While Tasha had a long list of things to deal with when she got back to the real world, the toll of what she'd just been through kept her from doing little more than sleep. When she finally stirred, she barely had time to eat something before needing to head back to the faerie realm.
Molly is his usual cheerful self at least. "So, do you feel any heavier?" he asks. "No strange hallucinations about dark figures lurking in the shadows, people with no eyes, spider-legged snakes or the like?"
"No, at least not more than I see regularly," a somewhat more rested Tasha replies, rubbing her neck. She went to bed so quickly she didn't even have time to get comfortable, and her neck is a little sore for it. The lack of time also extends to her outfit which is composed of shorts, a light jacket, a close fitting tee-top and a new pair of glasses conveniently without the mind-bending horror of a true angel burned in to them. Those glasses are locked in a box which is inside another locked box, both safely in the Artifact Bay where curious hands can't get to them without setting off every alarm in the ship and stepping in to direct presence of the Niss.
"Ah, too bad," Molly says. "I was hoping there'd be some sort of bizarre side effects from it. Hard to tell when it's usually mages and such that get that done to them. They tend to see weird stuff before hand after all." He takes her through the temple to the dragon's office, which is absent one dragon. "Hmm, wait here while I go find her. Don't like the walls."
Tasha doesn't normally lick things, at least not without permission. She is, however, eternally curious and so spends her time waiting by wandering the isles of documents, nooks, and other miscellany as she takes a look at them and everything else. The last time she was here she was too focused on the task at hand and -- if she were being honest -- feeling a lot like a child who needed to behave in front of the adults. Now that she's more rested and unattended, she may as well learn what she can.
Molly doesn't leave her alone for very long though. "Alright, there's good news and there's bad news," he claims. "You can hear one or the other, or.. I suppose.. both if you want."
And she'd barely begun to nose about, too. Tasha looks up from a pile of musty documents and perks her ears. "I'd like both, please." She can at least sate her curiosity with answers.
"Well, Kainudy is in the deeper part of the memorial garden, and she has her magic jug of rice wine with her," Molly says. "That is the good news. The bad news is that she's in the deeper part of the memorial garden with her magic jug of rice wine, and the farther away she gets from this room the more frayed she becomes. Also, she can't get drunk, no matter how hard she tries."
Frayed sounds familiar, Tasha thinks, but she won't know until she sees for herself. "Does that mean I ... should come back later?" She's not exactly sure what it means, even with her; people visit her all the time in various states, to their benefit or determent, as mood and circumstance take her.
"Oh goodness no, I want to see what happens," Molly says. "From a safe distance of course. She would have left a note or something if she didn't want to see you. So come along! It'll be fun! For someone!"
"I see." And she does; Tasha spends enough time around demons and people who act like demons to be familiar with the scenario; one of those people being herself. She follows along then, adjusting her glasses on her head, her jacket, looking forward to the long walk in the quiet halls. Less quiet, she supposes, for Molly's presence.
They don't get very far down the colonnade before Molly turns off into the garden, between two hedges. "This statue here is some elf mage Kainudy got killed," Molly narrates. "This one over there is some fae dragon that Kainudy got killed. There are a lot of statues, but those descriptions pretty much cover them all for now."
"I sense a pattern." Tasha isn't sure what to make of being in a garden specifically created to remind someone of all whom they killed. She can respect and value reflection, but she can feel, now that she's better rested, a sense of morbidity to it, an unhealthiness. There's reflection and then there's dwelling, but she's also wise enough to know she doesn't know enough to decide where the line is, and so keeps her thoughts on it to herself for the time being.
Eventually they come to a section that feels newer. There are fewer statues, and they look nothing like elves or dragons. The hedges stop at a large area that even has benches. In the center is a statue of what must be a Stelya-rhyan, but one that looks a lot leaner and more predatory than Persephone or Charon. There's a dragon sitting before it, with a really big clay jug next to her. The cork for it is at least as big as one of Tasha's fists. "Shall I introduce you?" Molly asks Tasha. "Yes, I should! Hey! It's Tasha! She's here! Stop hoping you'll get drunk this time!"
