Tablet Master Ch. 13

Tablet Master

Chapter 13

Kellia

Kellia yowled as the molecule of her body spawned from thin air in a mere second. The world was spinning, all sounds warped and her head felt heavy for a moment longer before she inhaled deeply.

"What is your order, Mistress," she said, out of breath. "Why the hell did I say that," she added, shaking her head.

A pair of long leather boots was wiggling to hurry through a narrow hole in the stone wall.

Kellia scarcely notice a grey fur covered tail wiggling in between the boots. The sounds of animals barking forced her to look over her shoulder.

A huge wolf locked its teeth into her throat, piercing her neck as she fell to the ground under the giant beast. The pain was crushing, but her scream of agony was cut short when the wolf ripped a huge chunk of her neck. She gaged and choked as the blood spewed all over. Her vision blurred and the world began to fade.

The animal took another bite at her face.

The pain peaked, but everything went black.

What the hell just happened? Where was I? Was I dreaming? Was this a dire wolf? Why did it attack me? Where is everyone? What am I doing here? What is this place? What is happening?

The confusion grew even more as she materialised again, falling to her knee in pain.

"Gaawwwwsshhiiittt, what is your order, Mistress," she said through clenched teeth.

"Help me for fuck sake," a young female voice shouted. "Stop them!"

Kellia didn't wait to see what was happening this time and generated a sphere of energy around her as she watched her mistress running away fast. She didn't know how or why she knew it was her mistress, she simply did. Her mistress was wearing a long brown cloak with a hood, so Kellia couldn't see much, except for her feet, which she had already seen in the hole earlier, and what appeared to be a long tail of gray fur.

The energy sphere crackled as the dire wolf slammed into it.

She turned to face it, keeping one knee on the ground to counter the dizziness and released a blast of energy. She invested a fraction of her potential, which was enough to kill most human, but it barely scorched the beast.

She shouldn't have been harmed by the beast the first time, yet it did. Kellia was normally unarmed by anything that wasn't either magical or made of silver. That dire wolf didn't appear to be either, yet it had killed her earlier. 'I must be careful,' she thought.

The creature tried to move through her barrier in vain and ended up circling around her instead, exposing what was coming afterwards.

Three more dire wolves and a dire bear. She squinted in disbelief, but it was still there, riding on the bear's head, she saw a small humanoid creature that looked like an elf with wings.

A fairy? She thought. "What in Seven's name is happening here?"

The fairy yelled something in a foreign tongue. The first wolf dashed away from her, heading in the direction they were all running to.

"All right then," she said as her head finally stopped spinning.

She was carrying a rifle strapped around her neck and hanging in her back, but as much as bullets were effective, it was nothing compared to her supernatural powers. The rifle would become handy if the wolfs made it too far.

She focused most of her potential to create four long magical tentacles in the form of heavy-duty chains and snatched the first wolf with one before he'd get out of range.

As the other three wolves ran past, she snatched them all.

Her chains had the strength of a hundred men, and so did she, but she still only weighted two hundred kilograms against the weight of four creature each twice as much.

She flung left and right as they struggled to break free for a moment until she managed to lift them all off the ground.

She had one hand and one knee on the ground in a low position, her chains arched from her back with a beast in each, held two meters above ground when the dire bear stretched high and mighty with one paw pulling backward.

"Shhhhhhhhiiiit," she said.

The giant paw slammed across her protective sphere with its sharp claws and she felts its potential reduced by more than half.

The second blow was already on the way.

With little time to ponder the appropriate defense, she decided to slam all four wolves into the bear in a simultaneous attempt to save her skin.

The beasts crashed into the bear all together with force, but the large paw obliterated her defense and the sharp claws ripped her flesh open in multiple spots, all at the same time.

She roared in pain, fueled with all the potential she had left. Her sound boomed so loud it muted the howls and the growls of all the beasts.

The animals crumbled to the ground with their heads between their paws, howling in pain for a moment as she maintained her supernatural roar.

The fairy had fell off the bear and held its ear in pain as well.

She stopped. She looked around, panting heavily, her chains waving idly.

Two of the wolves appeared to be dead, blood oozing from their ears and noses. The other two were still breathing faintly and the bear growled low but looked stun.

