Chapter 707

Chapter 707: Chapter 707 Out of the Closet and into the Hallway

With the plan to get uniforms scrapped Kat instead wanted to find some sort of pattern in the endless shuffling of rooms. Kat stared at it, taking in as much detail as she could while comparing it to her memories. To Kat’s great pleasure, a few patterns did actually emerge quite quickly. She was mostly watching the medical wing, and that was where she got her answer.

The medical wing, for all of its shuffling tending to stick to the east side of the house. This might be somewhat hard to realise when everything else is moving and the centre point of the house is changing on the regularly but the medical wing was almost always on the east side of that line. Not always true, and not always by a lot, but it did give Kat a major advantage when it came to finding it.

Once she’d spotted that little bit of interest, she managed to work out that the kitchen liked to stay in the south, but unlike the medical wing, it limited itself more to the southern two thirds of the house, caring much less strictly for the centre line... except when it came to the dining room. It would never be anywhere near the dining room if they were both in the northern section of the house. Kat wasn’t entirely sure what she could DO with that information but it was something.

The only other readily apparent pattern was that bedrooms liked to clump up even if they weren’t on a path to merging. They didn’t necessary all clump together, but there was almost never a bedroom attached to a hallway all by itself. They tended to stick in twos and threes wherever they went. Oh, and the hallways. Kat was annoyed at that particular revelation.

The number of hallways in the house liked to change, but unlike the other rooms which shuffled around and merged, the hallways would just materialise out of thin air between blinks or whenever Kat wasn’t looking directly at the map though they had no issue vanishing, it was only appearing they would do completely unobserved.

*Ok, so head east, or rightish... or wait... no it’ll be left because the door is behind me. Good thing I didn’t instantly make that mistake. Ok, so turn left, try and stick to the east side of the house and open doors until we find the medical wing.* Kat took a quick glance at the laundry and followed its path for a bit but confirmed there was no pattern for that particular room. *If we find the laundry, good, if not too bad I suppose.*

Kat tightened her hold on Blue just a bit before using her tail to tap the medical wing and then point at the door signalling she wanted to leave for the medical wing now. Blue seemed to get the message and nodded in acceptance. Kat shifted Blue in her arms so that she was now holding the fae with one arm and a tail so that her left was free to carefully open the door and she could peak out without Blue getting in the way.

.....

Kat eyed the corridor carefully but couldn’t find anything of note. It was just an empty corridor, didn’t even have another door. Well, it was somewhat fancy and had two vases filled with flowers, but that was all really. Kat tuned into her hearing a bit for an idea of if there were any staff around but to Kat’s annoyance there was a slight layering of white noise in the background now that she concentrated.

*Well that’s just great. Apparently we’re only allowed to SEE the staff. Hopefully I can manage that before they do.* Kat carefully pushed the door open before turning to look back at the map. That extra check was enough to confirm something. The mansion only moved pieces you weren’t looking at. The hallway Kat was in, as well as the two that connected to it moved, but only together in a big block. The block could move, and that wasn’t the best thing to realise when she was trying to head for the east side, but it was nice to know... probably.

Kat sighed and looked at the map, waiting for when the set of hallways were the furthest east before dashing out of the door and settling Blue back into a proper princess hold. Kat new her tail could do in a pinch, especially if she placed it under Blue’s knees to keep them in place while her arm supported Blue’s back, but it wasn’t ideal for her own balance. Her body was much to used to her tail being able to act as it wished so freeing that up took precedence over keeping an arm free.

Kat got to the next hallway and glanced down it before biting back a curse. There were two servants, a butler and a maid pair standing guard in the middle of the hallway. They looked out over the centre of the room, starring at each other, with two doors in either side of them. Kat bit into her lip. They hadn’t turned to see her and didn’t look like they were going to. Kat just wasn’t exactly sure how she wanted to tackle this problem.

*Do I try and sneak? Can I sneak? Perhaps... I’d have to fly over and...* Kat checked the ceiling height and found it to be right in that grey zone. It was certainly high enough for her to be comfortable flying over everyone’s heads but it wasn’t so high she was certain they’d never look up. *Maybe if I move Blue to my back? No she’d get in the way of my wings like that unless she could sit across my legs... and that’s just awkward.*

*The other issue is I think I need to check those doors. So... combat looks to be the only way. Hmm... I can probably take one out, and they’re just Thyme clones. I just have to ask if Blue can take the other one out... yeah I think going for them would be the best. I don’t know if I can sneak, and a surprise attack is better for checking the doors.*

Kat looked down at Blue before carefully leaning the fae around the corner. Kat then moved her tail around beside Blue’s face before pointing deliberately at the maid Thyme and then dragging her tail across Blue’s neck before pulling her back around the corner. Blue gave Kat a glare for how she delivered the message. Kat shrugged and manoeuvred her arm so that Blue could see her right thumb. She gave an exaggerated thumbs up, and then a thumbs down before pointing to Blue.

Blue rolled her eyes, “I can do it,” said Blue.

Kat nodded, glad that only one person was doing charades and that Blue got the message. Carefully putting the other girl down Kat flew up the ceiling, carefully making sure that she wouldn’t hit her wings on any of the support beams or the light fixtures, Kat made her way very carefully over to near the two Thymes. It wasn’t directly above but Kat was going to dive down at them from where she was. Kat wasn’t confident enough to risk getting closer. Kat looked back and gave Blue a thumbs up, and got a spell circle lighting up in response.

Kat waited five more seconds before swooping. Kat dived, tail flat behind her and a fan in each hand. Kat watched the Thyme start turning towards her direction but it was too late, two fan blades working in concert sliced through the Thyme’s throat cleanly as Kat flew past. It wasn’t as easy as that monster the pair had recently fought, but it was no great hardship. The harder part was not causing a racket by shattering the floor when she landed. Kat had to flare her wings and bend her knees to take as much of the impact as she could, even then her shoes clacked loudly onto the floor.

At the same time Kat was dashing in, Blue released a thick globule of water, unlike Kat the maid didn’t even manage to turn all the way around before the water bullet impacted the side of their head causing it to explode like a ripe tomato, blood going everywhere, staining the hallway where it fell. Kat was interested to note Thymes bled sap, which wasn’t a surprise, though it was a reddish colour. Possible, but rarer. Katt wondered if that was Thyme’s default or not.

With that taken care of, Kat opened a nearby door to give them somewhere to hide the bodies and to check the room. What she found instead of a nice place to hide something was a brick wall. Kat stared at the wall behind the door with a frown on her face. *This has Thyme written all over it and I’m disappointed in myself for expecting something else.*