The Sherry in Shadow

Chapter 15: The Defiler

It was nearing the end of an exhausting day when Sherry was finally led to a room, which she was told would serve as her personal quarters. A small sense of relief washed over her as she crossed the threshold, welcomed by the much needed solitude.

Sherry softly shut the door softly behind her. Her ears buzzed with the sudden quiet, a stark contrast to the cacophonous sounds that accompanied the bustling day. It was a reward of sorts, a token of success for navigating her first day undercover in this unfamiliar territory. Yet, it was a sobering reminder of her situation, isolated in the heart of enemy territory, away from everything she knew.

The room was quite comparable to her old dorm in Laugus; in fact, this room was a smidge larger. Considering that Sherry's scholarship afforded her the largest dorm just short of a royal suite, Sherry mused at the contrast; Shadow Garden's generosity with real estate was clearly a strategy to foster loyalty, a tactic made possible by Shadow Garden's underpopulation relative to Alexandria's former glory.

The space itself was adorned with some decent furniture – a bed, a wooden desk, a lamp, a full-body mirror, and a modest closet, all cast in the soft, waning light that seeped through the curtained window. The room echoed with a sense of austere potential, akin to her first day at the academy, albeit with the conspicuous absence of her personal belongings. With a smirk, she traced her fingers around her hidden lizard necklace, a small defiance against Lambda's mandate of renunciation.

Leaving her Alexandrian sword and sheath on the desk, Sherry collapsed onto the bed, a sigh escaping her lips as she stared at the ceiling. Memories of the day, with its training sessions, new faces, perpetual embarrassments, and the constant need for vigilance, whirled around in her mind. Now, in the solitude of her room, the adrenaline-fueled alertness was fading, slowly replaced by creeping exhaustion. Deactivating Chameleon, she let her elongated nose return to its natural form.

"Ahh... I can finally breathe," Sherry murmured to herself, before letting out a groan of frustration. "Argh! But there so much I need to do still!" She kicked her legs and let out a groan of frustration, a small tantrum born of sheer tiredness.

Shaking off the negativity, she took a deep breath and sprung back into a sitting position. There were tasks she had intended to handle since her arrival, and with this moment of privacy, she could finally tackle them.

Despite her initial fears of having to share a room, Sherry spent what chance she could scouting for a secluded spot, almost resigning herself to operate solely from the bathroom, but since Shadow Garden graciously offered her her own quarters, Sherry wouldn't dare decline using their gift against them.

Rising, she ensured the door was locked and the curtains drawn, ready for her nightly tasks. Then she began pulling on her earlobe, stretching it until it became the size of a loaf of bread. With her left hand, Sherry slowly reached into her own head.

This was not an exaggeration or a metaphor. Sherry's crystal earring was actually a subspace storage artifact called Void Tear. Once magic is applied through her earlobe, Sherry had to stretch out the earring's opening allowing her to shove her hand inside to access its inventory.

To the outside perspective, it gave the uncomfortable optical illusion that Sherry is reaching elbow-deep inside her own head. Similarly, it took Sherry a while to overcome the proprioceptive illusion that comes from using it. Sherry spent nights of practicing anatomically impossible poses debating with her instincts to assert that she had not, in fact, just pushed her brain out of her own skull.

While the Void Tear may appear as an inconspicuous piece of jewelry when idle, the act of rummaging around within her own head was hardly something she could do covertly in public in any case.