Chapter 131: Finding a location
Changing her Glyphs would have to wait, however. Since they were carved into her body, the only way to properly change them was to die and generate a new body. So it was low on her priority list right now.
Had she not discovered the truth of the world, perhaps she would have gladly wasted ti killing herself and testing different glyphs to find the right combination. But that kind of ti was a luxury she could not afford.
The next week had to be dedicated to making her real body strong enough to endure other people with magic, otherwise she would beco even more of a sitting duck than she already was.
’Learning these spells is good and all. But without sowhere to practice them, I’m going to have to hope they work first ti, which is just asking for failure. The apartnt is definitely not sowhere I can do it...
Maybe I could find a shooting range? No... They’d never let
be unsupervised and they’d definitely have caras.
Anywhere outside is a risk itself, and it’s not as if I have so massive personal facility I could go. Even a warehouse would be good but those are definitely out of my price range and I am not exactly built for sneaking into them.
So where... where can I go to practice?’
Belladonna thought, leaning forwards with her head in her hands and her fingers combing through her hair as the stress of reality started to claw into her mind. Ti lines were great, they helped her get work done, but why did they always have to be so horrifyingly stressful?
She racked her mind, desperately trying to think of anywhere that fit her criteria. She needed space, she needed security and she needed privacy. Sowhere she could trust to be reliable.
A face, rather than a location, popped into her mind at that description. She rolled the possibility around in her mind, gnawing at her lip as she considered it. She wanted to keep it secret for her safety so that she could keep her tiline.
But did that really an she had to keep it secret from everybody? Shouldn’t there be so people she could trust?
Letting out a heavy sigh, Belladonna pulled out the scrying skull, the enchanted item responsible for their ssaging and friends function, and composed a ssage. Then deleted it and wrote another, then deleted it again.
For so reason she struggled to find the words, until finally she sent a simple ssage that read.
{Hey. Are you free today? I want to et up.}
***
A few hours later, Valerie found herself sitting in a simple coffee shop as the mid-afternoon sun mixed with the lights of the flashing advertisents before it stread in through the windows.
Her usual synth blend coffee sat in a ceramic cup in front of her as she spun it around nervously. She couldn’t help glance around constantly, the feeling that the undead guy could be sowhere nearby watching her was always a thought in her mind. Not to ntion the thought that his tiline might be wrong and there might be so magical nace out there.
The bell above the door rang, as it had done multiple tis in the half hour she had been sitting here, and just like all those tis before Valerie’s eyes darted up to see who had entered.
However instead of being t with disappointnt, relief washed over her at the sight of a stupidly handso face with a goofy smile. All of her anxiety lted away at the sight of Percy, a feat she didn’t even realise was possible, as his smile simply radiated an aura of tranquillity.
Yes, it was Percy that she had called. Not her own brother, but Percy. It was hard for her to explain, but Valerie was apprehensive of texting Jason about this, at least until she had a handle on it.
While he had the ans to make a decent training arena he was also a little... over protective sotis. She didn’t bla him for it, and in many cases when she was young it was a wonderful thing to have her big brother to defend and look out for her, especially when their useless father started to drift away from them.
That was undoubtedly where it stemd from.
But it also ant she knew how Jason would react. The practising would be dangerous and he would want to get involved, to stop her from progressing as fast as she needed to even at a little risk to herself.
He would also freak the hell out about her creep situation, and then he would slave himself away working to make himself strong enough to protect her and Lucy, so that they wouldn’t have to do anything themselves. It was... comndable, and she understood where it ca from.
But she couldn’t sit around and be protected anymore. So she needed soone more open and more of her wave length. Plus... she hated to admit it but she kind of wanted to take advantage of Percy’s considerable wealth.
Hence all of the guilt and anxiety.
However, as Percy stood at the counter, making his order and almost making the nervous barista turn completely red from that dashing smile still on his face, Valerie was unable to think of her plans or her guilt or her anxiety.
What she was thinking about instead, was what clothes she was wearing and whether or not she had rembered to put on deodorant before she left.
She glanced down at herself quickly, scanning over her thrown together outfit of loose jogging bottoms and a very faded graphic tee-shirt of an old school ga known as ’Dalbur’s Gate 3’. That wasn’t the worst.
Raising her hand, she waved at him and risked a stealthy sniff of herself, just in case, before lowering her hand and gliding it over her hair as a last minute fix.
"Why hello again Ray-gun, fancy eting you here." Percy said, sitting down across from her with his coffee in hand. Just another synthblend, just like her own. Although he still couldn’t help reaching for the sweeter and starting to tear open the packets.
"Hey Perce. Thanks for eting
on such short notice." She said with a nervous smile, her hands once again fiddling with her coffee as he flashed her another smile.
"Ah, It’s not like I was doing much anyways. That’s what a vice captain is for, right? Now he might not be as good as my last one, but he can still run dungeons without
breathing down his neck.
So what brought this on? You sounded a bit... off in your ssages, is everything okay?"
Valerie nodded softly, taking a deep breath before looking up and into his eyes,
"Yeah it’s just... I need to talk to you about sothing important. Like, really really important. Have you been having any headaches lately?"
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