142 Doll (1/2)

It did not take very long for Li to get to the Chevrette estate. By now, he had the city mapped well in his head, and having a bird's eye view in the sky made things all the easier. But what made the trip even shorter was the drive with which he pushed himself. He had not flown with this intensity since he had stepped into this world.

His wings crashed into the sky, blasting out great squalls of wind that shot his form across the sky like a shooting star. He had his arms pinned to his side with his body straight like an arrow to let the wind flow past him more efficiently. His eyes were wide open, black like voids as they saw past the battering winds and honed into the cityscape below.

Another flap of his wings, and Li adjusted his course slightly, angling himself downwards as he spotted the tall hill where the noble estates were. The force of his flight was such that he was certain that if anyone in the streets were walking below, they could hear him, though they would not be able to see him.

Caution was secondary at this point, but even so, Li did not completely disregard it. As the golden Chevrette mansion came rapidly into view, he shed his mortal form once more. His flesh peeled away into flaky rivulets like dried paint, scattering into dust in the rapid winds of his flight. He figured that since he would be fighting an opponent of some merit, he would have to use some measure of powerful magic far too flashy to attribute to his human form.

Li had not wanted rumors to spread about a powerful monster lurking in Riviera, but he would deal with that later. Instead, he immersed himself in the present, zoning in on the gold-tiled roofing of the Chevrette estate and crashing straight through it.

Li retracted his wings as he bored through the reinforced roofing and two floors of wood before he made it to the bottom floor. He landed gently on his feet, sawdust and splinters falling around him like rain. He had sensed only a single life force in this mansion. There was not a single guarding knight nearby, which was quite odd considering the house was still supposed to be under arrest.

It only took Li to cast a single glance around him to realize why. There were knightly corpses scattered all about the living room. It was a strange sight to see the bisected halves of armored knights littering luxuriously golden furniture, the bloody red and shining gold mixing together oddly well.

The stench of death ran rank in the air from the knights' corpses, but as before, Li noticed there was little sign of struggle. All of them had been split in two cleanly before they could put up a fight. The house was largely still in order, the bookcases and their leather-bound tomes still standing dusty and tall, the dinner table still laden with food laid out for the knights.

Li was right to have come here. The golem was likely still here. But what was odd was that it had killed completely indiscriminately. As Li made his way to the single life signature in the mansion, he could see there were bodies not only of the Knights of Lys, but of a few aged butlers that likely served Chevrette.

Li quickened his pace to the life signature. It lay beyond the living room, into a hallway that fed into a spacious kitchen. The kitchen was well lit with lantern and crystal lights, and the bodies of chefs lined the floor, some of them still holding knives and unprepared food in their hands.

The situation did not seem right. As Li focused, he realized the life signature did not match that of Chevrette's. It was stronger, younger, and yet, it was not supernatural. Regardless, he pushed on as anything alive and human would still be able to tell him what had happened and where the golem was.

At the back of the kitchen, behind a vault for ingredients very similar to the one employed in the fine restaurant, Li found the life signature he was looking for.

Li had pulled the metal vault door off with his branched fingers, and when he saw who it was, he laid the heavy door quietly down. It was Chevrette's daughter, kitchen knife clasped in a shaking pale hand poised at Li, and below her blood rimmed dress was the body of her father, neatly split from head to toe like all the other corpses.

The northern bronze housekeeping golem was also here, though in several broken and dented pieces. The head was noticeably scrunched up like a tin can beside a pile of fish spilled from an overturned crate. It sparked and occasionally let loose a distorted word of ”danger”.

Ironic, in a way. The great Chevrette ending up just the same as all the common citizens and servants he once stood above. But regardless, the sins of a parent did not condemn a child, and Li needed to talk to the daughter properly to get a sense of what was going on.

Li knelt down and slowly reached out his hand, knowing full well how horrific he looked. The daughter shrunk back, biting her lip with such intensity that it broke the skin and drew blood. She flailed her arm around, the knife waving wildly.

”I am no threat,” said Li. He pointed to her with a wooden, claw-like finger. ”[Tranquility]”.

A swirl of leaves and brilliant green energy whirled around the girl, wiping away her momentary panic and terror as well as any potential physical damage.

Li moved forwards, making sure his large frame hid the sight of Chevrette's corpse from the girl. As he did so, he changed he cast more shapeshifting on himself, using a spell called [Aspect of the Howling Ursine] to shift his face to that of a brawny, horned bear with purple flame curling from his eyes and teeth.

Still a terrifying sight to a human, but at the least, it masked his insanity inducing presence. It was also possibly the most combat ready form in case he was ambushed. And in his opinion, a bear was more pleasant to look at than a skull.