"Thousandth times a charm," the dragon mutters. "Go away Molly, I have to ask her some big questions that will just bore you."
For her part, Tasha offers a cheery if hesitant little wave with her right hand, her other hand tucked behind her back. She doesn't say anything, but her gaze does drift to the Stelya-rhyan and she immediately decides she either hasn't met this one or else it's a younger -- or older -- form of one she has met and temporal desync could mean it could be either, or possibly both, and likewise her relationship to it in turn.
"Fine, I'll go eavesdrop out of sight the," the faerie claims, and heads back down the hedgerow. "Come sit by me, Tasha," Kainudy requests.
Tasha does so, sitting on the opposite side away from the gigantic alcohol jug. She's worked around enough drinkers to know to stay away from where jugs and bottles might be knocked over, smashed, or otherwise spilled on her, be it accidentally or on purpose. She pulls her legs in and gets comfortable on the grass.
"You know, I think he worries about you in his own way," Tasha says quietly, reminding herself more of Mariel than, well, herself.
"Probably," the dragon admits. "I'm better at sniffing out spies and assassins than people that worry about me. Pretty sure most of the people that worried about me are long dead now." She then turns to look down at Tasha, and asks, "Tell everything about your encounter with Charon and Persephone. Where was it, why were you all there, and how did she end up gluing you back together?"
Tasha considers this, looking down at the grass and watching it tilt to the gentle breeze, and she finds the whole matter surprisingly easy to summarize. Ultimately the series of events were straightforward even if the details were less-so. "Our business runs under the guide of a commercial for-hire starship operation using falsified records and falsified ship identification. As our ship is much faster than most, with greater endurance per distance traveled, we were hired to investigate a disturbance in the Galactic Halo. I believe it was a gravitational disturbance detected by the Galactic Array. Thoth and the Seeders -- people who believe in a common ancestry based on Star Seeds -- funded the mission."
Tasha pauses to get her breath and collect her thoughts, pushing stray hairs back over her shoulder. "As it turned out it was not a Star Seed, which the Seeders had suspected, but Lukthu-hem locked in combat with Charon. Lukthu-hem had been recuperating from a large scale battle with the previous Galactic civilization, which she won at cost, and was further injured by Charon. We arrived and Thoth petrified Samael, our demon, taking the initiative because he believed Samael was a danger to Charon. After reviewing the situation and seeing Sam freed, I and a member of the Seeders traveled to Charon to investigate."
Another pause and more reflection. Tasha nods when she's ready again. "Within Charon we found a garden of what I suspect are extinct species from our galaxy. We also found the manifestation of Tatha-hem attempting to obtain Charon's source of power. I ordered the Seeder to withdraw along with our baby organic starship, which we had launched from the main ship, and encountered Charon's remote. We formulated a plan and I engaged the manifestation with manifestations of the Yellow Marker until I was killed."
At this Tasha waits, in case there are any questions, ears up.
"Describe the battle," Kainudy asks. "Why was Charon there. How did the Ogdru-hem fight. What sort of attacks were being used."
"Charon was vague on his reasons for being present. He is -- or was at the time -- very young by their standards. He mostly suggested I bite things." This makes Tasha chuckle a little at the memory, and more so because it worked. "He came upon the Ogdru-hem and believed he could destroy it in one attack, but he failed to take in to account its extra-universal hybrid nature, and failed to kill Luk'thu-hem and was summarily trapped by its appendages. as for its attacks, it used, in total: a tornado-like manifestation of hungering energies within Charon which it was using to attempt to consume the remotes and somehow use that consumption to gear further control over Charon's, um, for a lack of a better term I'll call them 'systems'. There were also purely physical drones it used as remote weapons. One of them killed me. We used the Marker spat at the tornado to weaken it until I was killed."
