Read Novel Full Chapter 2362 Picking at the Broken Pieces
Chapter 2362 Picking at the Broken Pieces
--- Kat ---
Kat sprinted towards the tower with Lily flying ahead once they confirmed the place was actively smoking. Kat cursed the bracelet limiting her speed as Lily made better time. Her girlfriend threw open the door on the bottom floor and then shot forward up through the middle of the stairs, her tiny body allowing for easy flight even in such a cramped space. When Kat finally made it to the door, she had to run up the stairs, her wings too wide to fit in the gaps between the stairs.
Lily made it to the top first, and it seemed like the fighting had stopped already. It didn’t mean Kat slowed down at all, but it did mean they were in less of a rush... and she wasn’t bothering to strain against the bracelet any further. Simply taking it at ’max’ speed was enough for now if nobody was in immediate danger.
Through Lily’s eyes she could see that Wiggles and Appoline were helping clean up with Grunkle fussing over the place as well. They seemed... mostly fine? Wiggles had some blood on his fur but with Appoline looking to be in good condition if you ignore the mark around her eye, that was probably old blood.
For Appoline, it seemed like she’d been punched in the face or something. Getting a really good black eye... and Kat had to wonder why she wasn’t bothering to heal it. On the other hand, Grunkle looked the most stressed out of the three he simply wasn’t injured at all. It made for an interesting contrast and Kat got ready to ask about it as she made it to the top of the stairs. "What happened?!"
"We were attacked," said Appoline
"Some idiot attacked us," complained Grunkle at about the same time.
The two shared a look before Appoline gestured to the other elf. It was his house after all. Grunkle nodded. "Some dumbass dwarf showed up and took exception to that little rabbit fellow. Not that I blame you, clearly he was going to do something either way. Bastard wrecked the room with explosions and more wards aren’t really meant to protect my random crap. Just me, and the walls so a bunch of it got wrecked."
Seeing as Grunkle was finished, Appoline continued. "I think he was under the impression that you were Souris. Grunkle never mentioned your name, and just said that part of a group had headed out, and that the rabbit wasn’t his. So, my own personal assumption, would be that the dwarf, whoever he was, tried to take us out because of that... but he remains unaware of your personal presence."
Kat nodded, "Alright... why haven’t you fixed up your eye yet?"
Appoline frowned and then lightly touched the area around her eye before wincing and pulling out a healing potion. "Hadn’t noticed. Felt the hit obviously but didn’t notice..." grumbled Appoline.
"Alright well, with that sorted," Kat turned to Grunkle. "Do you need help or something? We planted those devices... but well..."
Grunkle waved her off. "Don’t worry your rewards didn’t get touched, and I didn’t really lose anything important. All the good stuff is up a level in the observatory and my bedroom with the stuff I care about is up one floor after that. I already went to check but however the explosives got set they didn’t make it past this floor. I should have enough spare furniture in this mess... somewhere..."
"Want me to help with that? Are we completely destroying the broken stuff to say, take outside... or what’s the plan?" asked Kat.
"Oh, that’s what you meant," Grunkle said as he rubbed the side of your face. "Sorry I suppose I just assumed... anyway. For the most part the plan is to break things down into smaller bits and then get them throw them into my garbage disposal. Which is really just a super basic teleportation array that brings thing down the tower. It’s a mess and NOT safe for people, and you can only send things one way... but it means we don’t need the debris to be too small.
"It’s just over here," Grunkle said with a wave as he showed them a part of the wall underneath a picture of an elf standing atop a hill with a flag and a big grin on his face. When Grunkle placed a hand on the wall below it, the wall opened up revealing a small cubby. "You just throw the stuff in there, close it, and then it gets moved downstairs. Might be burning it all later..."
"Oh, but a few things here can self-repair. I did always prefer furniture that could keep itself in good condition and I either tried to buy stuff like that, or add the enchantment myself. I’m not that amazing at those enchantments though, so... if anything is too broken up don’t even bother. If it’s snapped into two or three pieces, place those pieces close together if you can... might need to do a few passes of this..."
Kat nodded and along with Lily the pair got to work. It mostly consisted of sorting the stuff into piles. Pile one was anything completely intact or with minor cosmetic damage. The sort of thing that would allow you to keep using them even if they didn’t have a repair charm on them. A few scratches on a table, a cut in a seat, or a slightly chipped cup. That sort of thing was sadly the minority... if you didn’t count the stuff that was completely fine. Sadly, that was still a smaller pile then anyone was happy with.
The next pile was stuff that would probably fix itself. This mostly consisted of those big pieces Grunkle was mentioning. Tables with legs missing but somewhat cleanly cut, chairs without the built in cushions, or particularly beat up bits of furniture that weren’t currently useable but likely would be if they could fix themselves over time. In fact, a couple of the tables that looked like Lily had used them as scratching posts were visibly repairing themselves as they got through the sorting.
The last two piles were... a bit sadder and quite larger. They consisted of stuff that was definitely too broken, and stuff that might be. Things like individual legs that were still in good condition but they hadn’t find a paired table to go with, or chairs that were in say, six pieces but were relatively whole pieces and might be able to magic themselves back together.
Kat wasn’t overly strict with her definitions, it was very much a ’by feel’ type deal, and Grunkle was coming around every now and again to check on the things in each of the piles. A couple of ’mostly intact’ things didn’t actually have those repair enchantments on them for example. So even if the damage was somewhat moderate, and fixable... because the enchantment hadn’t been in place they ended up in the ’likely garbage’ pile.
As the likely garbage pile grew, Kat was more and more tempted to start breaking it down further and throwing it out... but Grunkle was careful to tell them to wait, just in case. So Kat eventually asked, "Just in case what exactly? These things here all seem pretty destroyed..."
Grunkle nodded, "Yes but, once we’ve finished sorting everything I’m going to poke at the enchantments a bit... and if I did them right, at least the ones I did personally, matching pieces should glow if they were originally part of the same bit of furniture. It helps put things back together. I think we’ve got most of the stuff... but just in case you know? It’s not easy to get furniture out here."
"Why not use that to start with?" asked Kat.
"Because not all of them have it, and it works... a bit too well? Sort of? Every single splinter will light up if it was once attached to that bit of furniture. It doesn’t matter if the thing CAN be repaired, just that they were once part of the same whole. So we’re going to need to work out what’s good enough. Most of the stuff in the ’too destroyed’ pile is probably staying there. This is more for the other piles," explained Grunkle.
"Oh... that actually makes a good deal of sense. Well, sort of. Why is it enchanted to by like that? Why not just have the valid targets glow?" asked Kat.
Grunkle shrugged, "Because I’m not that good at enchanting? It would be better, but how do you determine that? Especially at a distance? The way I’ve got it set up is that the glow enchantment is completely separate to the repair one. They don’t really interact at all. I just know from experience what can and can’t be fit back together. For example, if a table and a table leg glows, I know I can stick them together... but splinters are usually fine to ignore because smaller stuff can just be repaired using the magic of the enchantment. Still... it means it’s going to be quite the lightshow while we sort everything out..."