The Stray

Omake B2-1: Window Pain

Just after the MLL meeting...

"Y'know, I thought you were just sore when y'said it was a trap." Timothy panted, letting go of V's shoulders. His spirit was trembling from the effort of trying to magically pry this demon window open. It was glowing red from his power, but it. Wasn't. Budgin'! "I'll never doubt ya again."

"Fuckin' better not." The dragoness strained against the wall with her wings, but they were pinned but good. "What the shit is this window made of!?" For what had to be the tenth time, her tail smashed at the glass, bouncing off with a gleam of barrier magic. "I've rang the state fair strength bell—" Eleven "—with just this tail!" Twelve!

Timothy mighta helped whack the window, but... For some reason, Myrtle'd gone all out on this window's security. He didn't know what she'd been afraid of, but everything from the glass to the brickwork to the latch was a single solid slab of light in his third eye. Actually, he was beginning to think it hadn't all been her idea— "This window's had it. It's all this nightmare funk, it's gunked up and congealed these enchantments into one huge lump." The many sets of schema (the neat little lines, glyphs, and nodes the arcana were meant to flow through) were fused so bad he couldn't even tell what was what!

And for some reason, it all really hated V. "If I just had room to plant my hands and feet, this'd be over," she growled. "I've worked out with Mat on my back. This is so unfair." Flames licked at V's fangs in her fury. "Gimme one good reason not to just shoot one big fireball and blast myself out."

"I think you'd shove yer head down your thorax with recoil."

"Please don't call my guts a thorax." But she did hold off.

"I'm ticked. I spend weeks designing my traps, like a spider should. Miss town witch got a free deathtrap from beyond the grave!"

Strangely, calling it a deathtrap actually perked V up somewhat. "Wait, ya think this counts?"

"I mean... we won't know 'less you die." Timothy grunted as he pushed again, feet skidding back even with the spider climb spell's help. Frass; at least the three spiders'd left. Timothy couldn't blame 'em: between their antics and their combined cursing and whatnot, they were kicking up a hell of a racket.

"At this point, I'd almost take it." V rolled her eyes. "You can shove harder, y'know."

"I really can't." Timothy weighed less than a hundred pounds soaking wet, and if muscles were guns, he was packin' water pistols. "Yer the mountain of beef here, y'sure you can't just push it off?"

"I tried! I swear, it's actually biting down. " Timothy winced as her tail just went nuts on the window glass (thirteen, fourteen, fifteen...) to no avail. The spell wasn't even weakened. "Tch. What was Myrtle on, man?"

"I can't believe the shadow illusion faded but this stuff didn't." The wolf shook his head. "Typical."

She chuckled dryly. "If this is typical, I'd hate to see what you think's weird." The dragoness sighed and went limp. "You got any bright ideas?"

Timothy flopped down in front of her, panting, and let the globs of darkness round his feet dissolve. "Man, I dunno. Magic?" He looked at the window. "I'd need to study what's gone wrong with it. Its targeting is being weird—

"It's being bullshit."

"—It shouldn't be this tenacious—"

"It fuckin' hates me, yeah."

"—and given yer muscles, it oughta have worn out by now, if only outta self defense!" He threw up his hands. "What, do I gotta oil you both?"

"...Why do you know an oil spell?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Self-defense." Timothy lied with a hint of a blush. Well, half-lied. "It might work, though..."

V rested on her knuckles, a bit like a rillabeast. "Shit, I'll try anything at this point. I'm Sand elemental, so I dunno how well it'll work on my scales." She glared up at the window. "Release! Drop it! Green alert! Disable!" It didn't listen to her. "You fuckin' better not be Awakened."

Mandy floated over to the window, rang something in Thinglish, and waited. After a moment she turned to Timothy and shook her blade. "Nope."

"Ugh. You keep trying command words. I'm gonna take a breather before I start really getting mad. Y' fuckin hear that, you glasshole?" She growled at the window, before closing her eyes and muttering what sounded like an anger mantra. The wolf raised an eyebrow. Really, if it wasn't for the scales n' wings, she'd be a natural Streneli.

...But anyway, the window. Ugh. Timothy scratched his head. V prolly had the right idea with a command word. "Open up." Nope. "Disarm." Nuh-uh." "Error display?" Instead of showing a simple schematic, the window strobed a myriad of colors, forcing Timothy to shield his eyes. "Failsafe?" Nothing.

Ugh. The witch scratched his head. He was missing something stupid, wasn't he...? What was Myrtle actually thinking? This was supposed to be a security measure against... what, airborne predators and bird burglars? Birdglars? It wasn't letting V go because... what? The spiders weren't gonna call the cops. Was it supposed to hold her until Myrtle showed?

Okay, that was a decent place to start. So what was supposed to happen when she got there? She couldn't jes' kill townies. So this wasn't a lethal trap (before it broke down, anyway) and there had to be some way to pull someone out. Something that only Myrtle would be able to set off.

Myrtle. A witch. A witch caught between being meticulous and weirdly sloppy. "Aw, frass." The wolf groaned. "I'm such a moron."

"What?"

Timothy fully switched to wildtongues. <<Open up. Disengage. Release. Disarm—>>

With a garbled croak of a chime, the window let V go. The dragoness yelped and scrambled back out, hovering free.

"Y'needed to say it in wildtongues." The wolf rubbed his forehead. "Ugh, imagine being that confident you'll outlive your spellwork. That's just negligent."

"That's concerning, but more importantly, holy shit. I'm never doing a B and E again." V shuddered. "I'll be in the front hall."

The dragoness flew out of sight. As for Timothy... he glanced around, checking for spiders or buggy friends. Then, he pulled out his notebook and started taking notes. Hey, waste not want not, right?