Tasha rolls her shoulders uncomfortable, head tilting this way and that. Death happened fast, perhaps too fast for her liking, and all she remembers of it is quick pain and nothingness, at least until she awoke. "I awoke as a Human. Or, there was a Human who possessed my sentience. The other 'pieces' of me were in stasis around me. Charon urged me to exit the pod and board a construct he created specifically to fight, which my Human version did, a great leviathan Charon called a Star Horse. Its external weapons included drones and its own mass as well as psionic-like attacks on our mind. After clearing as many drones as I could, I burned all remaining energy to clear a path and deal as much damage as possible as I penetrated to the core of Luk'thu-hem and use the horn-device to fire the Yellow Marker in to Luk'thu-hem's core, destroying her. The exobody then shut down and was recovered by Charon. After several days of rest and recovery in Charon's Garden, Persephone arrived and reformed my body and soul, with differences. She cleaned up what Charon called poor construction and allowed me to have children. I do not know the full capability of my body, and I am apparently not finished."
"I should add that the leviathan's primary weapon caused reality ti burn at a fundamental level I do not fully understand, with potential side effects including universal destruction," Tasha adds, deciding it is likely important.
"He attacked first then," Kainudy says, and looks back to the statue. "This was Cythrawl, a warrior breed Stelya-rhyan. They kept the fact that they were breeding warriors from me. Or why they needed them. I had done all I could previously to avoid involving them in battles. I wanted them to remain innocent. But they were fighting a secret war the whole time. Now I know what it was against."
"It seems hard for creators to keep their children from wars. Lilith sought to keep Humanity from genocide; she was only partially successful and the strain of reality drove her to destruction." What Tasha does not add is the realization all of this applies to her own future, that she stands on the cusp of a new species with powers very useful to this type of war, and how uncertain she is about passing such a legacy to those not even born yet. "I suspect this war traces back to the matter of the Null. They are understandably reluctant to share their deepest secrets with me, but Charon is not so canny, and he let slip the Null is their oldest. That something happened. Beings annihilated come before the Null and pain it; they would not do this without good reason."
"He wouldn't want them fighting like this," the dragon says, looking at the statue. "They weren't supposed to come with me into the last war. I only asked them to build me a cannon, after all. But they did, some where injured, and Cythrawl was killed. So I let Ereshkigal destroy that universe during our retreat. So.. lesson time."
But Tasha frowns suddenly. "I've heard the cannon mentioned before. What is this cannon?" Her ears go up, and she looks up at the dragon, earnest.
"Some.. dear friends of mine had banished a rather nasty species to a prison universe. That is, a universe that was armored, in a sense. Only one way in or out," Kainudy explains. "Well, someone opened the door from the outside, and my friends had to go push them back, and pull the door closed behind them in a way that the door itself was gone. Made a big mess of spacetime while doing it. And because these nasty ones were like a dark reflection of myself and the Stelya-rhyan.. and because it's hard to find good immortal friends.. I had them build me a cannon that went right up to the event horizon of the enemy reality. Then they pushed a special bullet down it to break though. I thought the fighting would have been over and it would just be a rescue mission. It wasn't over."
"So, we pulled the survivors out, and when I was given the choice of closing the breach or destroying that reality, I chose to destroy it. And that's why I'm stuck here now, for.. reasons," she concludes.
"I think the Stelya-rhyan repurposed the cannon barrel into something else."
Tasha mulls this over, then holds her hands out stretched apart. "Was this cannon a universe-sized tunnel with vein-like walls composed of land masses?" Her brows go up further. "Ereshkigal is related to Persephone?"
"Erishkegal was Cythrawl's mother, probably the mother of all the warrior types," Kainudy says. "Well, it was only a lightyear long to begin with. I don't know what they did with it. I didn't think it would have survived the shot being fired through it originally. But it did."
"There is a pace called the Way, a tunnel from the Beginning to the End. I was able to access it via a walking fortress constructed by the Vril'ya, through the Hall of Souls, in to the way. It was where I met my first Stelya'rhyan, and Atum, emissary and extension of Vril, a universe." Tasha taps the side of her muzzle. "Persephone said the Way has not been created yet in her timeline, but she did recognize the Ogdru-hem as enemies. I thought perhaps this cannon and the Way are the same." But her head shakes. "No way to know for now. Please continue."
