The Hissing Lobster, Part 2
Elias rejoined the rest of them at the lounge chairs, and was about the sit down when he noticed something, Nalaea's eye colour had changed. Looking at Mabel and Vaust, they looked the same, so he decided to bring it up.
"Her eyes are different." Elias said, gesturing at Nalaea.
Mabel whipped around to look at Nalaea, and slightly gasped in shock. Bright red, just like Vordea's, and entirely unlike any other mortal.
"By the void..." Mabel whispered. "Vaust, get over here."
Vaust, Mabel, and Elias were soon crowded around Nalaea, who was now sitting awkwardly in a lounge chair. Vaust and Mabel were whispering a long forgotten language, leaving Elias to fill in Nalaea.
"Nala, your eyes are bright red, just like Vordea. I know for certain they weren't until Vaust pulled us out of the mortal plane." Elias said, still looking at them.
"I'd be lying if I said I was surprised. I made a pact with her, of all Gods." Nalaea said with a sigh.
"You made a pact. With her?" Mabel asked, looking slightly horrified. "I'm part of her and even I think that's a terrible idea. How did you seal the pact?"
"We..." Nalaea began, but then mumbled, bright faced.
"What was that you said?" Mabel asked, raising an eyebrow.
"We were... intimate." Nalaea said, covering her face with her hands.
"Idiot. Elias could do that because he's the High Priest. You've been partially demonized." Mabel said, lightly smacking Nalaea on the head.
"Demonized?" Elias asked.
"I don't got that knowledge, unfortunately." Mabel said, looking over Nalaea. "My guess is she performed one part of the demon making process in sealing that pact. Vaust, what'd you mean by she's basically a demon now?"
"She's got the same smell Xellma did." Vaust said, eyeing Nalaea. "No horns, definitely no aura, but I'd bet my inn she'd set off demonic detection runes. Miss Herydark, what exactly was this pact for?"
"Void Rangers." Nalaea said with a grin. "Rangers loyal to my Goddess and nobody else. We were going to deal with the particulars up in the North, but I'll need support from Elias if the changes are already happening."
"Don't worry, I'll bully anybody you need." Elias said with a laugh. "But what will the purpose of your Void Rangers be?"
"Our lovely Goddess is not known for a gentle touch, High Priest." Nalaea said, to smirks all around. "An assassination here, an artifact retrieval there. Anything that requires the soft touch of an Elven Ranger."
Nalaea stood and stretched her arms. To everyone's surprise, she briefly popped out of sight, and her hair was now black. Seeing everybody looking at her again, she shrugged.
"She warned me there would be changes. But enough about me, how about Elias?" Nalaea said, ignoring the ink dripping out of her nose.
"What about me?" Elias asked. "You're the one with the soul corruption."
"A little corruption never hurt anybody." Nalaea said, dismissing Elias's concerns.
"If she starts craving sapient flesh we'll stake her." Mabel said with a laugh.
"I'm no rusalki." Nalaea pouted. "Rusalki are cute though."
"We'll find you a nice rusalki girlfriend." Elias said, chortling as Nalaea playfully smacked with him a... tentacle?
"Hang on. Where did you get a tentacle from." Vaust said, grabbing hold of it quite firmly. Following it back to Nalaea, Vaust found it to be coming from the base of her spine. "No this is unacceptable, we're getting Eigengrau right now."
"Why?" Nalaea asked dismissively. "I feel fine."
"Because at the current rate, you'll be fully overtaken by Vordea in just a few hours. Even she's not so reckless as to consume her own worshippers so something is clearly wrong." Vaust said, retrieving a locket from his pocket, and carefully drawing the sigil inside the locket on the floor. But to Vaust's surprise it wasn't Eigengrau who showed up, but a far more dangerous entity.
"You've been busy, little rats." Mira Frost said, smiling.
"M-Mira!" Vaust stammered, scrambling to get away from her.
"First, to deal with my mistake." Mira said, turning her gaze to Nalaea. The room flickered and distorted as Mira walked over to her, the only constant being Mira's long white coat and white peaked cap. The coat glimmered and shifted, as if not sure what form to take, with a series of medals on her chest that seemed to pop into and out of existence at random.
"W-who are you?" Nalaea asked, looking guarded.
"Introductions will have to wait. I did something extremely reckless and I need to fix it." Mira said, roughly grabbing Nalaea. Elias watched horrified as Nalaea's very body distorted and stretched, moving in impossible ways and taking impossible forms.
"What are you doing to her?" Elias shouted.
"I'm fixing her. Be quiet." Mira said, a stern look on her face as she didn't take her eyes off Nalaea.
As Vaust and Elias sat and watched, the inn around them constantly shifted and transformed. For a moment everything became metal, then they were in a forest, before they found themselves floating in the void far above the planet. After what seemed like hours, but in reality was only a few minutes, they found themselves back inside The Hissing Lobster.
"You drank my fluids, didn't you?" Mira asked Nalaea, whose body continued to shift and change under Mira's grasp.
"What?" Nalaea asked, somehow able to talk despite her appearance.
"Don't be coy. Did you drink any sort of secretion that came from Vordea's body?" Mira demanded, applying both hands to Nalaea's body now. "I need to understand what to purge."
"Y-yes!" Nalaea said.
"What kind?" Mira asked, looking annoyed.
"You know exactly what kind you horrible woman!" Nalaea shouted, causing Mira to laugh.
"You are the first person brave enough. Be proud." Mira said, as Nalaea's body brightly glowed white and the light overtook the room.
When the light faded, Mira was gone and Nalaea was back in the lounge chair, looking around and quite confused. Elias and Vaust rushed over to her, and looked her over. Her hair was an intriguing pattern of blonde and black hair, and her irises were now concentric circles of gold and red. Before they could dwell on it for too long, Eigengrau arrived, and looked quite confused.
"No, this is far after you drew that symbol. Vaust, what happened?" Eigengrau asked, walking up to the three of them.
Before anyone could answer, groaning from Mabel could be heard, who was in a heap on the ground behind Nalaea's chair. Slowly sitting up, she looked around in confusion.
"What the hell just happened? The last thing I remember is Vaust drawing a symbol on the floor." Mabel asked. "Wait, don't tell me."
"Mira Frost." Vaust said, helping Mabel to her feet. "I'm assuming she possessed you?"
"Most likely." Mabel said groggily. "So what happened?"
"Patience. We must do things in order." Eigengrau stated, walking over to Mabel. "You are not an avatar."
"Of course I'm not. I'm a piece of jetsam, cast off from the whole." Mabel said, wobbling her way over to a chair. "I think this is the first time we've met, Eigengrau."
"Oh, another one so soon?" Eigengrau said with a small smile, revealing her pointed teeth. "Two in one kalpa, well that is something. Mabel Briggs, is it?"
"Yes. Created to be Elias's wife. I'm the portion of Vordea that fell in love with him over the past 10 years." Mabel said, flopping down into a chair and holding her head as the room spun around her. "Didn't think I'd still be enough of her to get possessed by the Corpse King."
"Tell me what happened." Eigengrau said as she walked around the lounge area, pausing to touch spots on the ground.