The fairy wobbled back on its feet and glared at her. "Who the devil, are you?" he asked before coughing some blood. He looked like a tiny version of a human with long pointy ears, dark brown skin, glowing blue irises, and long dark purple hair. His fairy wings were transparent with a fain bluish luminescence, two on each side, protruding from his shoulder plates. He wore a suit of leather armor, a long sword at his belt, although it looked like a toothpick to her, a few pouches and a pair of red boots that looked like a leaf wrapped around his foot.

"I'm Kellia," she said, panting.

"Why did you stop me?"

"She asked," Kellia said, pointing her finger at her mistress, who was still running away in the high grass.

"Why did you listen to her, she's a murderer and a thief!"

"I... I don't know," Kellia said. "The first time your wolf killed me, so I assumed you were the bad guys."

"Killed you?" The fairy snarled. "If he killed you, why are you here?"

"I... I don't know."

"Well get the hell out of my way and let me catch this scoundrel," the fairy said, climbing back on the bear.

The thought of letting him go caused an annoying pain to course through the back of her neck and the more she watched without doing anything, the greater the pain.

The fairy muttered in a foreign tongue and his hand glowered a faint green as he touched the bear.

The creature woke. It shook its huge head and slowly got back on its feet.

Kellia's chains faded away. She didn't have any potential left to fuel them.

The pain was becoming unbearable, near agony.

She stepped in front of the bear with her arms spread. "No, wait!"

The pain subsided instantly.

"What is it," the fairy asked.

"What's your name?"

"It's none of your business," the fairy said. "Now, get out of my way!"

She cringed from the pain as she began to step out of the way and growled low.

"Gggnnoooo I can't," she hissed through clenched teeth, resuming her position.

"Shh'tak'hraall," the fairy said.

Kellia tilted backward to avoid a bite from the bear. She flipped backwards in a continuous motion and threw a powerful back-flip kick under the beast's maw. Its teeth clacked loudly. The creature growled and took a few steps back, shaking its head.

"I have to stop you," she said. "I don't know why, but I feel pain when I'm not trying."

"I don't care," the fairy said. "You will die!"

The fairy yelled in his tongue and the bear swung his paw at her.

She jumped out of the way, bounced off one of the wolves and hammered her fists on top of the bear's head like a sledgehammer.

She heard the skull crack as the animal crashed at her feet, breathing scarcely.

She looked at the fairy, who was still yelling incomprehensively, and a sudden and very intense flash of light blinded her.

She roared and swung with her hand open to try and snatch the fairy, but she missed.

Everything was white. The fairy continued to yell, and his voice echoed all around her as if he were everywhere at once.

She kicked and punched where she thought he might be, but all she hit was one of the dead wolves.

Large maws bit her side hard and stayed jammed into her flesh. She threw a punch at the wolf's head, but the other wolf bit her arm.

The beasts mauled her apart before she could grab hold to prevent it.

She cried in pain and tried to move away, but the wolves attacked again, mauling her to death as she tried desperately to fight them off, blind and out of potential energy to fuel her powers.

White turned to black after a moment of flesh ripping agony.

What the hell is happening?

Kellia screamed her lungs out. The agony of being mauled to death and materializing at the same time was alarming, but she still managed to invest a bit of potential to erect her protective sphere.

"What is your order, Mistress," she said, unwillingly. "What the hell is going on?"

"Quick, kill the fairy," her mistress said.

The fairy was on its knee, on a wood table. He held one hand to his blood gushing flank and a sword in the other hand.

Her mistress was wrapped in a cocoon of web with only part of her face uncovered.

Kellia screamed in agony as she defied her order. No amount of pain would make her kill a creature without a good reason.

It felt like a whiplash and she was suddenly hovering above her own body, like a ghost, and watched herself slam her fist on the weakened fairy.

His body was crushed under her fist and the table shattered under the blow.

The fairy coughed a mouthful of blood before her body stomped on him. The hardened wood floor caved under her foot as the blood splattered horribly all around.

The cocooned mistress exhaled deeply.

Kellia's pain subsided, but it took a long moment before she regained motor control of her body.

She moved her foot and snarled, shaking it to try and take the blood off but sprinkled it even more instead.

"Can you help me," her mistress said.

Kellia glared. "I can, but why should I?"

The girl stared back with her yellow feline eyes.

