Hera slept through the whole night. Or whatever ti it was. During a rampage, almost everyone ssed up their sleep schedule. When she finally woke up, she didn't say anything. Slowly opening her eyes, the Empress reached for her tablet. It's been almost 10 hours since her shift ended. She slept a lot, especially when considering her skills. Ever since she arrived in the MAZE, Hera realized that her endurance attribute would slowly reduce the amount of sleep she needed. It wasn't a big change at first, but when she got skills like her [Improved Regeneration], her sleep was reduced by around 30 minutes. Each rank of that skill would shave off a little bit of extra ti, and when she beca an Ophidianite, she broke through the 1-hour mark. Now, for her, a full and proper night's rest would take only 7 hours.
For a brief mont, she considered doing the math of how many hours she would've slept at level one, but that idea quickly left her mind. She was never that good with calculation, and this particular one sounded a bit more complicated than it was worth. The Empress just shifted to her back but quickly had to change positions again. Even if it's been a few months, there were tis she forgot she had a tail. That wasn't sothing she wanted to change. Her balance was much better, and having an extra limb in a fight was simply amazing. But there were so things that bothered her. For instance, being unable to lie on her back in a regular bed. The dwarfs of Boothudurn, well… Zaxalam now, made a special one for her. Across the middle of the mattress, there was a 'slot,' a place where she could place her tail without hurting the bones connecting it to her spine. They based the idea on a pillow with an armhole and worked their way from there.
In truth, Hera was almost positive the right way to have a mattress for her would be to make a large gap in the area around her waist. That way, she could use her own tail as a cushion. It was one of the things that didn't make a lot of sense about her new body. Her tail was nowhere near as soft as a bed, yet it was the most comfortable thing for her to sit on. No matter the situation, the best chair would always be her tail.
Hera blinked, still under the covers, while hearing the soft breathing of Neria, Vash, and Roan, together with the not-so-soft sounds coming from Flint and Skyler. It was a bit funny. The crafter was the stereotypical grumpy dwarf who made a lot of noise when sleeping. And the elf was the perfect subversion of expectations. The more elegant and whimsical of the group who should look like an angel during a slumber. But in reality, it was hard to tell which of the two was the loudest.
She sipped to think about her court and how none of them snored. Then again, they didn't actually need to breathe, so that might be the case. Suddenly, a realization ca to her. The Empress could feel all of her court. All of them were outside and under her bed. Not just the titled blades and Daskka, but everyone else too. Nimbus is the only exception. It would still take a bit over 4 days for him to be back.
Pinching the bridge of her nose, the Empress turned to the side, giving her back to the rest of her teammates, and spoke with her court silently.
'What are you guys doing?'
There was a soft thud as sothing heavy hit her bed. As if soone tried to get up and hit their head. Luckily, that wasn't enough to wake anyone up.
'Livy? Are you ok?' Viper asked.
'Yeah. Sorry. That scared the crap out of ,' Livy replied.
'I'm scary now?' Hera raised one eyebrow even if the court couldn't see her.
'No, no. Not at all. Not one bit. This is a completely normal situation, and I was just caught by surprise,' the Leviathan replied quickly.
'OK, what are you all doing? You are being weird,' Hera asked with a ntal sigh.
'Livy!' Crimson and Tide gasped.
'You really need to improve your poker face,' Autumn added.
'I'm a waraxe! I don't have a face!' Livy protested.
'You literally do. You, Nimbus, and Dusa are the only ones who have actual faces in your weapon form,' Lurize said.
'I… But… Shut up!' the Leviathan would walk away if she could. But for so reason, they all refused to leave from under the bed.
'As fun as it is to watch you fumble like that. The question remains, what are you all doing?' Hera asked.
'Hum… Empress… We-we are at-at-attempt-attempt… trying to ma-ma-ma-make a spell,' Dusa spoke up.
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'Oh? What kind of spell?' Hera was still lying on her bed, not feeling like getting up right now.
There was a pause; it was clear that the court was trying to decide who would say the next part. In the end, the job fell on the herald.
'The Pool of Styx, mum. We are not trying to change it. Just make it work in this place.'
'I see… and how are you doing that?'
'Well,' Daskka glanced at the rest of the court, begging for help.
'I've seen you using that spell enough tis to have an idea how the formation is set up,' Lurize said.
Ink followed it up. He spoke slowly, adding pauses that complented his gravitas even in simple phrases, 'And between , Gale, and Chris, we were able to set up an illusion of the room. Using the map you got as a reference.'
'Then, Lurize will tell us about the actual spell circle. Daskka made the lines with her mist, and the rest of us focused on making each part work,' Ember finished.
