Lucky Rabbit

Name: Pandy

Race: Rabbit? (Deceased)

Age: 24

LF: 6/6

Mana: 9/929

Stats▾

Skills▾

Spells▾

Boons▾

Corruption Points: 528

That night, after Pandy’s now-routine bounce around her secret lab, she stared at her stats. Almost all of them had gone up, with her Mana approaching a thousand, which in turn allowed her to level the more Mana-hungry spells more quickly. It was whatever the opposite of a vicious cycle was, and Pandy was there for it.

She was really looking forward to finding out what happened when Nyssa’s Condition reached one hundred percent, at which point Pandy would probably switch to repairing the enchantments in the various rooms instead. Though she wondered if they would also cost less as the house was repaired, much like Nyssa’s repair cost decreased as she became more loyal. Really, the books needed their own instruction manuals.

But as she lay there on the cold and probably only slightly-bloodstained floor, her eyes went back to her Life Force. Why was it now six? She’d been checking her stat sheet every day after her bounce, and sometimes multiple times during the bounce, so she was certain her LF had only been five when she walked into the restaurant. She hadn’t checked during the meal – frankly, she was too busy laughing and talking with everyone to even think about it – so that extra point had appeared sometime between going to eat and returning home after dropping the kids back at school.

Raising a paw, she jabbed at the incorporeal numbers, and they faded away, just as they did every time she tried to interact with them. What did it mean? Did it have anything to do with the fact that she was suddenly able to cry? Was she – and this was the thought that made her both terrified and elated – slowly returning to life? Could a slightly demonic probably-undead rabbit even be alive? If she did, would she be a Demon or a rabbit or something in between?

An image of herself as a horned rabbit with permanent white bat wings made her press her paws over her eyes and roll around on the floor. Nope, if that was her only option, she would definitely rather stay as she was.

Rolling the rest of the way over, she splayed out her limbs, resting her chin on the floor as she stared at General Avington’s casket. If she touched him now, would she get the next vision? Was she ready for the next vision? Something told her it wasn’t time yet, so she just lay there and pulled up her stats again.

All right. Up one point of Life Force, whatever that meant. Mana and Agility had both increased quite a bit, with a few points going to Intelligence and Pain Tolerance as well. Strength was lagging behind, but she was worried that if she raised it too high, she would accidentally hurt someone. She was strong enough now to punch holes in walls and break doors, so how much more did she really need? Besides, Bite was the only skill she knew of that would give her Strength, and unless she wanted to sit down here gnawing on rock, it would be difficult to raise it much further. Not that she couldn’t do exactly that, but why would she?

Minor Heal was getting close to level twenty-five, which was good. She really wanted to know what would happen when it reached level thirty. Flying back and forth to school, as well as the Daily Bounce had raised Wings of Glory to level nine, but the spell was a Mana hog, so she couldn’t spam it without using up the Mana she needed for Nyssa. Radiant Presence had increased by five levels because in the secret lab, no one could see her glow. That glow was getting pretty bright, too, so it looked like Pandy was hiding a whole constellation beneath her fur.

She couldn’t use either Verdant Surge or Vita Herbalis down here, at least not without hauling down some shade-loving plants, but the atrium would soon have some pots in it, and then she could grow things. Carefully.

Spark was up three levels, and Pandy had actually used Innate Magic a few times every day in order to feed Mana to Nyssa. Even though she was technically a long way from level twenty-four, she felt a lot more comfortable controlling the magic, rather than just letting the System handle it all. She’d even had some success in convincing her spells to last a specified amount of time, though it did tend to be sort of specified-ish, rather than a precise number.

Shield of Darkness had reached level twelve, though at level ten its protection had maxed out at twenty percent of the target’s health. Still, that wasn’t bad, and hopefully it would protect almost anyone – other than Pandy, because twenty percent of six points of Life Force still wasn’t very much – from a death blow. When she used the shield to sneak around at school, she also found the shadows didn’t have to be as deep in order to trigger it, and she seemed to be a little more hidden than she used to be. The downside was that it also muffled her own senses a bit more when she was inside it, but that seemed to have maxed out at level ten as well.

Pandy definitely wasn’t using Air of Superiority or Scorching Sonata inside the house, even here, and she still hadn’t managed to figure out how to make Dark Restoration work at all. She had a bad feeling she was going to have to let something stomp her in order to figure it out, and she had about as much interest in that as she did setting herself on fire. Which was actually an option, but not a good one.