"Hmm, wouldn't put it past them to build something like that out of a dimensional cannon," the dragon notes. "Well.. I can tell you why I'm stuck here now, or explain something about beings like fae and other spirit or shadow-based entities. They do overlap though."
Tasha's incline of head is slow. "I have suspect these beings overlap in the nature of their existence for some time, but I know that's not exactly what you mean." She spreads a wing; please continue.
"Well, you've met with Thotep and Hastur, and probably others of their ilk by now," Kainudy says. "So you should have noticed that have to follow certain rules, yes?"
"Yes. I liken them to the rules we of my universe must follow: Gravity and other forces. Social rules. Promises," Tasha replies. She sits up just long enough to swap the side she's laying on, pulling her legs in and then the other way, balancing her upper body on a hand.
"Not quite," Kainudy claims. "We have social rules. We can break those rules. There may be consequences, but those will largely be administered by the same society that set the rules. For those non flesh-and-blood entities, the rules are literally written into their existence. If they could break one, they'd end up punishing themselves."
"For the fae, it could mean a slow, painful sort of suicide. Probably the same for the Vril-ya," the dragon claims.
"That explains why it has been so difficult to convert Ogdru-hem to our side," Tasha admits, frowning a little for it. "I have thought I could negotiate with them in order to redirect their activities in to something more mutually beneficial, or at least ask them to depart as I did with He-Wh-Moves, but I have been told by others -- including them -- they cannot do so." And so she shakes her head. "I do try to spare my enemies and make things better for everyone, I find it difficult that it cannot be this time. Less difficult than I did, I suppose, but I have not fully committed to their annihilation as much as I could."
"And therein lies the irony," Kainudy says, lifting a finger. "Because the beings with the power to annihilate them.. can't do so without breaking their own rules. They could probably get one or two, before their own souls tear themselves apart. That's why my garden is so full. When it came time to wage a crusade of annihilation, the fae needed someone who could give them the orders. It still meant they'd pay for it afterwards, but it gave them just enough leeway to act at that moment. But sometimes the enemy is so terrible, that the cost has to be paid."
"I see." Tasha exhales, but doesn't lay back even though she dearly wants to. "What of weapons like the Dagger? Harnessing the power of the enemy to destroy the enemy?"
"There's still a cost," Kainudy claims. "Either to the weapon, on the one wielding it. Guilt, or worse at the very least. I've had to segment my soul to deal with the grief I've accumulated. Maintaining mental barriers to protect myself from myself. Of course, the longer you go on, the more it happens. After the last war, I couldn't maintain those barriers anymore. So this place does it for me. I can't see the ones I fought to rescue, and they can't associate with me because of their rules."
Tasha opens her mouth to say something, but realizes nothing will really be enough, and so lets it close again. She stares at the grass for a while, unable to quite figure out what to say to it all, as it also applies to her and her own future. At length she admits, "It's hard to know the costs. I fear losing who I love; that's why I fought so hard, and on my own. Eventually it cost me my life because I am not the equal to Luk'thu-hem -- not even a severely injured Luk'thu-hem with Charon's remote assisting me. I have been searching for power and answers to the endless question of how to fight this war correctly and successfully, without losing more than I can stand to. I will not give up believing there are other ways somewhere in the universe, or beyond it, but neither can I deny I may not find them in time, or that they may not exist."
"The other lesson here is that there are always loopholes to exploit," Kainudy assures. "The Ogdoad create the Ogdru-hem to work outside of the rules the Ogdoad are bound by. The Ogdru-hem have rules, but they are different rules. Creatures like you and me aren't bound by any rules. Neither are the Stelya-rhyan. That really upsets other immortals. But it's also our best defense against them. Because they might need us someday, so won't necessarily move against us."
"Besides, I've sacrificed entire worlds to get things done, and let a universe die because they hurt one of my great-grandkids," Kainudy says. "So how would my kids react if someone actually killed me? They probably wouldn't react at all, honestly, but not knowing that makes my enemies sweat a bit at night."