'That's amazing. How's the progress?' Hera smiled and adjusted herself. If they were going to show sothing, she would have to go to the bathroom. To avoid waking up the rest of the group.
'Well… Sort of good, sort of bad?' Crimson replied.
Hera held in a chuckle, 'Am I supposed to answer that?'
'No. No. I was just asking everyone else. I an, I'm not sure if I would call this a success,' Crimson explained.
'Well… It depends on our intention. If it was just to help Hera. Then I would say it's a success. But we didn't complete it,' Gale sighed.
'Yeah. There is still sothing wrong. It doesn't seem like the mana is going to flow with the spell circle we set up. Can you even call this a spell circle if it looks more like a funnel?' Tide sounded confused. Which gave the impression that maybe this was too much for him.
'Do you want to take a look, mum?' Daskka asked.
'Yeah, sure,' the Empress paused, 'Can you give five minutes? I'm really comfortable right now.'
'Of course!' a few of the court mbers said at the sa ti.
'That's chill. We get that. You get in a nice spot and just want to llow out. We've been at it for hours; let's all take a break, then we cook,' DJ added.
'Thanks,' Hera closed her eyes, but they shot up right after, 'Hang on. When I went to sleep, everyone was inside the legacy. Only Daskka was out. How did you all leave?'
'Daskka let us out. She asked first, so don't worry about us being dragged against our will,' Chris replied.
'Can you do that?' the question was directed at the herald.
'Yeah. But I need to be out. If I'm inside the necklace, that won't work. But since I can co and go as I please, it doesn't an much,' Daskka slithered away from under the bed and into Hera's arms.
'I see. And you all can hear her inside the court? Actually, I don't think I ever asked. What is it like inside there? Sothing like my private room?' the Empress asked.
'Not really. It's more like a void,' Ember replied.
'A void?' Hera sat up on the bed. The idea of living in a void, a place with nothing, felt awful.
'Ember is not entirely right. It's more like sleeping. Or being in stasis,' Lurize added.
'Yeah. We can't see or do anything when in there. And we don't even know we are inside the legacy,' Crimson tried to be more upbeat, but it was clear that she found it odd.
'I think it's more of a quantum physics situation. We sort of don't exist until soone interacts with us,' Viper sounded more confident, but there was still an underlying doubt in his words.
'I'm sorry. I'll try to not keep you in the legacy. That doesn't seem like it's a good place to be,' Hera frowned.
'Don't worry about it. We don't mind. It doesn't feel bad. It's just weird when we think about it,' Chris tried to cheer the Empress up.
'The only thing that makes upset is that we can't dream when we are resting in the legacy,' Lurize sighed.
'You can dream?!' Gale, Tide, Autumn, Ink, DJ, Viper, and Crimson gasped.
'You can't?' Dusa, Livy, Lurize, and Ember asked.
There was a brief conversation where the court debated why so of them were able to dream, and so weren't. In the end, they agreed that this was a coincidence and all of them should be able to dream. It just didn't happen for a few of them.
While that was going on, Hera sneaky talked with Daskka, 'Do you think we can change how the legacy is for them? Make the place they stay like my private room or sothing?'
The herald thought for a mont, 'There isn't a skill in the legacy for it. Not that there are that many left. But to make sothing like that would require you to spend mana continuously.'
'What if we use my Empress core? Reserve a part of it to do that.'
'Maybe. But I have no clue where to start,' Daskka admitted.
Hera smirked, 'It's a good thing we have a few friends who are good at making spaces made out of mana.'
Daskka smiled back, and after a few more monts, the Empress got up, called her court, and headed to the bathroom. Where they could talk and show the progress of the spell. This ti, however, together with the mist construct Daskka was making, Hera drew everything in the image of the spire on her tablet.
As the court said, there were so issues with the spell. When trying to stretch the spell circle, the connection would be too thin to withstand the magic. And making it just on the ground could help those in the city, but it wouldn't do anything to those in the Core Spire.
After about half an hour of trying, they couldn't co up with a way to fix that problem. Since she was already here, Hera decided to call the guide. She asked all of her courts to stay outside since the bathroom wasn't large enough for everyone, and she wanted them to stop anyone from trying to get inside. Not that she believed anyone in the team would force their way inside, but she needed a good excuse to be alone when talking with the guide.
She wanted to ask about the idea of a 'private room' for her court when they were inside the legacy. This was supposed to be a surprise, not to ntion she didn't want to risk giving them hope only to say that there was nothing that could be done. After casting the soundproof bubble around the bathroom, the Ophidianite got ready to call the guide, hoping that asking for them to deliver a ssage to Peaches and the others wouldn't be sothing that reduced the amount of ti she had for her questions.
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