Chapter 643 (1/2)

Her smile at the newly arrived man wasn’t warm, but… Lucretia couldn’t deny her satisfaction in the case of this individual. Even now that her sharp personality had been mollified somewhat by decompressing inside of Randidly. For all that she lost her sharpness, she still enjoyed the twisted nature of human emotion.

“Welcome back Claptrap.”

Claptrap shrugged at her, giving Lucretia a brief pulse of annoyance. But the young kid was relatively quiet now. Even when Lucretia turned back up in Tellus and compelled him to begin to work for her, he seemed to take it completely in stride.

Was this the rare teenage angst she had missed in both Shal and Randidly…?

Either way, Claptrap placed the heart and brain of the Witch King onto the table, dripping Wight blood across Lucretia’s formation. With a cough, she waved a hand blew the gunk away with pure force. His mission accomplished, Lucretia watched as Claptrap crossed the room and crouched in the corner.

She frowned at him. He was altogether too silent for how broken and haunted his eyes looked. If she had more time…

But no. The fear was back, pressing down on her. Not only was her body limited by a lifespan which she wasn’t even sure of, but also there was this oppressive fatalism that was slowly growing from that dark corner of her brain. Lucretia fought and fought against that feeling, but still, it grew. She had even wondered if actual fighting would help, so she lashed out at some spear users and some Wights to test her Skills.

Nothing changed. She needed it to stop.

Karma was about symbols. With all three pieces present, Lucretia began the ceremony. “Marco, the mirror.”

With a huff, Marco Polo carried the large mirror over to the altar. Lucretia walked to join him, while Claptrap remained in the corner, watching with sharp eyes. Even now, the poisonous emotions roiling off of him tempted Lucretia so badly. He had sacrificed so much for her assistance the first time. Now, that desperation would mean Claptrap would gamble away ten times that much.

But no, she could not dwell on it. If she didn’t address this problem as quickly as possible…

The fear in her was irritation, Lucretia knew, but it was hard to escape it. Her time in Randidly was an escape in a way. Her lack of substance meant she wasn’t mortal. But now… Those freedoms she had relished in could be the death of her.

Lucretia began with the chains. With great care, she wrapped the chains around her head and torso. The metal was extremely precious and so heavy that even Lucretia had difficulty standing under their weight. She spared Marco a glance. He had what was perhaps the most difficult mission; breaking into the grave of the Spearman, which was maintained without a body, and retrieve some of the metal stored there. The idea was to have a binding weighted with age.

In addition, it worked well because Lucretia was technically a contemporary of the Spearman. She had never met the man, but she had heard much about him.

Next, she took the brain of the Witch King and ate it. The meat was chewy and cold, but she forced it down. Then she squeezed the blood from the heart into a wooden bowl and retrieved a brush from her interspatial ring. With great care, she began drawing symbols on her body. Lucretia’s best guess was that the sense of fatalism emerging inside of herself was related to accomplishing the goal that she had been created for. Her role as a Wight hiding amongst Tellites was over. She only needed to find out why, and who set her to this.

After there were three symbols on her hands and feet and one between her eyes, Lucretia drank the rest of the blood. Instantly, the symbols on her body began to tingle.

Finally, she turned to the head of the Yeti and grabbed it. It opened its mouth to roar, and a low roar actually came out. It was so shocked by the noise that it froze, looking at her with a slack jaw. Ignoring it, Lucretia continued to remove the bindings she had placed upon it. Very soon it roared again, and the temperature in the cave rapidly dropped. It wasn’t overly oppressive, because much of its strength had been siphoned to form a weapon for Claptrap. But it was still a proud and advanced creature, and its images were from a higher plain.