"Even immortal beings like us are outside the rules?" Tasha clarifies, uncertain if immortality itself defines leaving the rules of mortals and mortality, organics, or some greater category. She suspects it is so; the Stelya'rhyan seem biologically immortal and Kainudy is as well, but she's more cognizant of nuance these days and thinks to ask. "And I think I know what you mean. It is unlikely the Stelya'rhyan would aid me too directly, nor many other beings I associate with, but the question of 'if' acts as my shield, both for mortal and immortal aggression."
"Also lets you have someone bigger and meaner than you for backup," Kainudy says. "You've got an association with Thotep and Hastur. Thotep at least usually has a few physical avatars you could name drop. As for Hastur.. there's a more direct way of using his power."
Tasha nods to this. "I've met a few of his manifestations now. I should ask Samael about the other ones.They all seem to express him somewhat differently, so it would also be good to know which are mroe inclined to assist if called upon." Tasha then holds out her free hand, opening it so that the Yellow Marker is there. "As for Hastur, the Sign and the Color Yellow?
"Well, we'll soon see," the dragon says, then arches her back and cracks her knuckles. "Ready to learn some magic? Magic that is yours?"
Tasha sits up at this, ears up, tail also up. "It would be nice to be on the delivery side of magic for once," she admits. And it would; she's received magic, fought magic, channeled someone else's magic, wielded magic through devices, symbols, leashed entities, deities, demons, and so forth, but the one thing she has never done is use her own.
"So, what weapon are most proficient with?" Kainudy asks.
Tasha considers this. her arsenal is a bit eclectic, even exotic, and often ad hoc. She holds up a hand, indicating something taller than herself. "A sword, a weapon called a shaard, a fourty-foot tall robot designed to draw Vril from mortals, various firearms, and my martial arts." She then looks at her other, free arm, smiles wryly and adds, "Uh, less so the physical strength these days, however. I used to be bigger."
"Let's go with the sword then," the dragon suggests. "It's got symbolism and works well one handed. Now, which is your fightin' hand?"
"My right hand. I hit people sometimes with the left, too. And my feet. And sometimes my wings. I think I can stab someone with my tail if I tried hard enough." Her tail waggles promisingly, but she does hold out her right hand.
"Alright, we'll start with your left then, because this will be the easy part," Kainudy suggests. "Hold out your left hand, palm upward."
Tasha lowers her right and extends her left. As she does the Yellow Marker vanishes in the palm of her right hand, presumably to vanish entirely in to her soul. "Like this?"
"Yes, now, while you're looking at it, summon your blue soulstone.. er.. Marker.. to it," Kainudy instructs.
Tasha has never tried to summon a Marker while looking at the spot it is to appear, always she's summoned it out of the view of both herself and all viewers, having assumed it worked like quantum particles and would not appear if directly observed by any sentience. Taking a deep breath, she stares at her hand and, after exhaling, wills the Blue Marher to appear in her hand.
After a minute, Kainudy says, "Not easy, is it? Try this: make it boil up out of your palm. Like it was melting in reverse."
It's really not easy, Tasha agrees inwardly. And so she tries this new advice, imagining something like thick water rising up from her palm like one of the lamps Hakeber owns. A viscous, rising gel that grows upward from her palm.
It almost works. But it looks like her palm is bleeding blue blood, until there's enough to suddenly solidify into the familiar marker.
Tasha's muzzle wrinkles at the sight until it completes, having seen entirely too much of her own blood in her short lives. "Well, it ... kind of worked? It is there." Which she decides is a feat unto itself; she's never managed to make the Marker appear in direct view before.
"Alright, no whip your arm behind your back to make it vanish, and whip your arm back to the front as fast as you can," Kainudy suggests next.
Tasha takes a stance, wings out, to better keep her balance against the violent motion. She might normally hold a sword in her right hand in this pose, but without she just extends it for balance. Then, in an imitation of her use of a whip, she whips her left hand back beyond her vision, will the Marker gone, then whips it forward again and pictures the boiling fluidized Marker rising, but faster this time.
It doesn't happen any faster. "Alright, focus on the quick-draw for now," the dragon says. "Whip your hand back and forth, making it vanish behind your back, hand out front, then hand back, summon it out of sight, whip hand forward, rinse and repeat."
