Chapter 838: How Mama met Meteor Horn(1)
“Wait, mother, not to be rude, but I’m not entirely sure if regaling me with the entire story of the…”
“The Nerriza Clan.”
“The Neri…really? You changed one letter in your name and that somehow managed to help you elude capture after all these years?,” Zhen Liu asked his mother, while completely ignoring his own naming tendencies.
“To be fair, my darling baby boy, your father managed to elude capture by switching his name around to Yan Zhen. I mean, I had to help apply some minor cosmetic changes to his face as well, but still…”
“I…I feel like I should ask about that…but maybe another time.”
“Oh it was nothing too absurd, but it did involve a tribe of cannibals, your father’s let lion and my wedding ring.”
“So many questions…so little time…”
…
=The Star Caller days? Maybe.=
=Family tree is an invasive growth?=
< Yeah, that.>
=We’ll probably find out when she finishes explaining how she met Meteor Horn.=
…
“Alright, for the sake of ease of understanding, can you explain who the Nerriza Clan and how you being a former member of them led to you meeting a rogue kaijin?”
“Well…unless you have plans to head to the Adamantine Empire in the near future, it’s probably fine for me to explain about them.”
“Wait…as in the territory of the Adamantine Empress?”
“Yes, her.”
“Huh…”
“Before you ask, yes. She was as crazy as the rumors purport.”
“Terrifying…”
________________________________________
Deep in the depths of the Adamantine Empire’s territory, countless clans and houses competed with one another for the attention to the titular empress.
Some employed martial prowess, others used scholarly might while many more simply defaulted to giving material tributes.
Mixed into these clans though was one particular group that seemed to have a finger in every possible industry…because they had members married to anyone who was a leader in those industries.
This clan was known as the Nerriza Clan, and they were a…”romantic” bunch.
About as old as the empire itself, perhaps even older, the Nerriza Clan lived on the philosophy of make love to make war.
They believed that the best way to increase their power, to increase the quality of their warriors, was to simply forge alliance with other clans, factions and sects through the power of matrimony.
Evidently this almost mercantile and mercenary view on marriage led to many members of the clan to see the concept of love being nothing more than a fantasy.
However, like any good and unhealthily large clan, there were always members that could be considered a black sheep.
The black sheep in this scenario though, happened to be a young woman named Daria.
…
“A thousand and one more days to seduce a scion….a hundred ways to make a priest forsake their vows…twenty-two ways to make your husband’s mistress your mistress…gods above these are insufferable to read,” Daria complained while slamming her face onto the oaken table of the estate’s internal library.
At the tender age of seventeen, Daria Nerrisa was all set to fulfill the family tradition of being married off to some random ass-hat who would be strategically important for the family and blah, blah, blah, she was sick and tired of it!
“Come on! A thousand years worth of collected wisdom and there’s nothing in here but shady romantic advice?! There has to be something in here worth a read.”
Daria didn’t know if it was jitters or something else entirely, but as her nuptials were getting closer and closer, she couldn’t help but want to try and find something, anything, to take her mind off of it.
She had attempted to calligraphy…which somehow turned into learning how to do erotic brush play.
She tried practicing an instrument…which somehow turned into lessons about seduction via music.
She even attempted to practice this style of paper arts and crafts that she picked up from a merchant from Roaring Tide…only for it to turn into some very weird, very horny version of origami of all things.
Either way, Daria was getting sick over the fact that almost everything she tried to do to get her mind off of her upcoming marriage and the the duties she had to perform when married, all somehow led back to that particular fact of her life.
“Stupid ass books…,” Daria grumbled to herself as she got up to put the books back.
She needed something, anything, to get her mind off of this stupid burden in her life.
*Bam!*
“Ow!”
Granted, it had to be something that lasted longer than the pain of stubbing her toe against a bookshelf.
“Motherfucking-huh?”
As Daria did that foot grabbing thing everyone did after stubbing their toe, she noticed something weird poking out between the books.
“What the hell?”
With her mind no longer focusing on the pain, Daria saw that the weird thing sticking out was a piece of paper that looked incredibly old and radiated a very weird energy.
An energy that didn’t feel like aether or anima.
Throwing caution to the wind, Daria simply grabbed the paper so that she could examine it better. After a few moments of deliberation, she figured that the piece of paper was a map of some kind, to a location that was actually surprisingly close to her home city.
Daria had no idea what the map led to, or what she could possibly find when she got there…but neither of those questions seem to matter in this moment.
What did matter was that this map may have been the answer she was looking for.
“I don’t know who made this, or why it’s in this library of all places…but I’m going to figure out why X marks this spot!
And so, with little planning and shit ton of moxie, Daria rushed out of the library and left the estate, unaware that this moment would change her life, forever.
“I really hope this leads to something interesting…”
…A couple hours later…
“This is the place? What the f-there’s nothing here!”
Daria followed the map as faithfully as she could, given that it was essentially a questionable outline at best, but when she finally reached her promised destination, she was…disappointed.
The map had led Daria to a low, flat mountaintop that was as barren as the desert surrounding it. Needless to say, seeing that the mysterious map radiating weird energy led her to the middle of nowhere was bullshit. Granted, while the trip did distract her from her stressors for the moment, the unfulfilling payoff was… disappointing.
Scratch that, it was fuckin infuriating.
Enraged by the lack of an amazing treasure, a dangerous seal or even an interesting view, Daria began to throw a rather unhinged tantrum.
“Seriously?! Just…seriously?! I came all this way, walked through miles of sand, fought an Enraged Scorpion Wolf and climbed this bullshit mountain for nothing?! This seventy different shades of bull-!”
*BAM!*
“-OW! AGAIN WITH THIS SHI-hold up.”
During her tantruming rant, Daria had unknowingly banged her toe again against…something.
She had initially assumed it was a rock formation or possibly a small animal, but when she looked around to see what it was, she saw nothing.
Literally nothing but empty space at the edge of a cliff.
“What the hells?”
Curious about this strange moment, Daria reached out a hand forward where she bumped her toe…and stopped when she felt her hand push against something.
“An invisible wall? But how? Why?”
Noticing that there was actually something at this location beyond sand and rock, Daria proceeded to use her aether to try and determine what exactly she was dealing with.
It didn’t matter if it was an array or naturally occuring aether treasure, a quick sweep of aether would reveal at least some characteristics that would lead to an literal invisible wall.
Only…it didn’t.
The moment Daria released her aether probe, she felt it get eaten away…no… erased?
Whatever was happening, it was unlike anything Daria had ever seen or dealt with before…and it caused her to develop a big ole grin on her face.
“Finally! Something exciting!”
In the first time in a long, long time, Daria found something that didn’t involve marriage, politics or anything attached to such boring things.
For years, it had been drilled into her head that the most exciting things in her life would only happen once she tied that knot and lived for whomever she married.
It happened to her cousins, brothers and sisters and it would happen to her…or so the elders say.
But now, in this moment, in this place, she found something that was strange and exciting that had nothing to do with marriage.
And by all the aether goes and devils, she was going to embrace it.
“Alright…now how do I get in?”
