《Embers》 Chapter 1 - And So It Begins This was a real pain to edit. I litterally felt the cringe as i added all the missing words and was re-wrting the sentences. Anyways. Cheers! ____________________ ~ding~ Kai opened his eyes. What he saw was a view of great dark cloud dragging itself across the grey backdrop of the sky. His ears were ringing as if someone played something really loud in his ears. His body felt limp. He knew it far too well, it was too similar to after effect from an all-nighter of reading a book or gaming. He turned right, fully realizing the severity of his limpness. He then tried to stand up but his treacherous hand slipped off of something, making him fall to the side. The texture of that something was oddly close to that of the wood and a splinter in his palm was further supporting that idea. Sudden pain shaken him, energizing him in a similar way as a kick in the guts energizes a man or makes him grumble and twitch, and Kai was not exception to this. His back felt the rocks and the wooden bars, broken in some places, disjointed by something he couldn''t even guess. His palms felt the dusty rocks, the only things left from this house. Kai tried to stand up again. It was... challenging. Kai was not someone particularly fit and him being limp and falling to the side on hard rock didn''t help it either. Through constant ringing in his ears, he noticed something yelling and echoing from far off. He heard it but didn''t really care to give much attention - his struggle with the rubble was more important. When he finally stood up, the only thing he saw, was the figure of a man dropping quickly his hand consumed by the shadow of a bright yellow and orange light behind him. Kai''s body twisted to the side, loosing all the balance to stand, falling on its back, hitting his head on the rubble forcing him to gaze at the grey. The shock of it restrained all the pain, flooding his mind with confusion as to what just happened. Suddenly then he tried to take a breath but no air would come through. He tried again, slightly panicking, but it was in vain. Again he tried. Tears started rolling down the sides of his face. He looked down and then he saw it. The constraints on the pain dissipated the moment he realized ''it'' was there, the pain awashed him whole, pressing his rationality in thought into small box leaving only despair, submission and fear. The axe in his throat, no matter how cold the steel seemed, felt to him as hot as only the sun could be. The pain was numbing, sending his body in sick convulsion, dragging his mind somewhere far off, somewhere where echo is, forcing it to drift away, slip through, reach towards that something, that which echoed with his silent screams, echoed cycling them into constant infinite sound flowing into the dark, dissipating into the real infinity. The dying echo called for him, not calling his name but the notes of it like a song his life chanted him to go, it soothed his pain, but as he was reaching closer and closer towards it, the pain like a betrayed lover would slap him back into dying ignominy of what is just barely human,turning off the numbness spreading the shocks of it across his whole body. Kai tried to speak, call for help, but gargling and fresh blood coming out of his mouth reminded him he couldn''t. ¡°Still alive, huh.¡±, said the shadow of the man voice rough and deep, walking towards something that is still Kai but almost soon isn''t. Towering over him it placed its large foot on his face and gripping the axe, the slight movement of it reminding Kai he was still alive. The shadow then pulled. ~ding~ Kai opened his eyes. What he saw was a view of great dark cloud dragging itself across the grey backdrop of the sky. He twitched in shock still remembering the spasms, the echo, the pain, the fear. He touched his throat but everything was fine. His ears were ringing but he had to do it. He had to prove to himself that it was just a dream, a sick nightmare, the child of twisted imaginations and traumas that long happened in the past. But he couldn''t at the same time. The doubt was eating away at him. What if it was real? Did the boogeyman under the bed transcend reality? What if it was a precaution of what will happen? Without any wish to move, he remained still, eyes shut tight and breathing rough and panicked. Without making any slight motion, he focused all of his attention on only one sense, hearing in a vein attempt to recognise anything besides the echoes and ringing. And he did. He heard the same familiar screaming, yelling and noise, but he couldn¡¯t quite figure where he heard it. Until he caught a voice. It was a rough and deep voice, the voice of the shadow. Fear overtook him, this time with more vigor, caging and drowning any thought or possibillity of him opening his eyes or moving. A naive thought crossed his mind that if he maybe pretended dead, he would escape their attention. His body started to shake betraying his mind, following with the emotions rather than the thought. Kai clenched his fists. ¡®Stop shaking. Enough!¡¯. The sound of footsteps decimated his thinking, the sound becoming louder every passing second. Any rationality thrown out na his body overtaken by terror, crushing him, swallowing him whole and then breaking his will to shreds, like a blender leaving only gooey mess. His eyes started to water and his throat not coping with stress making strange sounds, oddly similar to that of whimpering. When the footsteps stopped, he heard a sharp sound as if something smooth and solid touched something rough and soft, resulting in the friction resonating into the air. Wind howled synched with his wimper. ¡°Sorry, no captives they said¡±, quietly said the voice over him. Kai opened his eyes seeing an average looking clean shaven bald man with small scar across his chin and really broad jaws. What took Kai¡¯s attention the most was the size of the knife the man held in his hand. His scream was silenced by the sound of ripped flesh. ~ding~ Kai opened his eyes. What he saw was a view of great dark cloud dragging itself across the grey backdrop of the sky. His breathing was heavy and his face was covered in sweat. He looked around. His vision was blurred but he was still able to discern the brightness of fire on the buildings from the grey blackness of the sky and shadows, dark shapes against the fire, people, living people, scavenging through the area overlooking over something, occasionally stabbing it¡­ Kai then remembered where he was, what is going to happen to him, what will happen to him, if he¡¯ll just stay playing dead. His body started to tremble, but his mind, even though blurred by fear and panic, had the solution ¨C escape. He clumsily turned, tried to stand up, but in haste his hand slipped off the wood, almost putting him off balance, but not enough to make him fall. Before he stood up, Kai looked at the splinter in his palm with shock. He swallowed hard, will already crumbling from all negative thoughts passing through his mind. He looked away from his palm to the side. There he saw a man crouching over something, the man looked bald from afar. A tingle of chill touched Kai¡¯s back. Kai slowly stood up and had a quick look around him again. He tried to ignore blazing houses and especially that something, that seemed to lie everywhere on the ground. A little bit afar 100-150 meters away he saw a forest. A solution. Salvation. He didn¡¯t hesitate and set off in a dash. A lot of people back in his school thought that he was a crap of a runner, but despite being bulky and unfit he had his fair share of speed, on small distances, far smaller than 100 meters. Despite being unfit he was not obese, rather slightly overweight. Kai put his whole self in running, clearing his mind leaving but one goal, reaching the forest no matter what. All of his surroundings didn¡¯t matter to him anymore, not the burning houses nor the screams of their inhabitants, nor the corpses on the ground. He skilfully jumped over or moved around any obstacles that were in front of him. For him it was like running in a big dark maze with white lane outlining his path. And then he reached the end of the village. The forest was just in his grasp. A minute or two and he would be unseen in its dark thicket. Until the image of the forest in the distance, changed into dirty mud under Kai¡¯s nose. Some of the mud also got into his nose, mouth and eyes, but the main problem was the excruciating pain under his right shoulder blade. His eyes started to water, while he himself was screaming in agony. Out of breath, he glimpsed at the forest. It seemed to be just within his grasp. ¡¯Just a little bit. Please¡­ just a bit¡¯, Kai thought while attempting to crawl a little. He gave it up as moving even a little made him grumble even more. ¡°Hoh, fast one ¡®ey. Bit loud, bloody bastard but¡­¡±, a woman spoke with a grain of age in her voice. ¡°P-please¡±, he cut in with a hoarse voice, sobbing. ¡°L-leave me¡­ alone. I-I¡¯ve done nothing. P-please¡­.¡± The woman sighed and placed her bow on her back. She crouched in front of him and while unsheathing her dagger, she grabbed him by the face. The view of the forest was blocked by a figure of a woman dressed in the dark leather jacket covered in cape. ¡°P-please¡­ no more¡­¡±, begged Kai voice slightly muffled by her hand. She looked him in the eye and placed the dagger under his throat. She was of middle age, but despite that her hair were white, her eyes, black as the night, reminded Kai of that feeling, the feeling of the infinity, the feeling of touching what he thought of death. ¡°No more.¡± She repeated. ~ding~ Kai opened his eyes. What he saw was a view of great dark cloud dragging itself across the grey backdrop of the sky. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and then quickly stood up, being careful not to slip off. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Once up, he decided to take a look around. Despite his vision blurred he could easily discern reddish fire of houses from the dark smoke in the air, dark brown colour of mud mixing with the dark colours of the smoke and the shadows darker than anything lurking around, crouching over¡­ something, and then standing up moving to another something, vividly in the distance he could see the green outline of the forest. He looked down at his hands - both dirty but no splinters. ¡¯So it changes.¡¯ Kai looked at the crouching shadow of a man in front of him then at the forest. He gulped and wiped the sweat off of his forehead. ¡®Would running again, do ? Or should I sneak past them.¡¯, he thought . He recalled how good he used to be at playing hide and seek with his friends as a child. Rubbing his eyes, he decided to look again at his surroundings, in hope that it would help him to come up with something more solid than just ¡®sneaking¡¯. ¡¯It¡¯s too bright. And there are too little things to hide beside. What to do? Run?