Tasha recognizes a drill when she hears one. "Yes, ma'am." She settles in to the stance, deciding she'll be here a while, and begins to repeat the motion. Once, twice.
Again, again, and again.
"Now switch arms," Kainudy instructs when Tasha seems to get the hang of it.
Tasha switches stances once she switches arms. While it didn't come up often, her instructors were smart enough to train people to use off hands and alternative weapons in case a preferred hand or weapon was made unavailable. She has an easier time with her dominant hand, as most people who have dominant hands do.
"Left arm now, but have it stuck to the outside of your wrist," Kainudy switches. "Don't think about it, just do it."
Now that's something Tasha hasn't heard in a while, but she's not about to argue. She does so, focusing on the act rather than anticipating some result.
Meanwhile, Kainudy moves around to be in front of Tasha, but further away. "Now, I'm going to count down from ten in.. well, some point in the next few minutes," she says. "When I get to zero, I'm going to breath fire at you. You had better bring that soulstone up in the shape of a shield by then."
Tasha has not heard that before. "A-alright," she agrees, not skipping a beat in motion even if she did in word. She's faced enough pain and warfare not to balk, but death has left its mark on her and part of her fears it like she never has before. That part of her is not enough to keep her from practicing, no more than it has kept her from pursuing her goals.
"Remember, don't think about it," Kainudy says. "It's not something separate from you, just an extension of your soul. And you're ready to weaponize it. So when you need to, bring your arm up to block, and just expect a shield to be there."
"Yes," Tasha replies, busy concentrating. An extension of herself, her soul. She's known that for some time, and now that she knows she doesn't have to hide the appearance of the Markers, it sinks in that they really are extensions of her; not simply accessories attached to her but something that has become part of her very essence. As Bumper once told her, meeting higher beings can change a being fundamentally, and now she feels that truth in, quite literally, her soul. The change and herself are the same.
Kainudy takes in a deep breath, and starts to count down. "Ten.. nine.. eight.. three-two-one-zero!"
Tasha snaps her right arm forward and envisions -- expects -- the shield to be there! It then occurs to her she doesn't simply have one Marker, and she's been practicing with both hands, so she raisies her other arm behind the first and expects the same thing of the Yellow on her other arm, picturing one behind the other in a layered, broad defense to cast fire around her.
The blue shield goes up in time to deflect the stream of blue flame. Tasha can see through the shield, and is pretty sure that wasn't any sort of flame she's familiar with. The attempt to raise the second, yellow shield fails however.
"Good," Kainudy says afterwards.
Tasha will take not being fried and a partial success over being fried and no success any day. She lowers her arm and with it her focus, causing the shield to vanish, and exhales. Her left arm goes to wipe the back of her head in an all-too-Human gesture, which she doesn't seem to notice. "I'm glad not to be burnt," she insists, "But my attempt to also create a Yellow shield didn't work."
"That's not what the yellow one is for," Kainudy explains. "And that flame was my own soul attack, ecto-flame. It's made from emotion, with different colors representing different things, and having different effects."
"I know there are Colors beyond the visible spectrum that are something like memetic essences of concepts, the presence of which can drive mortals mad," Tasha admits, walking closer now that they're not training. "Yellow, for example, the madness of true knowledge. What does your blue flame do?"
"Oh, it makes you.. excited," the dragon claims. "What kind of excited depends on the context, though. Or on the target's mood. But that's.. left arm shield, right hand sword!" she barks unexpectedly.
Being excited sounds dangerous to Tasha, entirely because she has too many ideas about it and few of them are productive and not potentially embarrassing. She tries not to think about it too much. Luckily she doesn't have to, because having orders yelled at expectedly is something that throughout her whole life has meant either 'obey' or 'suffer,' with the suffering often being immediate, catastrophic, or both.
Tasha drops back to her stance and envisions her shield again, but this time extends her hand, imaging a blade that she is now pointing directly at Kainudy, the act of being suddenly challenged causing the defiance in her soul to surge.
The sword in her hand doesn't seem to weigh anything.. or not any more than the shield does. It's also bright yellow.
