old and yet so innocent.
“Let me elucidate the reason for this meeti-“ Lyndell began, only for there to be another knock on the door. Head tilted 90 degrees, she turned towards it, trying to find the answer to the question of who in the horizontal view. It did not work in the human form. “Enter?”
The door opened and closed in a swift and harsh series of motions. The woman that entered wore thick clothes against the cold and against being recognized. When she put her hood back, she revealed a cascade of wavy, rose red hair. A swift gesture combed back parted bangs, showing her emerald green eyes, underlined by a blush.
“Why did I even come here…” Moira muttered, her eyes darting between the three present women. She regarded F with some confusion, but did not comment on the matter.
“Why did you know to come here?” Lyndell wanted to know.
“…Lorelei told me I would get some answers to my problems here.” The Warden of the Order of the Golden Rose crossed her arms. With the puffy sleeves of her winter jacket, the gesture made her look like an angry bumblebee. “No idea what she meant by that.”
“Well, most of us have no idea what this is about,” Lucifrena said.
“Sit with us,” Lyndell invited the Warden, who grabbed a chair and carefully placed it, avoiding the mycelium on the floor. Quietly, the forlorn woman then cleared her throat. “Let me elucidate the reason for this meeting. I have elected to pursue John Newman to the fullest extent of my abilities. You are hereby invited to join me in this endeavour.”
“Huh?!” Moira slammed her hands on the table and, having just sat down, shot right back up. “W-w-w-what are you talking about?! Why would I be present for this?!”
“Ask Lorelei, she evidently engineered part of this,” F responded. “I’m here because of her too, you could say.”
“You as well?” Moira mumbled, then extended the question to Lucifrena with a glance.
“No, no, I am just, uh… getting dragged along, honestly?”
“I have employed her wisdom and strength to serve as my advisor. I also wish to pull her with me into the delight of love.”
“W-w-w-what?!” Now Lucifrena slammed her hands on the table, blushing intensely as she shot up. “Where did that come from?”
“You are cute. I want to cuddle you. Forever.” Lyndell stated in plain English. “If the idea is to your disliking, then I merely ask for your advice. You have had relationships before, right?”
“I, uhm, found love in my previous lives, yes?” Lucifrena answered. “It’s a complicated thing, you know? I’m… a continuation of that woman, but while the memories remain, the emotions become… untethered…?”
“Fascinating,” Lyndell said. Any wish to dig deeper was suppressed by the need to have this talk. “Elect your own course of action, Lucifrena. Do I have your support in mine?”
“I get the feeling things are going to go wildly wrong if I say no…”
Lyndell nodded deeply, that was exactly correct. Between the gaps in her knowledge of propriety and her fundamental differences in sensibilities, she required their guidance. With that established, she turned her gaze to F and Moira. “You, too, shall be part of my conspiracy. Lorelei believes it to our mutual benefit. I have no reason to doubt her.”
“But why though…? What about John is even so great?” Moira grumbled.
“I like his hands,” Lyndell answered.
“He does have very nice hands,” the unnamed woman agreed. “Not too large, not too small… and the way he looks at you when he thinks he has disappointed you.”
“Always so honest, vulnerable and yet guarded,” Lyndell agreed.
“I adore the struggle behind his eyes whenever he achieves something. He wants to boast, but he doesn’t want to be the kind of person that does brag.”
“Dark impulses that entice, discipline that reins in excess,” Lyndell swooned, feeling warmth filling her upper and lower body.
“Enough of your fangirling!” Moira declared.
Lyndell gave the redhead an annoyed glance. “You asked what’s so great about him.”
“I’m not even halfway done,” the ravenette added.
An entirely inappropriate sigh of annoyance left the Warden. Had it not been for the fact that Ehtra often acted similarly, Lyndell would have outright assumed Moira was not interested. “Then why do you think you are here?” she asked.
The question made the redhead fall silent. Only after falling back into her chair did she begin to talk, “Lady forgive me, I have been having… impure thoughts about John – NOT of that kind!” The Warden protested too much for Lyndell to believe that. “By my birthright, I am placed in the honourable position as a protector of humanity. I know myself to be the strongest Warden our Order has seen possibly since it was formed and yet, time after time, I find myself a footnote in events of this Blessed Generation.”
“You desire him for power,” F spoke emphatically. “Because being with him opens a route to heights you cannot obtain as you are.”
“…Your fate is similar?” Moira asked.