¡¯ the forest looked even further and further with every moment he was spending thinking. Then Kai coughed, colouring his lips in crimson. Confusion took him by surprise enveloping him, until it let him go into embrace of terror, as he noticed an arrowhead under his chin and the pain quickly following he discovery. His body, like a sack of meat, fell on the rubble hitting his head on something sharp.It was inconsequential to him by now. Overwhelmed by despair, slowly choking on his own blood and bleeding from the back of his head, he resigned to his end, knowing that it would only repeat once again. ¡°Hoh, nice shot there, Moira¡±, he heard in the distance as his mind was drifting away towards infinity. ~ding~ Kai opened his eyes. What he saw was the same sickening view of the same cloud dragging itself over the same sky. Tears started to form in his eyes, then fall down his cheeks. Trying not to whimper, his breathing became ragged, producing quiet choking sound. Swept away by the emotions and his reasoning misted, he couldn¡¯t come up with any rational thought or idea. He broke and now was confined by despair as he was before. He knew that this will just continue on and on and on. Everything around him started to feel cold. His heart was shattered and trampled upon as the glimpse of hope became the ultimate trap for him. Life seemed bleak and pointless to him for most of his life. He didn¡¯t see any value in it but never really had the resolve to end it. In a sense he was a coward or perhaps just a normal person. But now he would pay any price just to escape living. ¡®Maybe, this is hell? They say that hell can be personal?¡¯, he thought. Daydreaming, imagining different possibilities in different fantasy scenarios, wondering what it would be like to live in mid-ages, how awesome it would be, escaping his bleak reality deluding himself in his own dreams. And now here he is, finally on an adventure - constantly suffering in the circle of never-ending doom. This hell had everything, physical torture and mental ¨C the forest, the shimmer of hollow hope something that is given just to be taken away.. Then it hit him. Maybe this is a game. Like a roguelike. Something akin to a shitty text game with ridiculous. Except realistic, extremely realistic, if not real. The forest is objective. And the bandits are the challenge, a real challenge. A troll by developers, to force players to rage and to get good. If the forest is the bait then he shall take it, escaping the trap meanwhile. Kai clenched his fists and with tears on his face stood, not caring about the splinters nor the sound he was making. No more falling this time and once he was up, started to run. It was the same route with the similar pattern. Jump here, dodge there. The illusionary tunnel was quite similar too, except the obstacles, were corpses now. The place seemed more hellish and hellish the longer he spent his time here. ¡®Quickly to the forest, before I completely turn insane¡­¡¯ He was out of the village now; the forest was just in front of him. ¡®Four¡¯ ¡®Three¡¯ ¡®Two¡¯ ¡®Now¡¯ Then suddenly he ducked, or more precise his body fell, landing his face on the mud and getting a mouthful of it. He coughed, getting the mud out of his throat, letting air to his lungs and then tried to move - there was no pain, then quickly stood up and continued his dash towards the forest. --- Climbing the tree was not easy for him, but he still managed it in spite of his constant failure. He repeated words like ¡®Life is struggle. You know that.¡¯, or ¡®You can¡¯t escape it, get used to the pain.¡¯ to motivate himself, not to give up or at least try not to. He was after all used to giving up. The thicket of the tree branches was covering the grim sky but still he was able to recognise that the day was coming to an end, both by the creeping darkness of twilight and the cold that usually follows closely after it. He took off his red school jacket, soiled in mud and possibly other unknown substances that were mixed with the dirt. He didn¡¯t give much thought to it, both because he was too tired to think about it and because he simply didn¡¯t want to. He took a deep breath of cold air in his lungs calming his nerves as he leaned his back on the tree trunk and adjusted his seating position on the branch so that he wouldn¡¯t fall, afterwards covering himself with his jacket as if a blanket and then closing his eyes, attempting to fall asleep. When his eyes were close, other senses started to function more effectively. Afar he could hear the sounds of owls, but in the end didn¡¯t pay much attention, simply acknowledging their existence subconsciously. Usually he wouldn¡¯t be able to fall asleep in such circumstances, the forest, the cold, the dirt, no average man would. Still his mind drifted away into nothingness with ease, the moment after he closed his eyes. Perhaps it was all due to the mental exhaustion or maybe he was still clinging to that hope that this all may be just a dream and as tomorrow will arrive and today will fade so will the ¡®dream¡¯ disappear, leaving only the faint memory of the nightmare. A loud howl broke the silence of the forest, dragging Kai out of his sweet illusions. Kai, abashed, looked down from the tree only to see shadows scurrying around in the night. The ear-piercing howl repeated, it was so sudden it almost made him lose his balance. He hugged the tree trunk while holding the jacket, in distrust to his sense of balance, especially now that he was shaking. ¡®Thank God I climbed this.¡¯, he hugged the tree tighter, making the bark dig into his palms. Looking down as he heard growling, he saw silhouettes moving through the darker parts of the forest, away from him. They gave him a final howl before they disappeared into the darkness. He didn¡¯t think they left him though, as he saw or he thought he saw shades moving through the trees on the edge of his sight. Paranoid he was unable to let go of his concious, trembling on the tree until the morning sun was up. When the sun has risen high enough for the light to banish the dark, Kai paranoid about the wolves threw his jacket on the floor. His jacket was red so the wolves may mistake it for flesh, is the line of thought that he was following, but to his surprise nothing happened. No wolves appearing from afar, nothing. Sighing with relief he climbed down, carefully so that he does not fall. Once he was down, he picked up his jacket, put it on and then started to walk through the forest, not really knowing where he was going but knowing enough not to walk back to that burned place or towards the wolves. Finding a source of water was a priority to him. An average human can last a week without food, but without water not even 2-3 days. Plus he knew that there are generally settlements near rivers as well as¡­ ¡®Animals, damn it.¡¯ ¨C grunted Kai as he realised it. He stopped and leaned on the tree, thinking, weighing his chances, as well as taking quick breath. ¡®All right. Let¡¯s do it. I don¡¯t even know where I¡¯m going so I¡¯ve got nothing to lose.¡¯- he thought, then chuckled with a tinge of hysteria. Wiping his eyes, he set off, with something close to a resolve, walking forward towards the unknown. *click* Kai heard a sound of mechanism followed by a sound of something metallic closing, as if a sheet of iron was hit by a hammer. This sound was mixed with a strange sound of something breaking, collapsing a sound similar to the one that he heard when his mother was cooking a shank of beef, when she was hooking at it with a cleaver, until eventually the sound of broken bone could be heard. He screamed as he fell and continued to do so as he was lying on the ground facing the grass. His scream broke the silence of the forest, possibly inviting more predators to finish his misery, for an example a predator that this trap was made for. When his voice broke from the strain on his throat he started to quietly whimper. He didn¡¯t even look at his foot, he knew in what mess it must¡¯ve been. The shock and the thought combined would¡¯ve made him spew, if he had anything to spew. ¡°Why¡­¡±- he whispered with a hoarse voice ¨C ¡°Why is this¡­ happening?¡± When the pain subdued, he realized that he couldn¡¯t feel his legs anymore, but it was of no matter to him now. He rubbed his face on the grass and cried a little bit more. Despairing not only at his demise but the fact that he had to go through this nightmare over again, he slowly waited until he would be empty of blood and embraced by nothingness. As his body grew colder only the warm grass was heating his face, tickling it at the side. He felt his end coming soon as he took probably his last breath. ¡°It changes. It will.¡± ~ding~ Chapter 2 - The Time Never Stops A bit less darker then the previous chapter. Most of early chapters are going to be a little bit slow, especially Kai''s (T_T) BUT I''m hoping that by chapter 7 or 8-ish it''s going to increase it''s pace. If there are any mistakes in the sentences please let me know. The next chapter is going to be from Nick''s perspective. ___________________________________________________________________________________ She was looking at the outside, beyond the barrier, beyond the walls of the city of Amrolk at the golden mountains of sand illuminating falling sun, making the desert seem even brighter than usual. Yawning, covered in the shade of the tree similar to that of a maple tree, she recollected her day full of studies and lamented about the heat. Even though the barrier was regulating the temperature and humidity to a certain extent, it still annoyed her. ¡®From one extreme to another...¡¯- she thought while thinking about her home. Amrolk unlike her, wasn¡¯t planning for any sleep as the night was approaching. Leaning over the ledge of the tower, she could clearly see merchants energetically annoying tired adventurers with their goods, varying from different armour, weapons to potions and enchanted talismans, people on the markets bargaining for better prices, more adventurers and people coming in through the main gates. Amrolk never slept. Both because it was a stopping point before Eridelle¡¯s Chasm, a giant hole in the desert with an incredible magical density and because of Amrolk¡¯s institution where people sell any artefacts that they find in the chasm as well as try out to become a weavers themselves, or so she was told. They told her a lot about this place in the last 2 weeks. ¡®Weaving¡­¡¯- a thought passed her as she looked at the small floating ball of sand in her hand. It was tightly compressed and to her looked relatively smooth. Weaving, an art of manipulating threads of mana in order to directly influence the world, causing the phenomena to happen, in other words known as magic. Weavers are revered by the society of Amrolk and majority of Hjaalren in general, as their manipulation of mana is very similar to the concept of the Tree of Cycles weaving fates for everything and everyone. Every miracle, spell and manipulation that weaver creates is done by means of controlling the threads. Like an intricate puppeteer controlling the strings, making the doll dance or a spider skilfully weaving it¡¯s web, the weavers create spells and manipulate objects through the feeling of connection with these invisible threads. Deconstructing the ball in a pile of sand in her hand, she tried to focus, to grasp the feeling of the threads. Silky, invisible, blue, grey, white, yellow, rough, sharp, thin, thick, warm, cold, she imagined different types of possible threads that she could or hoped to grasp. Failing in doing so, she sighed and focused her attention on the sand, on each grain of it. In less than a second a floating flower appeared in her hand. She never really knew how she was doing it; she just knew that she could. Sighing again, she returned her gaze at the sunset and the never-sleeping city bathed in it, keeping in mind that soon she has to head off. ¡°Allana.