Framework of the Frontier, Sain Artwell [read me a book .TXT] 📗

and the intense brightness dissipated from her eyes.

“Fuck! Rulu snap the fuck out of it! Push!”

She cursed loudly in her native tongue, shoving against the lid. “Sorry!”

“Don’t be sorry, push! Push like you’re shitting bricks!”

“Lock it. Lock it quick,” ushered Nevija. “Keep them in.”

Pressure eased for a split second. In that instant William summoned everything his back and legs had to give with a roaring war cry. Weights sitting on the lid toppled off and in a snap the lid flipped open. He wasn’t sure if the blessing was undone by the antimagic chest, and rushed through the ‘God bless your strength’, touching Rulu with his foot.

For that instant he took another trip across the Rulu’s glass castle, but now across a different corridor — one decorated by a fierce power of will to do as she pleases. She jumped out of the box.

William fell backwards, his brain drowning in a strange nauseating void that followed emptying his divine energies. He blacked out with a grin, certain that she would kick ass.

14

Rulu evaded the haphazard strikes of her foes by rolling onto the path of coarse dirt. A blade edge nicked her leg, but the wound was minor and, most remarkably, regenerating right before her eyes. William’s blessing infused her with a concentration of energy that seeped into every aspect of her being — body, mind, and soul.

Quickest of her opponents, the crimson miarii called Nevija, moved her blade to William’s throat. “Surrender or—”

Before she could finish her threat, Rulu was in her eyes. Through that link, she reached into the Dreaming to crash the astral tides upon the woman’s mind. It happened with such force and speed that it startled Rulu.

Never once in her life had her bond to the Dreaming been as strong. Never once had the astral tides and passages of dream bent to her whim with such swiftness and eager to obey. It was as if an eye had been opened in her and she saw directly into the Dreaming.

There, amidst swirling streams of echoes of mortal dreams, she sensed her foes, but not only them. She sensed the tiny dreams of the insects and lesser beings of the surface with uncanny clarity. She could target them directly. All at once.

With but a thought, she dove her focus into the deepest pits of chaotic panic, delving into that moment of utter delirium wherein one’s limbs seems not their own and memories of present begin to flake like dry coral. With a second thought she spread the tendrils of her will throughout the surrounding dreamspace, sharing a tenfold intensified echo of the emotion.

Its effects were immediate. Neither the dwellers of the seas nor the surface bounty hunters could resist it. They staggered, stumbling haphazardly like a stunned fish who’d become a stranger to her own fins. With her opposition effectively disarmed, it took Rulu mere few heartbeats to crush their softened minds into mushy pulp, by going through them one by one with her mindblast.

Aggoloth attempted to speak, but Rulu had no interest in her offers nor any intention of being seduced by false promises. That filthy mnemiopth could swear upon her own polyp cradle and still sink her stingers in Rulu’s neck the moment she relaxed her guard. Besides, Rulu had scarce little use for a new maid servant at the present, if she was forced to flee once more.

She would have to, if a leviathan had indeed found his way to these forsaken puddles. If only you would not have led the bounty hunters to me. I could’ve hid here till the end times.

“May Ungrath eat you and make the digestion long and painful.” Rulu kicked Aggoloth’s helmet to disappointingly little effect.

Sensations of wellness, might, and enhanced mental acuity began to diminish, dispersing from her grasp like a cloud of ink. Her attention was once more drawn to William.

The magic that man possessed was truly remarkable. With but a simple blessing he had hurled her stages ahead in her path to mastering her magic and allowed her to glimpse at the path ahead the way she had glimpsed through the veil of his heart. Although the blessing had faded, the memory of it was etched in Rulu. She recalled that empowering sensation of reaching out far into the surrounding Dreaming, of her mind spilling beyond its limits.

You wield an intriguing power William.

Rulu climbed on the wagon where he lay, for the most part, unmoving. His chest rose and fell in languid motions. She traced her lips, recalling idly his distinct taste and the texture of his male implement.

In a moment of shameful weakness, Rulu’s gaze lingered thrice on him. First on his pale beautifully handsome features, then on his masculine if oddly hairy chin, and lastly on his magnificently endowed downstairs. The red monster below had now assumed a disguise of an adorable and harmless pink slug.

No. Rulu could not afford her focus to be broken by his temptations, regardless of what glimpses of gentleness and care he carved on her flesh.

Work needed doing.

Rulu dragged the two triton thralls to the nearby stream. Their unconscious bodies began to float down at a steady pace. Currents of fate willing, they would seize this opportunity to find freedom from Aggoloth.

She cut the bonds of William’s lewdly curved female companion as well as his. However, the metal manacles on his wrists proved to be beyond her strength to shatter. His body was also rather heavy, which left Rulu no option but to leave him in the box for now. It did not much matter, given that she would need to keep him in the vehicle either way.

Likewise, Aggoloth’s armored suit proved too sturdy to break with the means available and far too heavy to move. Unfortunate, but even if Rulu could not kill her, she had other means of ensuring that the