Her face was covered with gray fur, like the tail Kellia had seen earlier. The small part of her face, her eyes, her nose, and her lips appeared to be feline, not unlike an actual panther face and muzzle.

"I thought you would serve me," the panther girl said. "That's what the word said on the Tablet."

"What Tablet?" Kellia asked, examining the cocoon.

"Help me out of this cocoon and I'll show you."

Kellia squeezed her fingers into the cocoon on each side of the girl's face and tore it open.

The mistress held a stone Tablet in one hand and tore the rest of the web off her with the sharp claws of her fingers.

"I'm Kashmere," she said, stepping out of the webbed cocoon. "You can call me Kash."

Kashmere was a humanoid feline with the head of a panther. She had a long feline tail, her body was covered in gray fur all over, and she had multiple patterns of teal in her fur, shaped like waving lines, arrows, strange symbols, and one shaped like a diamond on her forehead. She wore a brown leather jacket that barely reached below her average size breast, a pair of black and brown leather gloves reaching a little past the middle of her forearm and cut just before her knuckles, and a long pair of brown leather boots reaching as high as the middle of her thighs. Her boots had a reversed rim at the top and a little under her knee, which also had a metal pin into them in the shape of a featureless panther face. She wore straps of black leather across her frame at the neck, on her breast, on her chest and around her hips to form a bikini. Similar metal featureless heads covered her nipples and her genital. She also had a second set of leather straps, this one brown, crossing around her chest and hips, holding a few pouches and a holster, all under a large brown hooded cloak. She held the Tablet in one hand and a sizeable musket pistol in the other.

Kashmere showed her the stone Tablet.

"Speak the name Kellia-Millaradÿss while holding this Tablet and a helpful servant with great power will appear," Kellia read hastily while muttering the words.

Her face crumpled.

"I found the Tablet in a cave while squeezing through to run away," Kashmere said. "I read it out loud, but nothing happened so I kept on moving."

"I did appear," Kellia said. "Behind you. I saw your boots wiggling in that hole. Then I saw the wolf. It ripped my throat off, and I think I died."

"Oh... sorry, I didn't know," Kashmere said. "You died, but you're here."

"Yeah... You did know I was there the second time though," Kellia said. "Didn't you see me fight all those wolves and-" she looked at her foot with a grimace on her face. "him?"

"Your foot has fur," Kashmere said, staring at her bloodied foot.

"Yes, it does."

"Anyhow, yes, I saw you," Kashmere said, pulling a soft sack from her leather pouch to shove the Tablet in. "I kept running so I didn't see much of the fight."

"Why was he chasing you?"

"There is a bounty on my head," she said. "One million gold."

"It's a lot from where I come from, so I guess it's a lot here too," Kellia said. "You're a murderer and a thief, just like the fairy said."

"Whoa, let's take a break here," Kashmere said, holstering her musket. "I'm none of those things... I'm a pirate... well... okay, maybe I'm a thief," she sighed, "and I guess I'm also a murderer, but I don't kill for pleasurrrr-and ohmygodyouhaveatail," she moved around Kellia to try and catch her tail.

Kellia swung her tail away and turned to keep facing the panther.

"Show me your legs," Kashmere said.

Kellia didn't see the point of all this, but as she considered not doing what had been told, the pain arose. She pushed her pants down without further deliberation, exposing her yellow tiger furry legs.

"You're a tiger." Kashmere said. "You look like someone cut a Tiger-Cathorian in half and glued a human torso on it at the hips... rhooooomygawd you're a half Tiger-Cathorian, I was told half breed was super rare, like one in a million, and I thought all Tiger-Cathorians died centuries ago. Where are you from?"

"Look," Kellia said, pulling her pants back up. "I come from a place called Athlanta, which I suspect is in a completely different dimension. I'm not a Cathorian, I'm a Waretiger, but I look like a half Weretiger. I can change though."

"What's with the clothes," Kashmere said, pinching at her pants. "So many pockets!"

"It's called a tank top and a pair of cargo pants," Kellia said.

"It's so cool and so useful, I want pant like that! Can I try it?"

"Sure," Kellia sighed. "Why not..."

She took her pants off while Kash took her boots off to try the cargo pants on for a moment, bending over, walking, and jumping.

"It feels so weird," Kashmere said. "It's light, loose and comfortable, yet I feel it wouldn't protect me as much against a cut from a blade."