Her non-Mana-related Skills had come along the most, though, since she could work on them while her magic refilled. Hop was all the way up to level twenty-four, and she could cross the room in a single long, low jump by now. She didn’t, because it was more fun pretending to be a bouncy ball or a subatomic particle, and there was almost a sort of Zen to it if she let her mind wander as she Hopped. Her body knew every inch of this room, the placement of each of the few pieces of furniture, and she hadn’t knocked over a casket all night.

Scratch was up by six whole levels, though she wouldn’t actually call the table she’d been using for practice anything other than a series of poorly-connected scratching posts at this point. Best of all were Dance and Dual Wielding, which went together like peanut butter pie and chocolate crust, and she absolutely wasn’t going to tell the System it had been right to suggest it. If she ever got her System back. Not that the System had actually gone anywhere, but she was so tired of bland ‘plus-one’ and ‘skill successful’ – or ‘spell failed’ in the case of Dark Restoration – messages that she could scream. Except she wouldn’t do that, either, because bunny screams were among the worst sounds in the world, even if she was producing them.

In any case, she could now control at least the style of dance she got, so at least if she was in the mood for ballet, she didn’t end up doing the electric boogaloo anymore, which was nice. She’d spent some time trying out various vegetables as weapons to allow her to use Dual Wielding as a rabbit, but eventually realized that if she changed the way she thought about it, her claws were weapons, and suddenly it worked. Apparently perspective mattered when it came to magic.

Another check of her stats showed that Pandy’s Mana was almost back up to one hundred, and when she tried her legs, they didn’t feel shaky in that sugar-crash way they always did when she went below fifty. Honestly, she should work on Hop some more, but for some reason, she really wanted Minor Heal to be the first one to reach level thirty. If something interesting did happen, there was no better Skill or Spell for it to happen to.

No, it was time to head back to school, because even though tomorrow was Saturday, and Miss Haupe didn’t need to be there, Pandy had promised Thaniel she’d be back every night if she could, and she had no intention of breaking that promise. With that in mind, she hopped back up the stairs – normal hops, not Hops, which at this point might well end with her breaking a stair or the ceiling – and paused in the office, listening to the sound of the wind in the trees, making branches tap gently at her-

BANG! Pandy hopped straight up, thankfully not instinctively triggering the Skill, as a crash came from somewhere below. She ran for the door, which was closed, as always, and used Shifting Faces just long enough to open it, then released the spell again, conserving her last few minutes as a human just in case whatever was happening required thumbs.

Thankfully, Isidor, Eleanor, and a Very Peevish Dragon looked out of their rooms as she passed, so whatever was happening, they were all safe. That left one non-elemental resident of the house, and Pandy had a sinking feeling she had at least some idea what was going on as she slid down the banister to the first floor. Whispered conversation from behind her told her that Isidor was preventing Eleanor from investigating, though the odds weren’t good that Hazel would pay any attention to him.

Every night since she’d been given permission to leave, Empress Glory did exactly that. It seemed to be something like the way feral cats were compelled to stalk the dark and lawless streets, howling out the song of their people and peeing on things to mark their territory. Glory always brought some prize home with her, and she was always angry, storming back to her room to tear off her disguise before donning a nightgown and taking her ill-gotten gains off to wherever they needed to go. This was the first time she’d made so much noise while performing this ritual, however, so Pandy was a little worried she might have gotten into trouble while she was out.

Sure enough, a nightgown-clad Empress was stalking down the hall toward Pandy as she landed on the last step. In her arms the other woman held what looked like a bright red sphere that had been flattened to only six or seven inches deep, though it was almost two feet in diameter. Glory wasn’t short, but she was slight, with little visible muscle-mass, and she almost waddled as she struggled to carry her prize to the kitchen.

Seeing Pandy, she scowled. She’d taken the time to smear a little color on her eyelids and lips, but her hair was still flat and ruthlessly pinned to her scalp. The short wig she wore when she pretended to be Graham was probably lying on the floor in her room, where Pandy absolutely hadn’t seen her throw it while absolutely not spying on her the night before.