¡±- a soft voice behind her spoke. The blonde in her late teens turned around just to see a beautiful young woman with silver hair in a simple blue dress. The woman despite her simple clothing had an aura of elegance around her. Allana never has seen any true royalty before, only on TV and the internet, but the first time she saw her, she knew she was of a noble birth. ¡°Mistress Meral?¡± ¨C Allana said as she stood up and quickly bowed. She was already used to customs in this place, especially after couple of incidents that she had. ¡°An outstanding performance by you today, you deem surprise us every day and as I can see you had a lot of fun with the glass cube that I gave, I did not expect you to be able to revert it to its original state, so soon. What can I say. Impressive.¡±- Mistress pointed out, with a rather strong Nordic accent, emphasizing on the word ¡®impressive¡¯. This was another thing that annoyed her about this place. Ignoring her mild annoyance she quickly formed a sand cube a moment later only to change it into glass, then quickly put it in her pocket. ¡°I apologize, Mistress Meral, but I was about to leave the gardens and do some of the assignments that I have received earlier today.¡± ¨C humbly, she tried to get away¡­ and failed. ¡°Why so? You have already done one of the assignments just now. Surely, you have a lot more free time then you think child. Come. Join me for a short walk.¡± ¨C her teacher insisted with a gentle smile on her face. Allana sighed and cringed in her mind then followed, remembering principal¡¯s words. ¡®Many will try to shift you on their side, to manipulate you for their own benefit, especially some of the teachers as they will without doubt realise first, the overwhelming amount of potential you possess. A child not of this world with raw magical power, unrefined and not nurtured similar in capacity to that of an adept weaver, many would seek to have this power. Do not trust anyone in this den of snakes, even me.¡¯ The first week she was ridiculed by the students as a foreigner whom did not uptake an official initiation upon entrance. Not to mention the fact that she skipped straight into the second cycle of weaving classes, completely ignoring 5 years of meticulous training that the students undergone. Her manners as a foreigner were horrible and to everyone she seemed like a pushover. But it was a different matter for the teachers as they could fully sense the size of her magical power. Some teachers treated her same as every other student, some were nice and helpful as she was a new student and a foreigner, but some were overly nice and too helpful, like Mistress Meral, giving the impression that she is their favourite further worsening her relationship with the students. Until the incident where she flung the student in the air, accidentally of course, displaying power and control far exceeding that of her peers, but only displaying. In reality, the magic took course only following her strong emotion of rage, hearing that the principal was even more amazed if not baffled. After the quick investigation it was found out that the other side was instigating it resulting in her punisments while Allana herself was finally acknowledged by her cohort and this week started to make some friends, keeping in mind principal¡¯s words. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. ¡°¡­Allana, my girl, are you listening?¡± ¨C Meral asked gently, with a slight tingle of irritation. ¡°I am sorry, Mistress. But I am too tired. The use of magic has taken a toll on me today.¡± ¨C she answered, while bowing apologetically. In reality she was tired and weaving was a part of it too, but only a part of it. ¡°I understand. We shall have this conversation another day then. I wish you good night. May the threads protect your dreams.¡± ¨C her teacher replied understandingly giving her a warm smile. ¡°Thank you, Mistress. Good night. I shield my dreams in the light.¡±- Allana replied while returning her a smile as well. She didn¡¯t particularly notice, lost in her thoughts but it was already dark and she was in the inner courtyard of Magus Artonne, a main lecture building or a castle in its own sense. Contrary to what Meral said a walk from the Garden Towers to this place is nowhere near short. ¡®Great.¡¯ ¨C with this thought Allana headed to her own room. ___________________________________________________________________________________ ¡°You fockin¡¯ bas¡­¡± ¨C a mass of bulging fat and grease couldn¡¯t finish its sentence as Nick punched it in the face. Being rather pissed off at the treatment this pig gave the waitress, he subconsciously activated his ability, morphing some of the skin on the pig¡¯s face with the skin on his fist, particularly his knuckles. Both parties'' skin when morphed fully evaporated, causing them both pain, which added a bit more strength to Nick¡¯s strike and added a tiny bit more of pain to the swine. The punch connected well, throwing the pig over someone else¡¯s table. ¡°Sorry, guys. I¡¯ll pay you later.¡± ¨C he apologised to the people that were seating at the table before. ¡°Nah, t¡¯s all good, Nick. Need help with¡¯im?¡± ¨C said one of the gents, while unsheathing his sword. His name was something like Jarg. ¡°Nope, he¡¯s mine. First come, first served.¡± ¨C he gave them a smile, then glanced backwards. A giant of a man Khern, this inn¡¯s bouncer was already carrying 2 of this guy¡¯s unconscious friends outside, to the pigsty. Seeing that, Nick decided to take a liberty in having a little bit more fun. ¡°You shit¡¯ead, the fock yo¡¯ do to mah face you cu¡­¡± As Nick landed his boot on the pig¡¯s face he could hear a crunch underneath it. He then gave him a kick in the ribs, causing a yelp to come out of the pig¡¯s mouth. Lifting the pig by the collar of his robe, drenched in it¡¯s blood, to the appropriate and comfortable punching position, he praised the robes quality half expectant for it rip off under the weight of his obese carcass. ¡°Squeal.¡± ¨C he ordered as he commenced punching him in the face. He wasn¡¯t punching strong enough to knock him out, but just right to cause him bruises and, most of all, pain. The missing skin on his 2 knuckles was annoying him, but he really didn¡¯t pay much attention to it. If the pain did anything it fuelled his rage. To further increase his victim''s fun time he was mainly aiming at his already broken nose. To Nick¡¯s amusement the pig actually started to squeal, probably in hopes that he will stop¡­ but nope. After couple of more punches, he felt a big hand on his shoulder, it was Khern¡¯s. ¡°No killing¡¯ere. Yo¡¯kno that Nick.¡± ¨C a deep voice rung behind him. ¡°Yes~, I¡¯m already done.¡± ¨C said Nick as he gave the pig one last punch, letting him fall at the same time. Khern not particularly reacting but seeming rather mused, in his own special way, quietly picked up the pig by its leg without any effort and carried him outside. Nick being fairly satisfied with what he¡¯s done, rubbed his knuckles and then walked towards the group of people that were calming the waitress in question, Chelly. On close inspection the girl had a big blue bruise on her cheek and just stopped crying, thanks to everyone¡¯s collective help both her fellow waitresses and adventurer¡¯s as well. Seeing that everything¡¯s relatively all right he waved at Chelly whom just noticed him, gave her a wink and walked towards the innkeeper, a jolly man in his forties with a big, white, glorious beard and payed him for the damages he has done. It was only fair. He joined the fight even though the bouncer would¡¯ve dealt with it a lot faster, more efficient then him and most importantly without any damages, plus taking money from someone you just beaten the living shit out of is a crime in any world. ¡°On second thought, here¡¯s a bit more.¡± ¨C he said as he took out another pouch from his pocket, he did get a lot after killing today¡¯s monster. ¡°Drinks on everyone today from me!¡± ¨C the loud words that he proclaimed across the whole inn, were met with cheers. ___________________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 3 - The Drunken Companion _________________ Sorry for a reaaaaaaly long hiatus that i had. It''s a really bad thing I understand, especially for fresh fiction like mine. Either way SORRY! I''ll try to post more stuff of soon. Hope you''ll enjoy the chapter! _________________ ¡°Wake up, you drunken piece of shit. Morning¡¯s up. Rise and shine. Time to go. ¡± ¨C a man with ronin-esque ponytail grumbled right after he gave a surprise tap in the guts to the young man in a pile of drunken bodies. The brat was lying on top of a jolly man with a great white beard. *cough* *cough* *other choking sounds* ¡°Uuuugh¡­ fuck oooooooff Rom¡­ nobody wants your shit¡­*mumble* mumble*¡± ¨C was the answer he got back. *smack* *cough* *cough* After fuming at Nick, Rom sighed and decided to get this over with. ¡°All right, if I¡¯ll continue this we¡¯ll get nowhere¡­ You really shouldn¡¯t get fucked up when you¡¯re already fucked up.¡±- remarked the man, cringing at the smell of alcohol mixed with vomit. He could hear some more random mumbling coming out of Nick¡¯s mouth but didn¡¯t pay it much attention. Grabbing the boy by his boot, he then dragged him out of the mountain of wasted men towards the bar stand, where the main waitress was standing, overlooking the chaos of an inn and rubbing her forehead. ¡®I really do need to fix my sleeping habits don¡¯t I?