Chương 629: Mercurial Sense

Next summoned is Rubick, the enigmatic Grand Magus quickly sending a curious eye at the other Spirits present. He'd actually met Anti-Mage, Shadow Shaman, and Lina before, but none had a good impression of him... Most of the time he'd been interrogating them on their magic and uses of it, despite their respective titles.

Savos would undoubtedly enjoy debating the Grand Magus once they meet, and Michael was sure a new Wizard's Tower would be springing up in the near future...

Next is Silencer, someone who Michael had tried to interact with but found the man duller and more intimidating than even Anti-Mage, which was why it was so surprising to see him go and begin 'happily' discussing things with Anti-Mage and Rubick, them somehow being old friends...

"Ahoy matey! Time to fight again! Or...?" Kunkka questions curiously as he looks around at everyone present, "Hmm? Colour me red and call me raw, it seems I'm late to the party!"

"You'll be sticking around for however long you want, Kunkka. I've found a method to keep you here." Michael smiles, giving the man a spartan handshake.

"Haha! I knew you could do it, lad! Say, would you mind if I started a new navy of my own? The poor state of those boats I faced last time made me want to keel-haul the lot of them in mere principle!"

Michael shrugs, "You'll have to talk about that with Ennura, the Jarl of Winterhold. I'm sure she'll agree though, she was fighting in the same war you and I were."

"Marvellous! Well, you carry on bringing the guests, I'll ingratiate myself with our new friends!" he walks off straight towards Lina and Wei, "Ahoy lasses, I've got a bottle of rum here with your names on it!"

"Oh? What's my name then, Captain?" Lina snidely asks with a look that was all but commanding Kunkka to go hang himself.

"I wrote it as the beautiful desert flower, but perhaps I misremember it? Would the rose at my bedside be better suited?"

"Never in your dreams."

"Oh? So only when I'm awake then?"

"You're asking to get burned."

Michael chuckles at their interactions and turns back towards his summoning. Ignoring Shadow Fiend, he turns his eyes to the next hero, Spectre... He had entered Spectre's world before, but hadn't managed to contact the phantom after his many attempts.

The hero didn't speak any language Michael knew, nor did his [Language Comprehension] ability allow him to understand... Hopefully his new [Omniversal Language Comprehension] changed the situation.

The smokey, purple silhouette appears before him, the nondescript yet somehow feminine phantom wields a similar glaive-dagger that Anti-Mage has. It blinks its eyes a couple times, the glowing turquoise orbs scanning the area before locking onto Michael. "Hawt si isth?"

Michael crooks a brow at her, "Sorry, could you say that again? I didn't catch it."

"Ohw rea oyu?"

"Hm..." he hums in thought, at first he'd thought she was just making random sounds, but it seems he was wrong. He did understand her to some extent, the language at least, except that her words were said in a random sequence. "What is this?" and "Who are you?"...

"I am Michael Tahlin, what's your name?" he asks, in the game she was called Mercurial, but he wasn't sure if that was the case here or not... Thankfully, not all of his information was wrong.

"Ercurmrial."

"Mercurial?" The phantom nods at his question, still it was hard to understand her, and would render any discussion far too long-winded for his like...

An idea pops into his head.

He pulls a metronome from his inventory and hands it to her after activating it.

*Tik. Tok. Tik. Tok.*

He thought was that it'd help her regulate her words and keep her flow moving, instead of stuttering, pausing, and giving incomplete, mixed phrases.

She speaks again a few more times, each becoming more and more legible, until finally, she's speaking in straight sentences, rather than gargled sounds. "Cannn you underrr stannnd meee?"

"I can, it's good to meet you, Mercurial."

...

She pauses, "Isss therrre batttllle you neeed meee tooo figghht?"

"No? Not right now at least..."

"Okaaaaay..." she mutters, going silently and just standing in place as if waiting for further instruction.

"Could you wait over there for me? Maybe try and converse with some of those people?"

"Okkkaaaay..." she floats over to the group and tries to talk, only to then realise that no one else understood her language... While the others had some sort of inbuilt translation, her language was far too difficult to do the same, leaving her essentially mute since she understood their words just fine...

Michael shakes his head and moves onto the last available Spirit, Medusa. He hadn't had the chance to talk with her, but he was pretty sure she'd be relatively calm, if not hearing his explanation out entirely.

He summons her, the large, hideous snake-woman appearing before him. Her lower body was like that of a lamia, completely snake-like with the upper body of a woman. Her skin was replaced with ugly scales, that were coloured in both a pale rotten-looking green, and a vibrant, poisonous one.

Her face itself was covered in the same uneven scales that lacked any symmetry at all. She lacked any lips, and her thin, pointed teeth peeked through whenever she made a facial expression. Her eyes were a bright glowing red, and she had a similarly coloured gem embedded in her forehead. Last was her hair, which like most depictions of Medusa, was made up of hundreds of small snakes that each seemed to be their own, cognizant being.

"Had enough staring, child? Or must I remind you of your betters?" the woman hisses out at him, her hand that was clutching her intricately carved bow gripping it tightly.