"You're right, it won't," Kellia said. "This is meant for comfort and for its usefulness. People don't fight with blades where I come from, well mostly not. They use guns, like this one."

Kellia grabbed her assault riffle with a grenade launcher mounted on it, checked the magazine reflexively and made sure the chamber was empty. The magazine was full. She checked the grenade chamber. It had all three.

"It's loaded," Kellia said, handing the rifle to her mistress.

Kashmere examined the weapon. "It looks like one of Fat Willis' long muskets, but..." she looked through the scope. "No way!"

Kellia pushed the canon away from her head as Kashmere looked around through the scope.

"Can we address the elephant in the room," Kellia said.

Kashmere gaped and looked around. "What elephant?"

"It's an expression. It means something obvious."

Kashmere raised an eyebrow.

Kellia took the rifle back. "I call you mistress," she said. "When you tell me to do something in an orderly fashion, I must do it or else I feel pain and if I don't do it, the pain grows exponentially and I lose control of my body, but while my body accomplishes the order you gave, I continue to suffer like hell and I witness my body doing something I don't want to do helplessly and in agony."

"That sounds terrible," Kashmere said, shivering.

"Yeah... it is..."

"So... where's the elephant-obvious thing?"

"Everything!"

"You're obviously imprisoned within the magic of this Tablet," Kashmere said, patting the bag. "As for the how and the why, I have no clue. When I read your name, you appear and..." she smiled wickedly, "you must do as I say-how-cool-is-that!"

"Not cool," Kellias said. "Not cool."

"Sit," Kashmere said.

Kellia sat as soon as she felt the pain beginning to rise.

"Roll over!"

Kellia rolled over on the side that didn't have the carcase of the fairy and kept on rolling.

"You're like a magical summon or something," Kashmere said. "Stop and get up."

Kellia bounced back on her feet, flipping the weapon back into her hand to aim at Kashmere. The pain rose as she tried to pull the trigger, but although the struggle happened in a fraction of a second, she couldn't. She had felt the loss of connection and lost control of her body just enough to prevent her from pulling that trigger whilst the pain was excruciating.

She roared loud.

It wasn't her supernatural roar that could kill, but her natural roar, which could still be heard up to two kilometers away.

Kashmere stared, her ears wiggling briefly after the roar. "What is it?" she asked, calmly.

"I can't hurt you," Kellia said, lowering her weapon.

A human male came rushing into the building. He was wearing a metal breast plate under a red cape with a golden eagle emblem. He held a sword in one hand and a large metal shield in the other.

"What is going on here?" The man said.

"Nothing," Kashmere said. "My friend is just a little upset, that's all."

The man looked at both feline girls alternatively a few times and then stared at the corpse on the floor.

"I was told a fight broke in here," the man said, sheathing his sword as he walked closer. "Was the fairy making trouble?"

"Yes," Kashmere said. "The fairy attacked me and almost killed me, but my friend killed it."

"There's a bounty on fairies," the man said. "If you bring its head back to the barracks, they'll pay you two gold for it."

Kashmere grinned and bowed slightly. "Thank you very much for the information brave man," she said. "We will clean this mess and pay for the damage."

"The owner is my cousin," the man said with a grin. "I'm always attracted to such cute and lovely exotic creatures from other kingdoms. I'll spare you all that trouble and gold if you two agree to join me in a room."

"Now you're talking my language," Kashmere said, taking the cargo pants off. "Here, put them back on."

Kellia slipped back into her pants.

"I really don't-"

"Do not speak," Kashmere interrupted.

Kellia took a long deep breathe.

"We'll be waiting for you in a room while you deal with your cousin about this mess," Kashmere said to the man. "Follow me," she said looking at Kellia.

'Shit,' Kellia thought, following her mistress upstairs. 'This cannot happen, this cannot happen, this cannot happen,' she repeated continuously in her mind as to prepare for the pain in advance.

The man stayed behind and Kellia heard him call for his cousin.

She hadn't paid much attention to the place, but it was a large room with three tables long enough to sit five people on each side and a few smaller tables in the corners. There were two fireplaces, one on each side of the room, and a small bar in the opposite corner from the entrance door. The ceiling was low, the decoration was poor, and the place was filthy, even without considering the blood splatter, webbing, and broken chair the fight had caused.