¡¯ ¨C thought Rom, after cringing yet again as he stood in the yellow liquid on the floor. ¡°Mmmmmmm¡­, from here the inn really does look like shit doesn¡¯t it. A question, Reifa: What the fuck happened when I was asleep? ¡°¨C said the hunter with shock, intaking the same view as the waitress did. Ignoring the niceties of half digested food and drink on the floor and walls, the inn still managed to look horrible. Most of the tables and chairs were all over the place and some were even broken , charred undergarments were hanging off a small chandelier, men, that Rom knew had will as hard as a rock, were hugging each other and making weird noises like ¡°Hyaaan¡±. The innkeeper, Broley, had one side of his beard charred, while the other one was¡­ yellow. Even the innkeeper guard, Khern, was out of it, sitting on a chair in the corner, snoring. *sigh* Both of them sighed in unison. ¡°I can¡¯t really remember. I¡¯s bloody dronk too, sure tho t¡¯ was yer friend¡¯ere whom started all of ¡®is. So next ¡®ime, keep¡¯im on a leash¡­please. We o¡¯nt charge¡¯yeh fo¡¯ damages, but please¡­ Next ¡®ime, look afta ¡®im. ¡± ¨C Reifa, woman in her 50s with red hair, large build and green waitress attire pleaded to the adventurer. Scratching his short black beard(full beard), severely confused Rom, made an attempt to understand her Kairin accent, but gave up almost instantly, resolving to a classical smile(which usually didn¡¯t mean anything) and a quick nod. The only man he could understand in this bloody inn was Broley, but he currently was busy making out with his foot, so it was out of the question to make sense. And so after waving to Reifa and saying ¡®have fun¡¯, he proceeded to the exit, dragging the shitty drunk behind him. ¡®Chaos, huh.¡¯ _________________ Rom always liked to stroll through the forest no matter how dangerous or eerie it could be, he just loved it. The fresh air, untouched by the smell of furnaces and mana converting machines of Illidan, always had a refreshing effect on him. Maybe he got this habit as a child as he used to sneak out of his village in the Railrok Forest to play every time. Being fairy-touched also helped it as forests, full of life and magic denser then the fog on Broken Isles amplified his abilities. But even this atmosphere didn¡¯t relieve him of his displeasure. He knew he was about to deal with some really annoying shit. ¡®Should¡¯ve gone here first, he looks far worse. Bloody boy, shouldn¡¯t have left him¡­ Fucking drunkard.¡¯ ¨C he contemplated as he carried Nick. The brat didn¡¯t wake up even after 3 hours of him being dragged around the city. He shook his head yet again, regretting his ¡®sleeping habits¡¯ and focused his sense again. The aura of the forest, again shared with him a fresh breeze of mana. It wasn¡¯t too long till he finally sensed another source of energy, more focused and shielded away, hidden from any humans and tainted alike. He increased his pace The closer he was to the source the less light was sipping through the trees, making it a touch eerier than before, as if to scare away all those that could not feel the pleasant aura in front of them. Soon enough, he stumbled upon a thin-looking vine wall, covered in darkness of the forest. One time he saw a man trying to force himself through one of those, before the vines quickly gripped his body and like a wooden doll disassembled him, dragging the broken pieces into the wall itself. Rom shuddered as he recalled the crunching sounds he heard from it. Though memory of that bastard dying did bring him certain satisfaction, he still didn¡¯t want to deal with the sanctuary security. Never. ¡®Well¡­ let¡¯s start this¡­fuck¡­Hope she won¡¯t kill me for bringing someone like¡­Haaaa¡­ I can already sense malice coming from the other side¡­¡¯- cringed Rom as he removed the glove off his right hand. He gently touched the vines and focused his senses on it. The skin on his hand started to shine in pale blue color. [Open.] ¡®And don¡¯t rip me apart¡­¡¯ The vines slowly untangled themselves revealing a small entrance enough for Rom and his passed out companion to fit in. A bright light coming from the other side made Rom to cover his eyes until they finally got used to it, just to see the beautiful scenery of a pond surrounded but luscious green and cyan trees, with many different rare beasts peacefully roaming around. A kenasha, three-eyed deer with five crimson horns, its hide coloured white, hooves made out of ebony and a tail comprising of ebony and diamond scales capable to pierce even the Ancient¡¯s armor, where kenasha¡¯s magic capacity able to wipe out half of the town. Zemiar, a serpent like creature capable of fusing with other beasts. Qualot, a half-dog half crow like beast with feathers capable of transmuting flesh into plants. All of the animals near the pond were extremely dangerous, yet passive and generally not aggressive to humans, their pelts, horns, feathers, canines on the other hand were objects of desire by many hunters looking for a small fortune. But what caught Rom¡¯s eye the most was the pond itself. Reflecting the sun rays of a still surface, it coloured the water into ivory, making it look like a mirror of kings and queens themselves. Its aura is what was also attracting him, the purity, the density of magic and nature, the essence of life itself. [I greet you, Lord of Ei¡¯arasha. But I must say I am not pleased to see you bring such¡­ abomination in my small home. I am afraid you have to explain yourself.] A calm beautiful voice echoed through the sanctuary. A small blue wisp emerged from the pond, quickly flying towards him. As it flew above the grass and animals, you could see the grass waving in this windless space and animals bowing, to their host, their ruler. Rom carefully placed Nick on the green land and bowed curtsey. The grass under Nick¡¯s body started to wither and change color to yellow. The fairy¡¯s blue body flickered brightly red for a moment. ¡®Shit.¡¯ [I greet you, Host of Al¡¯onasha. I am here to ask you a favor¡­] ¡®Fuck, this is going to suck so badly¡­¡¯ [This young man here, has been struck with the curse of amyralla. He has saved my live, but by my mistake got cursed. I have been incapable to purify him, but still managed to sustain his state. He cannot wake up, right now and I fear he is soon to meet his end. For the past history we had, please help him.] The wisp flickered again, brighter, as if in anger, but a calm echo emerged yet again. [Why should I care about an abomination, such as this, hunter. You know fully well the debts have been paid and it is foolish of you to lie to me about¡­ it. You know fully well, I am not prone to tolerating any petty lies or half-trues. Do not forget your place, human. Even if a part of you is like us, you are not like us.] The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. ¡®Well, fuck¡­¡¯- thought the fairy-touched as he gave a quick look around. The beasts were staring at him and the grass was ¡®waving¡¯ at his boots as if trying to grip them. He looked down at his Iwarian sword and his trusty old sylverite kama and then gazed at Nick. Considering, he finally decided. He kneeled on one leg and faced downwards. [El¡¯asha A¡¯oriem O¡¯imalat, The Guardian Of The Pond of Life, Lord of Purity, I beg you to forgive me and listen to what this man truly is and if you so will, help him.] [Have dwelling amongst the humans, made you completely dull to our customs. Rise, hunter. I can already feel everything there is about this man. The magic around him distorts. The taint that he, and only he should bear sips through into the air, into the essence of magic itself. He is like a disease here, spreading his leprosy to those that are innocent¡­] The small ball of energy was flickering constantly, letting all of the anger she had at Rom. [What if I told you he is the incarnation of chaos itself? That he is capable of not only ¡®distorting¡¯ the magic around him, but the time space and the essence of life itself.] ¡®Fuck you, making me throw out most of my cards¡­¡¯ The energy of fairy, in a split second, moved as an uneasy sea , as if baffled, intrigued by Rom¡¯s words. [And the taint?] ¡®She is not going to be happy with this one¡­¡¯[¡­Is that of a demon.] Silence. [Class?] The wisp flickered yet again and then again and again. Rom swallowed hard. [Gargantula.] Silence. - - - The fairy seemed to twinkle constantly without stop, like one of those magic decorations people put around their house upon Norsendir, a celebration of the rebirth of the true king Nh¡¯shasa. He recalled his days long ago in the past with his mom and ¡­ Rom caught himself as the small ball stopped its light show. Frustrated at himself for losing his guard and diving in pointless dreams, he cursed inwardly and then started to construct possible outcomes, considering his circumstances, surroundings and battle prowess. To be honest with his (almost) super human abilities he would¡¯ve be able to fight off all of the creatures and flee, without bliss, but with Nick cursed and unconscious, made his escape so much more complicated, if damn nearly impossible. [Fine. I shall grant you, your request. As a price for tainting this place, you shall go to the other well of power and cleanse it of the tainted one, that resides there. As for the price for your request¡­ Both you and ¡­ your companion will be in my debt and will bear the mark of l¡¯keesen for 3 human years.] Rom smirked inwardly at that. He, then, made a troubled expression as if shocked at her claim. [That¡¯s¡­¡­ Yes, I agree. Thank you, Host of Al¡¯onasha.] The ball flickered yet again. Rom could not understand what it could¡¯ve meant. [Before I treat¡­ this, you must seek the new well, at this location.] Images of a dark forest with rotted trees appeared in Rom¡¯s mind. He saw himself running, in a manner only farlessi do, with a small jump and a trajectory of half-crescent sun. The creature ran with haste as if chased by something. Soon the scene of dead trees, changed to the pond, water dark as the moonless sky, surrounded by piles rotting corpses and pieces of flesh. Rom faintly felt the creature¡¯s despair and sadness, akin only to other animals, as it gazed at the pile and recognized its own family in it. Soon a shadow appeared, forming its shape from the darkest parts of the forest, like a hurricane mending itself together from the dead parts. First the main body, then the limbs and heads and lastly tentacles. It was Aurm, a tainted beast of pain and malice. A twisted creature born out of sick thoughts and insufferable pain inflicted on the creatures. It only appears at places where a large quantity of animals have been slaughtered and mutilated. The tainted once fully formed has multiple heads and limbs growing out of many spots on its body, like a meshed up together ugly sewn doll. Once the creature fully matures it is capable to use taint akin to magic, its behavioral patterns change ¨C it becomes more nomadic rather than territorial, it gains intellect and is able to cast illusions altering its appearance. This abomination bears deep hate to everything that is living and even deeper to humans, like most tainted. And like most of them are weak against magic and fire. This one in particular seemed just to be couple of months old and it only used 2 legs to support its whole weight, which made it much easier for the hunter. Once the monster noticed farlessi, the poor creature stopped in its tracks, struck by fear. Rom felt faint echo of the terror the animal felt, heard the cries of the tainted