“Are you going to help or not?” she demanded, meeting Pandy’s eyes, and Pandy raised a paw, pointing to herself before realizing that that probably wasn’t a very rabbity thing to do. Empress Glory just rolled her eyes and nodded, however, so it was probably too late to worry about it.

With a sigh, Pandy thought, <Cast Shifting Faces,> and stepped down off the stair, easily taking what turned out to be an enormous wheel of cheese from the other woman.

Glory stared at her, then ran her hand down her face before pointing to the kitchen. “Into the pantry,” she ordered, then glanced up the winding staircase and called, “Go back to bed!” in the sort of voice adults use when they’re not sure if the children are awake and don’t want to wake them if they aren’t, but do want them to go to sleep if they are.

If Pandy was capable of being sleepy, the blast of frigid air from the enchanted cold room would have woken her up, and Glory waited in the kitchen, arms wrapped around herself as she rubbed her shoulders. Even Pandy struggled to place the cheese down quietly, and she could see the flattened section of wax where Glory had dropped it. Eventually the cheese rested against the wall, and Pandy exited the room as quickly as possible, much preferring the cool wash of the Empress’s Dark Aura to this world’s equivalent of a walk-in refrigerator. Just because the cold didn’t bother her, that didn’t mean she enjoyed it.

“Why did you-?”

“What are you?”

They both stopped and stared at each other, but Pandy figured Empress Glory had more Need to Know about who or what she was living with than Pandy needed to know why there was now a fifty-pound cheese wheel in her magical fridge.

“I’m an elemental,” she admitted, opting for the simplest explanation, and Glory snorted.

“I’m a Dark mage. You think I didn’t know that?” Glory demanded. “You’re not an Umblink or a Duskin, and you’re not like Nox and Nyssa, either. They’re Apparitions, I think, though I’ve never seen any others.” She eyed Pandy, then shook her head. “Unless you’re the strangest Tenebron I’ve ever met, that’s not it, and there are only four forms of Dark elementals.”

“That you know of,” Pandy said, eyes widening in realization.

“That I know of,” the Empress agreed dryly. “But that Augustus fellow obviously knows what you are and doesn’t have a problem with it. Are you his? But he’s Air, isn’t he?” She gestured toward her chest. “He has that magic pocket all of them get as soon as they can.”

“Hidden Cache,” Pandy corrected absently, then said, “So you don’t know about Echowretches or Demons?” Glory didn’t flinch – didn’t react at all, in fact. She just waited, and Pandy felt compelled by that silence. “I have a book that talks about them, just a bit. It’s really old, though. It was hidden in the school library, beneath a floorboard. I think it was written for students, but at some point-” She broke off because she had probably already said too much, but her brain had only just gotten enough control of her mouth to make it stop.

“Are you an Echowretch or a Demon, then?” Glory asked, circling Pandy as she looked her up and down in a way Pandy found a bit unsettling.

That… was actually a good question. Pandy had settled firmly into the belief that she was playing the role meant for Ascyra, the Demon Queen, which made her a Demon, didn’t it? But she didn’t actually know anything about Echowretches, other than they were the elementals Professor Beeswick had been focused on misdirecting when the Shadow Exchange was sending people and Apparitions after Pandy.

It seemed the Empress didn’t really care, though, because her next question followed rapidly on the heels of the last. “Do you want to form a contract with me?”

Pandy froze. Inside her, in a place that probably didn’t actually exist in any physical way, she felt a faint tug. She’d felt it before when The Father told her to protect Thaniel, and again a few times since. She was fairly certain it was whatever remained of her elemental nature, but it was little more than a residual twinge. “No,” she said, injecting just enough of Ms. Wellington into it to make sure there was no question left in the other woman’s mind.

Empress Glory stopped her prowling, settling back onto her bare heels, curling toes just visible beneath the hem of her lacy nightgown. With a shrug, she said, “Well, let me know if you change your mind. Now goodnight. I’m tired.” Then, as if she wasn’t the one who’d initiated this exchange, she sauntered toward the open kitchen door, where a flicker of motion told Pandy that at least one of the children had come to investigate.

Relief yielded to curiosity as Pandy watched her go, and she called out, “Why cheese?”

Empress Glory paused in the doorway, grinning. “Why not?” Then, with a farewell flick of her fingers, she was gone, leaving Pandy in a dark kitchen with questions and a whole lot of gouda.

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