"Good reaction time," Kainudy says. "Now.. I don't know if those will be effective against physical things, rather than magical or spiritual ones. So.. I should have Molly come over so you can poke him, see what happens.."
Afraid to drop her focus, Tasha brings the sword back behind the shield and watches Kainudy for any signs of blasting, pouncing, or the spewing of assorted colorful miscellany. "He does like seeing what happens and things that are fun for someone," the young woman agrees through her guard. She steps back to bring both Kainudy and the likely approach path of Molly in to her view.
"MOLLY! COME LET TASHA POKE YOU WITH HER SANITY STICK!" the dragon calls. "I'LL LET YOU HAVE SOME OF MY SAKI!"
"No!" the reply comes from elsewhere in the garden. "I've seen you put your lips on the jug!"
"Well.. he was the only thing here I'd risk getting stabbed," Kainudy grumps.
"It'll be fun and interesting," Tasha calls out as well, though she has to split her focus and doesn't want to drop either implement while she's uncertain when she'll be tested again -- and if Molly will jump her. She glances at Kainudy and suggest, "Maybe a ... wall?"
"Remember how I said the structure of this place is what maintains my emotional sanity, what there is of?" Kainudy asks. "So.. no walls. Let's head back inside, I must have some garbage." She corks the big jug, and wraps her tail around it so she can carry it while walking on all fours.
Tasha follows along, taking the opportunity to further familiarize herself with the summoning of the sword and shield. Further along she tries other things of various complexity: a two handed hammer, a javelin which she considers throwing but decides against for now, a knife. She's about to try something of mechanical complexity, such as a gun, when they step inside.
"You want to really test your skill, try a boomerang," Kainudy suggests. "But for now, try to master one weapon type before moving to the next." Once in the office, she sets the jug down and looks at the mess. "Something living... but I'm the only other 'living' thing here that could be considered alive. Molly doesn't count in that sense, since his a fae. Where's a good assassination attempt when I need one. Molly! Go find someone who wants to skip to the head of the line to try and kill me."
"And I probably can't stab myself with my own soul," Tasha muses, her head lifted as she inspects the sword made out of bright yellow soul-stuff. It's fairly generic as swords go: A cross hilt she's uncertain even works on a sword such as this, a long double blade, a grip, and a counterweight. It could be any number of weapons from any number of worlds, save that it glows with an ominous, oppressive yellow light that is less dawn's warmth and far more the glare of morning after a night of revelry, a flashlight in the dark, an epiphany of an unwanted truth.
"I'm on my break," Molly declares as he enters. He looks at Tasha's weapon and says, "Legendary swords all had names, you know. You could call that one Hangover."
"I'll think about it," Tasha says. She tries to hand it to her other hand, passing the willed manifestation between limbs to see if it continues to exist. "And I thought you were all about fun and interesting things when they happen to someone?"
Apparently one limb can't handle both manifestations at once. And she doesn't have to actually grip the sword for it to be in her hand.
"Yes, so long as fun things happen to me and interesting things happen to someone else," the purple man notes, lashing his tail and smiling brightly.
"Well, I can have some proper targets ready next time," Kainudy says. "For now though, you should get back before the portal closes."
So Tasha dismisses the shield to focus on the sword; a sword if something she can swing around, while a shield is mostly reactive and no one is hitting her right now. With both hands free, Tasha tries to will the sword to be larger and larger, a two handed sword, then even longer than that to see if there's a limit to its size. "I guess I should," she says distractedly, eyeing the weapon with fascinating and trepidation. "Thank you for teaching me."
"Well, someone needed to," the dragon claims. "Who knows how long it would of taken Tweel to manage something useful. I swear, sometimes it's like he has a brain made of stuck together hard candy, the type elderly people keep in a bowl in their sitting rooms."
"He's just very orderly and I think he's afraid of betrayal, failure, and mistakes," Tasha insists. When she's done testing she shrinks the sword in turn, smaller and smaller until it vanishes when it's beyond her ability to perceive its physical form. "Lets go Molly. The others were giving me the worried looks they always give me when I run off to do something they thinks is dangerous."