one the fox heard, felt numb dull pain of the creature being skinned and shattered to pieces, before everything went black and the memory cut off. ¡®Why so fucking dramatic¡­¡¯ ¨C Rom thought as he wiped the cold sweat off his forehead. He fought many Aurm in his time, killed many of them and fought far worse and far more dangerous things than a rampaging mass of dead flesh. [Can you then, aed¡¯nasha allow me to take him with me then?] ¡®A push to¡­¡¯ [Why so untrustworthy, palash, do you have more secrets to keep? Have you spoken more half-truths then I have expected?] Rom smiled. This time openly. [I do not bear much trust to those that want to place mark of l¡¯keesen on me and things that belong to me. Swear to me on Heron of the Tree, that you shall not kill him, nor let him die and will not take advantage of the arrangement, then he may remain here.] The fairy flashed in anger both at his insolent light hearted tone, the words and of course the demand. [Also, if you will allow me, I shall remind you that taint grows stronger closer to the other source of taint. Aaaaaand before you say anything more.] His tone changed. [Yes, I am willing to take the risk. And I have my reasons for it. Everyone is allowed to have secrets but nothing I have said is half-truth.] He lied. Fairy shimmered for a moment. Then flew towards the young man on the dead grass. He had strong features and could be considered amongst humans as rather handsome or attractive. His blond hair smeared in dirt, were long, but they were shaved at the sides. The fairy read that this hairstyle was common amongst the adventurers in Amrolk, in Hjaalmar. She also remarked that he is relatively young, maybe about 20-22 human years. She felt the taint in him too, running deep and strong inside of him, though subdued by something strange, new for her. Like a hurricane keeping the wyvern in its range. She tried to reach deeper, towards his heart, to see the feelings, what kind of person he is, but caught herself before. Baffled by her own actions towards the stranger and most of all human and an abomination at that, she silently returned back to face Rom. Once returned, the fairy was silent for what could be no less than a minute. The creatures around the pond now were relaxing and doing their usual routines ¨C eating, conversing with their thoughts sometimes mixed in with their voices, sleeping, singing, running around. None were giving away the threatening atmosphere they had before. As long as their ruler is happy, they can do whatever they want and obliged to nothing. ¡®How simple. Just like humans.¡¯ ¨C Rom remarked the irony. [Palash, I¡­ agree with your demands.] {I, El¡¯asha A¡¯oriem O¡¯imalat, ¡¯in the name of the Tree and the Cycles¡¯, swear to comply with the agreements we have made before.} ¡®Short and simple. Good.¡¯ There was no need for fairy to voice any agreements as ¡®The Oath¡¯ knows what she knows, know what he knows, knows what everything knows, and thus sees no lies. [So, Palash? Oaths have been made. Agreements have been sealed. What are you waiting for?] Chapter 4 - Sand Clock And another chapter. Hope you''ll enjoy it!!! ___________________________ *ding* - - - ¡°Aaah, so close.¡± ¨C he whispered. It was indeed quite close this time. He even managed to slice one of its heads off. Given a moment or two he could¡¯ve been able to reach its heart and pierce it¡­ or so he thought. Pity it was never meant to happen. Having a shower in its blood generally means a slow and painful death, as it melts everything as well as acid does. At least the wolf¨Cheaded serpent spared him many convulsions by tearing him to shreds moments later. *sigh* He gazed at the same dull grey sky, greeting him as it always does first at the beginning of each restart. The same old lazy great cloud dragging itself across the vast dullness, just a shade different from the cloud. The spots of orange, covered in uneasy black, coming up from the ashen bark of village houses only to dissipate in the dull grey, trying to turn the day in the night, and night in the twilight. He inhaled the air full with smoke, his nostrils recognising the same smell of burnt flesh and charred wood as they always do. The same ringing in his ears, limpness of his body, slight headache pressing at his temples and vision blurred, similar to that of a camera going out of focus, the confusions of his body that he was or rather had to experience at the start of each restart. Every. Single. Time. At the start, in 20 or so restarts, as any other healthy human being would, he found these ailments incredibly annoying, like a broken debuff spell, nerfing the hell out of you. Imagine as you start playing a game and it¡¯s one of those rogue-likes where by the end of it your ass is on fire and you scream profanity at everyone and everything. Then, you get a shitty character to start off with all those ¡®classic¡¯ nerfes ¨C blindness(well a partial one in this case), ¡®slowness¡¯, ¡®confusion¡¯ and ¡®silenced¡¯ and then thrown to verse not some random mob like goblin or ¡®suraimo¡¯ but a freaking deathknight or elite bandit or something of the lot. This kind of game wouldn¡¯t get much sales¡­ Correction, it probably would. There are a lot of people out there that would find this sort of torture(entertainment) pleasurable. Still the game would have their players and as they would die over and over again, they would get accustomed to it. For example bonf¡­ campfire system. Still, just like those people, as the time went by and the more he died the more he got used to it. Eventually he came to the point where he simply gave up, he didn¡¯t care much for this inconvenience and simply accepted it. ¡®Alright, no more procrastinating.¡¯ ¨C Kai thought as the recollection of a thick blade sticking through his chest came to his mind. He stood up, not particularly caring about any splinters in his hands. He could heal a light scrape within a minute. A splinter? It wouldn¡¯t take even ten seconds to heal that. He swiped his long fringe to the side, clearing his vision. Before he liked to wear his hair down, now he just found it annoying. It blocked his vision in a fight and made it harder to barter for items. Merchants think of you as someone shady, covering half of the face for reasons unapparent to them, which is in most places gets you higher prices to buy for, lower the prices for something you¡¯ll sell, attention of the guards and even kicked out in some places. In other words - a pain. Still he never even thought of cutting his hair, for reasons he himself didn¡¯t really know. He took another deep breath, enlarging his lungs with oxygen, but mainly carbon, which in its place, as it generally does to humans, sent him on the verge of choking, almost making him to cough his lungs out. After so many restarts, you¡¯d think one would get used to the smell of burning meat and lumber, and truthfully Kai was, it¡¯s just the extensive amount of carbon in the air was the devil no man can get used to. Covering his face with his school blazer he somehow managed to refrain from making any sound whatsoever, which yet again made him feel somehow accomplished. ¡®A first stepping stone¡¯, as he would think, ¡¯just another couple of thousand¡¯, he added shedding an invisible tear in his mind. The choking and coughing in a sense was a wakeup call of a sort that he purposefully inflicted to refresh his mind. A waste of time? Maybe! A necessity? Probably! A weird thing? Precisely! It did serve its purpose though. Despite that, or anything, really, his vision was still blurred and his body felt a little limp, but if he¡¯d play his cards correctly he wouldn¡¯t have any trouble. Kai kneeled and picked a rock the size of a half of his palm. It was lying on the muddy ground with a bunch of other rocks, some similar in shape and size some drastically different. For him most of those rocks did not matter as he had his eye for ¡®the one¡¯. It¡¯s beautiful sharp edge, it¡¯s agile and smooth form, it¡¯s colour that of the sky¡­ dull and grey. It was the perfect stone to ram into someone¡¯s spine, especially considering it reliability. he already knew that 5 rocks on the right would shatter4/6 times, whilst all the others would slip 3/7 times, and in most cases that would mean a waste of time, a liability he could not afford. He looked at the man in front of him, head bald, kneeling near a corpse, checking the corpse¡¯s pockets or something of the lot, he wasn¡¯t quite sure. Every time he would try to sneak up on the man to take the glimpse of what he was doing, he would always get caught, but somehow he knew that baldy was not up to anything good. But what is ¡®good¡¯? Is this kind of person, ¡®good¡¯? No. But is he bad? What is ¡®bad¡¯? In his world looting would be considered something only trash would do to be truly be recognised as a waste of society. Then there¡¯s killing. An act abhorred by his society even more than looting. And Kai was sure that the marauder done plenty of that too, the axe on his hip soaked with blood was indicating that it wasn¡¯t too long from his last kill either. But here it is accepted. Despised but those that are rich whole-heartedly, maybe some peasants too, but majority of those that don¡¯t have any wealth to brag about, given a chance would rip each other¡¯s throats for a sufficient sum. Life in this world, meant even less, than in his previous. Or more or less the same. Then societal constraints? Is this then what good is? Wouldn¡¯t that mean that everyone is trash then? He smiled, trying his best not to burst laughing. His sudden burst of philosophy, was quickly toned down by a burst of cynicism, not conceding in its suddenness to the other one. ¡®Hah, such flawed thinking. I think I¡¯m turning into a hypocrite again, how typical.¡¯ ¨C he thought as he continued staring at the man. His innocent face distorted by a grin into expression that seemed to loath the world and his persona in particular, an acknowledgment of his own hypocrisy. But then as a moment passed and disappeared so did his expression as if it was never there. ¡®But either way it doesn¡¯t matter.