The woman immediately straightened up, remembering her position. “That is classified.”
“There ought to be no secrets here,” Lucifrena weighed in quietly. “If you truly wish to partake in this… conspiracy as Lyndell calls it… uhm, would Lyn be okay, by the way?”
“Lyn,” she tasted the nickname – it was sweet. “Can I call you Luci?”
“If you don’t mind, I’m more partial to Fren. My name has… unfortunate similarities to an embodiment of a concept.”
“Fren,” Lyndell repeated, then grabbed her chair and moved it closer to that of the golden angel. “You are Fren.” She rubbed shoulders with her rival and saviour. As before, she seemed a bit uncomfortable with it, yet not to such a degree to move away. There was even a bit of a smile from the very dark-skinned blonde this time. “It would be a waste to never kiss you.”
“I, uhm, really am just an advisor here. To my point, I believe it would be productive if you were to lay your identity bare.”
“It would be unprofessional,” the woman retorted.
“This is not a meeting of your profession, it is a meeting between women that aim for their desired future.”
One more moment of hesitation, then a sigh. She put a hand on her face, which suddenly turned as pale white as porcelain. Little sounds of air hissing into broken vacuums preceded her putting the half-mechanical item down. Protrusions along the rim had been connected to sockets that the true face behind sealed a moment later.
The revelation did not stop there. Hands pulled at the roots of her hair. As the black strands were removed, white ones took their place. They were a lot longer and delightfully messy to watch cascade. A stubborn strand settled across her face as rounded cat ears popped up at the top of her head. Her entire figure changed underneath her clothes. Breasts going from small to medium made some difference. The other change was heard, not seen. The expansion of her ass and thighs from lithe to thick burst her jeans at the seams.
“Of course,” she drawled, now a thin accent to her that Lyndell could not place. She had not learned enough about all the languages yet to identify them all. The light roll to her rs was pleasant to the ears. Her real face was even more pleasant to the eyes – a stunning beauty that none would forget once seen. “You may call me Fia.”
“Is that your true name?” Lucifrena asked.
“It is true enough.”
“Falsehoods are-
“My task,” the tiger-eared woman interrupted, a matching tall flopping against the side of her seat. Striking blue eyes stared, slit pupils narrow. “I have given you more courtesy than I ought because… I do feel the kinship here. You will have to accept a simple designation over my full name.”
“…Very well,” Lucifrena accepted. “Then what is your reason for joining us?”
“I have dedicated myself to the service of John Newman. After long reflection I have decided that such dedication would not be exclusively due to my wish to be elevated from lesser power.” The understanding look she gave Moira now was open. “It took me many months to be certain with myself that I adored him because I could be good for him, not just because he could be good for me.”
“How did you arrive at that conclusion?” Moira asked quietly.
“Time. Permanent injury. Observation. Contemplation,” Fia listed. “There is no simple answer.”
“I… can concede that the Gamer has certain qualities.”
“Progress,” Lyndell said.
“…” The redhead blushed intensely, staring down at her hands while she simmered in her embarrassment. “…If this is… agreeable… to you… then I… would…” she had to force out every word, until the rest suddenly burst out of her, “I would support you in your scheme to seduce him to figure things out for myself at the side, but if you tell anyone about me having said any of that, then I am going to jump off a bridge!”
Lyndell did not know what kind of threat that was supposed to be. From what she had seen, most bridges were a harmless distance from the ground. If anything, falling for a while was entertaining. As an existence that had primarily lived underground before, she liked the sensation. “Okay,” she thusly answered. “What about you, Fren?”
“Me? Uhm, I think I said I’m just here as an advisor.”
“You must have thoughts about the Gamer!” the Warden stated harshly, clearly happy to deflect from herself. “Share them!”
“If we are engaging in girl talk, you must share as well,” Fia stated, arms crossed. “Lay bare the truth, right?”
“Uhm, uh, hmm, he, uhm, h-he is…” Lucifrena squirmed a bit in her chair, “…flawed and… kind of cute?”
“Yes, he is,” Lyndell agreed.
“O-okay! Bases established!” the golden angel declared loudly. “So, what do you have in mind, Lyn? What is this conspiracy?”
Lyndell did not answer immediately, instead glancing at a colourless firefly that had crawled into the room. It hid among her mycelium, as if to test her reaction to a presence that the other three had missed. She ignored it as well. “To begin with, I require advice.”
And thus began the scheming.