Chapter 368: Figure of Fox’s Fantasia
It’s body dissolved into clay that immediately transformed into a whirlwind, that grew and grew. Growing beyond the scope of the fox’s previous size as it nearly doubled in size, gaining mass out of seemingly nowhere.
After a few seconds, the whirlwind began to die down and regain a solid shape. But not that of a Fox.
It changed shape, gained a completely new form and even changed its colour in many places. When it settled, Belladonna was left staring in surprise at an identical copy of herself.
Her eyes widened in surprise, and a moment later so did her reflections, as she stared at the clone of herself. Seeing that Belladonna frowned, causing it to frown a moment later, before they both laughed slightly out of sync.
It sat on the pedestal, seemingly unbothered, mimicking her head movements and expressions as Belladonna took in the strange sight of the clone.
The more she looked at it, the more she realised it wasn’t entirely identical. For one, it’s eyes were wrong. Whilst she had red iris’, this clone had grey much like its original colouration.
The other error was that it was missing her carvings. It had replicated her appearance completely, including the armour that she was wearing and everything that was underneath that armour, not that she was weird for checking. But for some reason it missed her glyphs.
"The Figure of Fox’s Fantasia." Blue said from behind her, appearing like a creepy little phantom and helpfully explaining what she was looking at.
"A relic crafted, oddly, by a priest of the Lord of Death. The inspiration behind its creation is unknown, assumed to be divine revelation. Many were made, and many were abandoned for not meeting his requirements.
Upon attunement to the relic, it can assume the appearance of anyone that it has seen. Not only does it copy their appearance but also copies their innate and natural abilities. However this particular figure is a discarded prototype, so it can only replicate up to 50% of the individuals abilities.
It cannot copy any enchantments or magical effects of equipment, only their appearance, however it can be enchanted once it has taken form. However such enchantments will be lost upon its next transformation, and significant damage, even that which would not be fatal, will cause the figure to revert to a dormant state until it recovers."
Belladonna looked at Blue as he explained the items history and effects, not even questioning how he knew such things. They had already delved into that well and found it bone dry.
Once the explanation was done, she glanced back at the clone and tilted her head, which it naturally mimicked. Although it was copying her now, she couldn’t help but think about the way it acted when it was in its natural form.
"Is it alive?" She asked.
"No. It is similar to a golem. It moves and can think, but It has no soul, no spark of life. However, with attunement it can be controlled and even mimic the thought processes of its owner.
Whilst it might look alive, it is not. It is simply an object."
Belladonna hummed in curiosity. She took out her glyph carving pen and idly drew a very basic rune into the fox’s arm. It was rather easy, as it didn’t bleed and she was literally carving it into clay.
Once she was done, she pressed her hand against the carving gently, and watched the ’Light’ rune glow with a pale, white light.
As she looked back up into the figure’s eyes, which looked back at her as it always did, before a wicked and sadistic smile spread across both of their faces.
***
A horde of players had gathered around the entrance to ’The Siege of Infernus’ Dungeon, which had been a buzzing name on the forums since the stream. It was not nearly as big as when the dragon had arrived, as not every player was murder happy and desperate to steal.
But those who were murder happy thieves easily had numbers that reached into the triple digits. All of that was distributed between Professional and Semi Professional Guilds, ragtag groups and idiotic individual players who thought they could somehow get lucky.
The fact that it was taking a while for the party to leave the dungeon was not a cause for concern. In fact, it made them more giddy with excitement. After all, if it took them longer to leave that could only mean it was time spent filling their packs with extra loot for them to take, and the fuller their packs then the slower these already weakened players would be.
In these thieves minds, it was like a pig fattening itself up for the slaughter and drizzling itself in gravy so it would taste better for them. Their mouths were already salivating just thinking about it.
Finally, the announcement rang out for all of them. Not just for all of those within the nearby area.
[Congratulations to the party, ’MONSTER HUNTING MAGIC FRIENDS, GO!’ for being the first to complete the Dungeon ’Siege of Infernus!]
The hungry eyes of the ravenous wolves turned to the warm pit that acted as the entrance to the dungeon. However instead of an exhausted party with bulging bags, they were met with the sight of a single individual, who looked more monstrous than human.
It was tall, with large jagged teeth and a lean body wrapped tight in pale white skin. Its eyes were grey like concrete and had a cold, dead gaze to them as it looked over the crowds before it.
The Fox figure, in its ability to copy innate abilities, had transformed into Belladonna’s Blood Frenzy form. A form that these players had yet to see thanks to Vestra’s careful editing of the footage.
The clone spread its leathery wings, taking advantage of the moment of pause gained by its strange appearance, before it vanished like a phantom.
A few players gasped in shook, whilst others frowned in confusion and scanned the area with detection spells to try and find where it had gone.
But they did not need to wonder for long, as shrill screams burst through the crowds of players. They had come here as ravenous wolves on the hunt, blinding themselves to the truth of the matter.
In front of the Baroness of Blood, even a diminished clone of herself, they were little more than lambs to the slaughter.