¡¯ As this last cold thought breezed him clearing his mind of any unnecessary emotion, doubt or fear, Kai rubbed his eyes and started walking towards the man, almost mechanically. Neither slow nor fast, quiet, yet still not soundless, moving his feet between the rubble making almost no sound, he was advancing towards the mage. Keeping low profile, it didn¡¯t take him even a minute to reach the bandit. Once only a step afar from him, Kai slightly moved to the left and then whistled in a low volume, producing just enough sound so that only a person within the reach of his arm could hear him. The man flinched and quickly moved his head left, advancing his left arm up in the air, drawing a symbol with his finger. The moment his foe¡¯s body started its motion, Kai twisted his, giving the blow some rotary motion, striking the baldy right in the atlas of his spine, maybe slightly above it. Upon impact Kai grunted a bit, he probably smashed his thumb in the process. The rock sunk in and the body fell, leaving an eerie afterglow of a symbol in the air. Kai was sure the rock did its job well, if not that symbol would¡¯ve been on Kai¡¯s body or at least what would¡¯ve left of his body. ¡®Shit, looks bad. Probably two or three minutes or so¡­¡¯ ¨C he thought as he looked at the blood oozing out of his thumb. The thumb wasn¡¯t smashed, rather the rock sliced the second phalanx almost in half, nail was missing too¡­ He looked at the two corpses at his feet .One of a beautiful young woman with a diagonal cut, spreading across her neck towards the middle of her chest ,showing her innards and broken bones sticking through the gaping crevice between flesh, the work done by an enchanted axe. At least she died instantly, though by no means in a pretty way. The other corpse was of a bald man in his 40s, with light build and strong defining jaws. He wore strange dark armour with a unique colour pallet to it. The breastplate made out of dark blue leather, incapable of reflecting light, rather it seemed like it was emanating the dark colours outside, with a black eye bleeding three lines of black blood from the top and below imitating the sun inscribed in the center of it. The pauldron seemingly made out of crow feathers moving slightly with the silent blows of the wind, yet them feeling sturdy as iron on the touch. Lastly the chainmail same as the breastplate, reflecting no colour, but coloured in dark crimson red which was on closer inspection producing small ripples of red across the chains, like a silent pond disturbed by a droplet of water. He already knew that this is the work of magic. The ripples were always stronger and more distinct whenever he was injured¡­and healing. Below, the man was wearing a belt with a war axe and a large knife striped to it. The head of the war axe had an etching of a picture, where a lion-like creature was hunting the tree-like deer, an excerpt from the Tale of Sadamire¡¯s Hunt or so he was or rather would be told. Its handle made out of wood had engravings of the wind spread across it, as if calling the axe to the wind, to the mad swinging of it. At the tip of a handle an iron shaped into claw, a touch of ferocity, adding to the elegance of this weapon, despite it being an axe. The pants that the man had were simple brown pants with patches of black leather sewn in on knees and outer sides of lower legs. The boots were simple black boots of hunter-like type, with sturdy black leather and couple of runes enhancing the force of direct impact, durability and agility of the boots. All in all, the goods were relatively pricy, other members of this guy¡¯s troupe have good items too, with that damn eye drawn on each one¡¯s armour, but none as great as his, he was a mage after all. A magic archer though, could give some challenge but couldn¡¯t really care about her stuff, it was too small to fit him. In previous restarts whenever Kai neglected ¡®stealth killing¡¯ the mage, almost all the times the man would kill him, if not with his superior skills in axe-wielding (slashing like a madman) than with magic, which now encouraged Kai to be really vigilant in approaching him. Kai quickly crouched and picked up the axe with his left hand. He thought to take the knife too, but looking at his thumb he reconsidered it. He could¡¯ve taken the man¡¯s belt, but it would take him over 7 seconds and he had only 5 left. With an axe in his hand he stood up and started dashing towards the nearest burning house. ¡®4¡¯ The thick smoke covered his location from the archers. He jumped above a corpse with a tiny frame. He didn¡¯t want to look. ¡®3¡¯ He grabbed the axe in two hands, wincing at pain. ¡®2¡¯ The house is meter away from him. ¡®1¡¯ Once he reached the corner, he quickly moved right jumping and twisting his body, using the good old momentum from his sudden turn. He struck the swordsman, or rather woman, straight in the throat, colouring his pale face and her helmet in red. She was not dead instantly, axe chipped at her armour, sending a trembler of regret to Kai. With a gargle, she went down. Watching people lingering before their end, terrified him. It made him recall his own experiences, the suffering, the pain, the fear¡­ His body started to shake and tears started falling down his face, mixing with the blood on his cheeks. He gazed at her. Through the helmet he could see the expression of horror mixed in with the confusion. He didn¡¯t notice the pain, but his right hand was gripping the axe. Placing his left hand on her, he looked her straight in the eyes. Horrible woman or not, murderer or not, she was a person just like him, suffering now just like he was. ¡°I-I¡¯m sorry. Soon¡­*inhale* the pain will go away¡­¡± ¨C he said as he raised the axe. Kai could not distinguish the expression she had as she died. Wiping his tears he stood up. His red school uniform, now soaked in blood and dirty with ash, seemed crimson, so did the axe in his hand. With his other hand he raised it to fix his hair to the right and then quickly checked his thumb. He sighed. ¡®Doesn¡¯t matter. Next the male archer.¡¯ ¨C he thought as he started running back in the smoke. Once he snapped out of it, he couldn¡¯t care less about the corpse beside him. The target was on the other side of the village. He could¡¯ve gone for a dude with short-swords, couple of houses north, but because he wasted more than 20 seconds on killing the swordsman, it would be a mistake. If under 20 seconds, he could still stealth kill the rogue, but a battle with him, with Kai¡¯s skill and body would mean death. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. It took him 12 seconds of running to see the silhouette of the archer through the smoke. Once he did, Kai moved a bit closer and then skidded bellow him, making a point of kicking the man in the knee. The force should be able to damage the archer¡¯s legs and the knee in particular. With a scream, indicating his broken knee, the man fell on the ground. He wasn¡¯t wearing any helmet, thus became silent in about 2 strikes or so. Dead can¡¯t speak, in this case scream. Besides even if he did, it would be covered by other noises- there was still screaming in the village after all, though Kai tried to ignore it. ¡®Now, the rogue. In the smoke. About¡­ 6-10 seconds.¡¯ ¨C he thought as he ran in the smoke and then laid down at the side, waiting for the shadow in the smoke to appear. He gave a quick gaze to his thumb. It was healing, even the nail started to appear. Kai heard light footsteps only to shadow pass him moments later. He soundlessly stood up and then walked towards the direction where rogue has disappeared to. He didn¡¯t bother much to keep low profile, the smoke was thick concealing everything and everyone in it. The first time he entered it he was paranoid as hell. He¡¯s lost his sense of direction and wandered around in the smoke, tripping over corpses and all, until he eventually got himself killed. As time passes people improve, he is no exception. Gut-shotted, crushed by debris, decapitated, throat slit, skull bashed, chocked to death, beaten to death, arrow in the throat, bled out, stabbed in the gut, head, chest, spine, throat, cut in half, eviscerated, limbs hacked off, crushed rib through the lung, asphyxiation, death, death, death, and adding one more to the list was the last thing he desired. Looking at the blur of a man in front of him, he did not see a person behind the smoke, but rather a stepping stone that he has to discard in order to move forward. ¡®Hack¡¯ replace with ¡®discard¡¯. Standing there, air thick with smoke from burnt flesh and wood, soaked in blood and mud, holding an axe which ripped many lives with it and will rip more, he grabbed it in 2 hands, twisted his body, the same way as he did with the leader, and swung it at the hooded man hoping to strike him in the upper spine and sever his head. As the axe flew through the smoky air, it started singing, a sharp edge resonating to the wind. The moment before impact rogue heard it and moved his body in hopes of dodging it. The axe met little resistance and with cracking sound, brought new colour to the dirt on the ground. Though new was stretching it a bit, rather it was the same red everywhere after pillaging. Blood sprayed in Kai¡¯s face. The rogue was dead. Instant kill, though an ugly one. Half-decapitated. The rogue tried to dodge, but only tried. Looking at the gory mess, he bit his lip, then turned around and started dashing towards the last target ¨C magic archer. ¡®Now this is going to be a pain.¡¯ ¨C he thought as he recalled that she can¡¯t be sneaked up on. She always knows where and when he will sneak up on her, on the other hand he has already killed her many times before. Dodging the corpses here and there, jumping above them, he was about 5 meters away from the place where he killed the leader. ¡®Now, duck and slide to the house.¡¯ ¨C he thought. The moment he ducked a golden arrow passed his head. He skidded to the nearest cover, a house near which he killed the swordsman. Without hesitation, he took off her helmet and grabbed her knife that she kindly strapped just below her chest, placing it at his back between the belt and trousers. The sharp edge felt ominous when pressed against his butt. He recalled falling on his bottom with it strapped and the memory almost brought tears to his eyes. ¡®4 seconds¡­ now!¡¯ ¨C he dashed into the smoke, dodging another golden arrow, which pierced his cover and several houses behind it. He knew she can make those golden arrows only once each 4 seconds. He can reach her in 3 seconds, but it doesn¡¯t mean she can¡¯t shoot normal arrows. She can still chant for the golden arrow while shooting other ones. She had a variety of other spells at her disposal too, they would take longer to chant for her and she was aware of it. He knew her timing well enough, but his body wasn¡¯t that ¡®enough¡¯ to dodge the arrows while running. That¡¯s where the helmet came in. ¡®Now¡¯ ¨C he thought as the moment later the helmet deflected an arrow. The force behind it was really strong, making the helmet injure Kai¡¯s palm and dropping the helmet. He didn¡¯t care, he was already out of the smoke and the helmet was expendable. He grabbed the axe in two and then threw it in the direction of the lady with ashen hair and the bow. She dodged it effortlessly, but Kai was already within the reach with the dagger prepared in his hand. She dodged it too. Kai, baffled, threw the dagger at her. She dodged it again, side stepping back. Kai cursed inside, blaming his physique. If only a moment faster, here and there. ¡®So it¡¯s going to be one of those, huh.¡¯ ¨C he thought as he saw her materialising the golden arrow. You can dodge arrows like these, but not at the distance of three steps with this body or sanity. ¡°So young¡­¡± ¨C the woman said looking at the beast of a boy. To her he seemed no more than 14 summers of old, not to mention a little chubby. Kai smiled. ¡®She¡¯ll aim for the head.