[GW2] Velours – Continued

Her home workshop in Divinity’s Reach looked less like the headquarters of a legendary commander and more like a particularly aggressive greenhouse.

Copper pipes ran along the walls carrying heated water to raised herb beds. Small hovering drones misted basil and thyme with carefully calibrated humidity. Grow lamps swung from articulated arms overhead while potted tomatoes climbed trellises built from repurposed rifle parts.

Near the window sat a padded reading chair buried under quilts.

That was Velours’s true masterpiece.

Not the combat elixirs.
Not the tornado harness.
Not the portable barrier projectors she’d once deployed during a siege.

The chair.

It had heated cushions. Adjustable lumbar support. Cup holders. An integrated tea warmer. Hidden speakers that played rainfall sounds. And, perhaps most importantly, enough room beside it for Sergeant Cluckers’s containment vortex docking station.

Velours sat curled into the cushions with a book in her lap while rain tapped softly against the windows.

The tornado idled nearby at minimal intensity.

Inside it, Sergeant Cluckers pecked calmly at floating kernels of corn.

“This,” Velours announced to the empty room, “is success.”

A communicator on her desk immediately began screaming.

She stared at it.

The communicator screamed harder.

Velours pulled a blanket over her head.

“Commander,” came the voice through static, “there’s a rogue flesh golem in Rata Sum.”

“No.”

“We already told people you were coming.”

“That seems unethical.”

“It has laser eyes.”

Velours groaned into a pillow.

Sergeant Cluckers rotated slowly toward her.

“You’re right,” she mumbled. “Responsibility. Heroism. Terrible burdens.”

The chicken blinked once.

“Traitor.”