Monstrous Compendium Ch8 bit – Renegade

~ crossovercreativechaos

One of these days, Asuna thought as she rubbed her hands over each other, she’d have to ask Klein why Fuurinkazan let her keep a key to their house in Snow Springs. The whole point of having your own place was to have a safe spot away from other players….

“-Don’t care if you say you’re fine,” Klein’s voice jostled through the front door as he flung it open. “Cold. Event boss. You need a hot drink, a warm fire, and people. Or do we have to drag you over to Grandma Tiger so she can growl at you about winter undead?”

“…No.”

Asuna froze as Kirito stumbled into the room, most of Fuurinkazan herding him toward the blazing fireplace while Kunimittz double-checked the locks on the door. Winter undead? No wonder Klein’s message had asked for cocoa. Along with, please don’t kill me. Or him. “What happened?”

Fuurinkazan looked at each other. And if that wasn’t a ‘who breaks the bad news’, then she hadn’t been leading Knights long enough.

Issin cleared his throat. “Somebody decided to solo the Christmas event.”

…I’ll kill him later.

For now, Asuna pressed a mug of cocoa into Kirito’s chilled fingers, then helped him juggle it back and forth as she and Klein got what was left of his coat off. Given Kirito’s usual fighting style relied on not getting hit, it had to have been an awful fight. “What was it?”

Kirito took a careful sip. Then a deeper one. “Undead Santa with revenant goblins. And two ravens.” He paused. “Don’t ask me to explain the ravens.”

“Nicholas the Renegade is real?” Tae squeaked. Found herself the focus of stares, and blushed. “It’s one of Grandma Tiger’s old stories. The legend is that he used to be a kindly barbarian cleric in the hoarfell, so favored by the spirits that he was granted two spirit raven familiars. But a marilith demon disguised herself as a poor shifter woman, and, um…. Grandma always skipped that part with, ‘and there’s a lot of yucky stuff little kids don’t want to hear about’…”

31 thoughts on “Monstrous Compendium Ch8 bit – Renegade”

  1. Now I’m wondering when the mixing of Odin stories with Santa got going–I noticed it first in the Dresden files, and from an “all myths are real” angle it works, but Saint Nick the tail-kicker is more Turkish and Russian than German, isn’t it?

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    2. Thing is, Norse might be the better term than German, and the Rus apparently had some ties with the Norse.

      I’m not sure if Hogfather does that or not, such a claim is at least fairly close to Hogfather.

      It is a fairly obvious conflation if you cannot afford a outright Christian Santa Claus, or need to soften the guy the blue hat.

      *Incoherent burbling on Butcher’s worldbuilding choices partly inspired by a MLP/Dresden fic I reread recently.*

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      2. Come to think of it, it might even be a Russian propaganda thing– I know that Putin has been working his tail off to level up the Russian Orthodox Church, and all the “Santa came to punch heretics” type memes are fairly new, too.

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      1. Oooh, apparently the Dutch traditionally used a bunch of Odin’s stories with Sinterklaas, their permutation of Nicholas of Myra.

        And the Dutch have been getting into video games pretty big, if I remember right– isn’t it a Dutch company that has the Conan MMO, and Secret World?

        This is so cool!

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    4. It also doesn’t hurt that the most pre-Christian Invasion Odinistic countries – Norway and pretty much the rest of Scandinavia – like to claim that No, Santa does not live at the North Pole. He lives Here, in Whatever Scandinavian country you’re talking to About.

      (*cough* Why Yes, I Am A Fan of the Webcomic Scandinavia and the World. No, I Do Not See how that Relates.*cough*)

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  3. ROFL @ Tae’s “yucky stuff” comment.

    The hilarious (horrifying) thing is that this is D&D so while our minds immediately jump to sex, it’s entirely possible that it was some sort of horrific blood ritual that involved skinning him alive or something.

    After all it did result in him becoming an undead and death by snu-snu isn’t usually something that results in zombies. Desiccated corpses maybe, but not undead.

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    3. In Pathfinder at least, if a Succubus uses energy drain not only is the soul she takes back to the Abyss a withered, sickly thing which is usually devoured quite soon, but the corpse itself ‘often rises as undead, unless properly burred’. Yeah Pathfinder is distinct from DnD proper, and that’s Succubus rather than a Marilith.

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      1. … I think you forgot to include the ‘but still’ that was supposed to go at the end of your comment.

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      1. >
        To quote Saoluan, “There’s sex in this!”
        >
        *ROFL*
        Embers is awesome!

        Regarding childhood stories and fairytales – oh yeah!
        Rapunzel, for example, or 1001 Nights… Adam and Eve.

        I wonder how many parents left the “naked and not ashamed” part deliberately out? 😉

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    2. I’d say she’d figure that out before why both herself and I assume Kirito have “spare” keys to Fuurinkazan’s safehouse. I assume Grandma Tiger will love to embarrass them both with the reason. Or just change the locks so you need different keys to leave from the inside and throw them both in alone to let nature take it’s course.

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      1. Especially when everyone who sees it only reaction is “You so deserve this. Reckless idiot.”
        “Oi!”
        “Relax, man, she’ll let you down from there. Probably. Eventually. I’m pretty sure.”

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