¡¯ ¨C if she didn¡¯t say anything, she¡¯d aim for his body, rather center of it severing all the chances of him dodging it and that would mean death. ¡®Look at her eyes.¡¯ ¨C he stared at them black as the night, total opposite to her ashen hair. A change so indistinct in her eyes, a change of an emotion, a flicker of a light, you call it anything, but he knew that she will shoot a fraction of a moment later. His body started moving to the side, twisting the ankle, straining it in an effort to attempt arrow-dodging. And it was successful. Semi. The arrow pierced his ear the juncture of a second after his ankle made strange unnatural sound. He winced, but started running towards her despite the pain and the unsteady foot. She cocked another arrow, the moment he moved. He saw this happening, but continued running. And then an idea came to his mind. A really dumb one. An idea which generally makes people tell you ¡®go jump off the building¡¯ kind of advices. He¡¯ll try to flick her arrow off with his hand. That¡¯s it, a real simple plan. He hasn¡¯t tried anything of the sort before, but once the thought appeared in his mind, it fascinated him like a child, making his entire rationality jump out the window. Other options were a very drawn out and painful fight with a magic archer which wit his broken ankle would mean nothing but death, so being like an action hero for once seemed a better option for him either way. Besides even if he dies he can still redo it. Messing around isn¡¯t bad every now and again, unless you die that is, but he was kind of missing this point by now. Two steps away from her. The moment before her hand moved, his started its motion. When the arrow started to move, his was already half-way to flick it off, the rest of his body was in a dramatic pose as if a falcon punch was about to emerge. *pierce* He screwed up. It could be fair to say that the arrow in this instance was the reality. And it hit him pretty goddamn hard. With blood appearing, so did his regret. To him, now flicking arrows with bare hands didn¡¯t seem like a great idea or that appealing at all. He didn¡¯t flick it. It was kind of sticking out of his hand there, bleeding ¡­sort of. Still it was only half a fail, a real one would be stopping the arrow with his throat or his face. One step away from her. Her expression changed. Before she seemed impressed rather than anything, which was surprising considering he cut down all of her team. Grief, rage, despair these things would be normally expected, but nope she seemed dazzled by the outcome if not a little impressed. ¡®Seemed¡¯, implying past tense, now she was in panic. He growled at the pain rather than winced or moaned, it made him feel a bit like a hardass but it helped the pain to flow close with rage rather than fear. Adrenaline works both ways it only depends how you look at it. Plus he was raging at the fact that he himself in his bright mind came up with this dumb idea. The more merrier. He grabbed the fletching of the only weapon that he now had, which gave him a bit more additional ¡®anger¡¯ and rushed her, jumping, which his ankle responded to with a loving crackle. He aimed the arrowhead in her throat, giving the blow more force with his jump and the thrust that he gave to the fledging helped it too no less. Droplets of fresh blood mixed with her saliva fell on his face. She is a dead man either way you look at it. Blinded by rage, taken in by the moment or twisted by regret, something inside Kai exploded, catalysing his emotions, amplifying his hollow wraith, throwing him into havoc, making him go berserk. With roar he pulled out the arrow from her throat and then stabbed it again. And again. And again. And again. Half-process the arrowhead broke off but he didn¡¯t stop. When he snapped out of it, his hands were submerged into a gory mess of what must¡¯ve been the neck. He cringed looking at the work he¡¯s done. Body and head separated from each other, as if a vandal used chisel to destroy the statue or monument defiling it further with every hit of his unsteady hands. This made him feel a little guilty, he went havoc, was savage and an asshole in general and etc. Still he figured she was pretty dead halfway through it, and it was a case of self-defence too (kind of). As adrenaline was passing away, the pain was replacing it, washing away the guilt that was about to be discarded regardless. He raised his hands out of the bloody slime to see how reckless of a berserker he is. And he was pretty reckless, he was a berserker after all. His hands sore with splinters and pieces of wood sticking out of his fingers and the back of his hand, some were even in his wrists, were unable to grapple or move fingers at all. He sighed. The colour of them was discouraging no less as the injures on them, deep red, and what was even more discouraging was the fact that some little pieces of her throat were sticking out of the tip of some larger splinters. He sighed. Again. He would¡¯ve even facepalmed this time if not for the fact that his hands were a bloody mess of sharp splinters. With many sighing and groaning (yes), he removed all of the splinters from his hands, brushed them on the corpse¡¯s leather jerkin, somewhat cleaning it and stood up, attempting to wipe the sweat and blood off his face, but fell plummeting his face down in the dirt. ¡°Right, the ankle.¡± ¨C he said depreciatingly. Once all fixed up and set, with an ¡®ouch¡¯ he stood up again, somewhat grinning, and wiped sweat and blood of his face, the way a farmer does after a long day on the rice fields. ¡°Alas, the long 5¡­ 10 minutes elapsed.¡± ¨C he looked, smiling at the sky, aware of his overdramatic statement and pose. The hole in his hand from the arrow almost healed, but now replaced by many tiny gaps from the arrow¡¯s children. He grinned again as he walked, limping to the side, recalling the feeling and the anxiety of battling all the shitty bosses that he had to deal with in [insert random hard game] before he was transported here. Fixing his black hair, a smiling youth with brown eyes, didn¡¯t seem like someone capable to dispatch an entire squad of elite bandits, rather he seemed like a happy boy whom just entered his teens. Well he was still a teenager but about 17 years old or so he thought, the longest he lived was 3 months after all. After 3 months elapsing, he generally would get killed or die from some kind of disease, right now it was his bottleneck of a sort. Right this moment, but he already had a solution to it planned out. He found something akin to a dungeon, a labyrinth with floors going down to the depths of the world.Kai figured it was something game-like, like a 5 floors-boss kind of scenario, he did had to verse the creature after 5 floors of restless killing. So going by that logic, he figured if he completes it he¡¯d be able to get some special item or skill or learn magic or something. And so he set off onto collecting ¡®his¡¯ trusty gear for his future expedition. He had choices not to go in the dungeon, but that would mean him joining in the war, or an insurrection, which he would either survive and then die from some kind of disease, which every soldier on the battlefield would get infected with and die in next 2 weeks from ribs rotting off and falling onto lungs or just die from being impaled with a spear. In reality he had a lot of choices but sadly most of them if not all were of his death. Chapter 5 - The Entrance Didn''t know how to write flashbacks. I hope makes sense. If any mistakes, pls point out. Either way enjoy it! _________________ (*3 years ago*) The surge of men of different ages with different shapes and sizes hit another current of human flesh ultimately equal in its baseness to each other. And he was in the middle of it all. Unable to walk back, pushed by the crowd forward, he was about to experience his first battlefield. He read in some book that the first battle is akin to a rite of passage, if he survives this one he will return a ¡®better man¡¯. He wasn¡¯t sure what kind of a better man the book meant, he read it a long time ago and couldn¡¯t remember half of it, except that it was a tragedy. With a spear in his hands, dressed in peasant rags and a leather helmet on his head, courtesy of one of the veteran soldiers, he was desperate to find energy to push forward. Surrounded by roaring and war cries his own quiet moping was silenced by the noises of excited men. He knew some of those men. He knew them to be kind. Here, intoxicated by calls of battle, they seemed like a blood-starving beasts ready at any moment to taste the blood of their foes. Spells and arrows flying above their heads, sounds of metal clashing with each other and a transparent watchword spoken within all warriors there, language of savagery and murder, resonating within each and every participant; and blood¡­ falling everywhere, flowing through the mud in small sick streams, raining down with a storm of projectiles on their heads. As they clashed the formation didn¡¯t falter. The men that fell were replaced by another batch that continued their fighting on the land littered with their brethren¡¯s corpses. Eventually it was Kai¡¯s turn. He gazed in fear at his meant-to-be adversary, whom just cut down Uncle Rohg in the front. Uncle Rohg liked to tell jokes to Kai and always shared a meal with him after a long day of work in the field. He had a wife and two daughters, the family that always greeted him warmly and always let him stay in their house whenever the night was too cold or it was raining or if he simply asked it. He was the closest in this world to what Kai could¡¯ve called a friend. And now he was dead. The thought of him disappearing from this world, his wife and family grieving¡­ didn¡¯t bring Kai any anger. Instead it brought him more fear, made his legs a touch more unsteady and his hands shake just a bit more. He tried to step back in thought of fleeing from this hell but in return was pushed back in the front, towards a man soaked in Uncle Rohg¡¯s blood. Unsteady from the push and even more unsteady from his shaking legs, he stretched his spear forward, unintentionally, in an attempt not to fall on his face. And he didn¡¯t. The spear didn¡¯t let him fall, but his body still fell to its knees. A trickle of warm red appeared on the spear staining Kai¡¯s hands and mud. Conscious of it he let it go and stood up stepping back. Strangely there was no one to push him forward. He turned around, the men behind him, expressions full of fear, were stepping back some turning around in a dash. He looked back in the front the corpse has fallen and he saw a person dressed all in colour which seemed to be both blue and purple at the same time, indigo, only to be struck by the white light. His body flung in the air, leaving a trail of blood behind, hitting a crowd of men, each collision supported by a crack of his bones. When he landed, he was still conscious, staring at the same dull grey sky he always looked at. It was always like this in Semeria if not all of Roan. Only sometime the tiny sun would come out of the clouds just to be covered by a giant shade of the moon. His vision started to get blurry, conscience drifting; he didn¡¯t feel any pain, just ease and a strange sadness. The sky was covered in darkness and then his vision was cut off. ______________________ (*back to now*) He looked at the hole in the ground at his feet. Down there the light was illuminating the pale stone, surrounded by the dark. By experience he knew it to be deep, very deep. He wasn¡¯t one of those people that upon discovering a gape in the earth, possibly leading to a cave, struck by awe and curiosity, would jump into the unknown. On the other hand if he found something like this, he¡¯d just walk around it, noting in his head the place to be dangerous. But he fell in it anyway. For some god-forsaken unknown reason he decided to march further west (at least that¡¯s what his compass said) to the Iron Forest. From here it¡¯s a 3 days walk and on the second night he got introduced to the inhabitants of that peculiar land. Biting at his ankles they chased him all day without rest. They looked like those creepy monkey plushies that some kids used to carry around in his previous world, except they had a huge razor blade claw sticking out from their limbs; were missing a jaw, in place of which were tentacles and had 3-4 sets of additional eyes on their faces that were glowing in the night. Yes, a plushy from hell. He cut one of those things¡¯ head off, but despite that it still manage to break his fingers, then wrist and then arm. Eventually they stopped chasing him, but then his mind, littered with paranoia and survival instinct, was screaming to leave the forest at any cost. Thankfully by then his plans had a sudden change and for once were in line with his common sense. He was not planning to go to the Iron Forest. Ever. After vomiting profoundly at the side of the tree he restarted his dash, until he eventually fell in the hole, breaking both of his legs, his back and cracking his head in the process. Kai sighed recalling the memory. Around him a pine forest, stretching as far as the eye could see. The trees, some dull brown with ivory leaves, some cyan with yellow leaves, always intrigued him with their unique different colours, even now, despite him being here for 3 years already. The forests here always played with different colour panels, putting to shame the forests of his world with their dull brown, green, red and yellow. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! Dressed in just (mage''s) black leather jerkin,(mage''s) brown pants and (mage''s) rune scribed boots, he dropped the sacks he was carrying on the ground and fixed his hair. He didn¡¯t bother with the armour or weapons; they were packed in the luggage. He wouldn¡¯t need it either way, at least yet. He looked down at the gap by his feet. Recalling his misfortunate fall and other restarts where he descended down. He knew it to be no longer than 15 meters deep. He took out an improvised rope, made out of rags, from one of his bags, tied it around the tree, thrice which was a must, threw his entire luggage which wouldn¡¯t brake in the hole and descended down through the aperture. He recalled the times he tied it once and fell down after 5 or 6 steps down. On twice and dropping the luggage then following down the rope usually worked, except all the glass generally broke, water, wine, poultices with healing liquid and other potions and poisons. With his luggage (which at the start was just one bag) - 15-17 steps and then bam, broken back and broken poultices. The last one breaking generally meant contaminating the whole bag, making food inedible and depending on the poison could melt the bag and the items in it. This time he had three bags tightly packed with items. One full of potions poisons and drinks, other was foods such as dried meat, cheese and bread, which would last for a couple of weeks and third was clothing, weapons, sleeping bag and other equipment like map of the region, flint and steel and some wood. In the small bag attached to his belt he was also carrying a small glass ball, which he found on the mage. There wasn¡¯t much use to it, but Kai decided to keep it, for no reason particular. He liked looking at it before going to bed in the dungeon. On the first 3 floors there were no trees or any vegetation whatsoever, unsurprising considering it was a brick labyrinth, the fourth floor unlike the previous ones was surprising. A sprawling rainforest with all kinds of creatures you won¡¯t see outside and a blue glowing sun attached to the ceiling full of small fissures glowing in shaded gold, like a chandelier. His feet touched the smooth rock of the cavern. Without much delay, he picked up his bags and proceeded further in the darkness. He didn¡¯t bother with the rope. He wouldn¡¯t have any use for it in the dungeon either way. Walking through the dark in the cavern wasn¡¯t much of an issue for Kai. On his second expedition to the dungeon, he decided to map out all the known patterns and pathways to help memorizing them better. On the third he did the same. After that he couldn¡¯t be bothered anymore, it took way too much time and always knocked off his focus. Seeing a new pathway or a trap his mind was constantly reminding him to put it on the parchment, rather than prioritizing what could come next. He could hear a soft rustle of batwings as he was walking, the sound of the only inhabitants of this cave. Slowly walking, he was enjoying the cold and humid air. It was not putrid, by no means, which was surprising, considering the colony of bats above his head. The only reason he was walking in complete darkness, was only because he simply could. He felt cool and good about himself, implying that he achieved at least something after wasting so much time on this dungeon. A minute or two passed, until he reached the gap in the rock, a small rupture, leading to an obsidian door. He passed through it, put his bags down and took out a small leather pouch from his waist bag. It was made out of thick leather, easily capable to conceal any light from leaking outside. He opened it and his surroundings were filled with green glow, letting some of it escape through the rapture, making the rustle of batwings a tiny bit louder. He placed the pouch in the corner of room, then turned around and faced the wall beside the door. It wasn¡¯t long till he found the button on the granite wall. Something clicked and then Kai¡¯s ears were smashed by loud sound of metal hitting on metal, scaring the bats outside. Now it was time to push the door. At first it didn¡¯t even budge, feigning ignorance to his presence, but Kai remained obstinate and eventually, with a scrape, it opened, leaving a trace on the granite floor. He picked up his items and proceeded further. The first floor was just a classic labyrinth. No monsters or traps. Turn here, turn there, walk straight, turn and etc. It was rather simplistic and easy concept. There was one problem. To pass this floor you have to at least spend a full week walking and that¡¯s disregarding sleep. Everyday walking through a labyrinth can grow onto you, draining your sanity and patience, especially if you don¡¯t know where you¡¯re going. He already died just on this floor 6-8 times. To be fair most of the supplies he actually needed were for this floor. He could easily live off the monster meat, though it was burning his insides every time he was eating it. The burning would generally leave him after an hour of constant pain, thanks to his healing factor. The labyrinth itself had a glowing ceiling, illuminating the pathway. Every five meters the ceiling would go down, closing off the path back. Looking at the long corridor in front of him, he sighed. He would have to do this again. Before he already braced himself for this, but standing here, right at the start of the labyrinth, recalling the painful memories, he started to have a headache. Cringing he started to slowly walk, then he increased his pace till he was almost running. Walking right then straight, then to the left, then left again, then straight, then left, then right, straight, left, left, right¡­ He couldn¡¯t care about the path closing off behind him; he knew where he was going and that was enough to keep him going. He ran out of breath a minute later. Choking on his lungs, regretting his hot-headed impulse, he staggered further into the depths, towards the heart of the labyrinth. Chapter 6 - Distance Well here it is... Hope you''ll enjoy it. The original plan was to pace it up by the 7th of 8th chapter but i think it''ll take a ''little'' more. The first arc is essentially introduction. Essentially. Still plot but... I don''t even. ________________ The room was dimly lit, with light changing its shape as the little flame danced behind the glass of the oil lamp. Outside of the window, night sky, clouds covering the stars and only lonely moon, unbound by the clouds, illuminated the never-sleeping city, almost reaching the horizon by its colossal frame. Soon, just a month or two and the moon will come so close to the land that it will seem as big as the world itself. Some said that there is a place where there is no night but only dusk, sunrise and a blue day, the Twilight Kingdom. Placed in the center of the world, surrounded by the mountains, built on the mountains, it had a majestic castle, the tallest castle in the world created by the best artisans from ivory, moonstone and sapphire, erected in the heart of the kingdom, the Night City. People said the castle¡¯s highest tower, made out of sapphire with elder magic, transparent as the glass, turned dull dusk rays, into the bright blue light, casting twilight day everywhere it fell. Twice each year, when the moon is the closest to the land, it reaches the tip of The Blue Castle, touching it barely, forcing the old elder magics to once more reawaken, creating, giving birth to a small blue sun, under moon¡¯s gentle glow, colouring her in blue, sending the twilight glow across the whole world. She was looking forward to see it. Looking back at the drawing of the rune, she sighed. It was another failure of a crappy drawing. She looked at the book, staring at the imprinted symbol, with measures of sizes, properties and etc., then dropped her eyes at the table, at the parchment with her... ¡®mess¡¯. Drawing never was her thing. She didn¡¯t like the activity and the activity didn¡¯t like her. Mutual hate, mutual war. She just never could draw that one line without screwing up and that always frustrated her, making each her ¡®masterpiece¡¯ go in the bin, torn to pieces on the way. She could¡¯ve easily done it, probably if they knew here a concept of a ruler, or at least gave her a pencil or something and not this damn brush, with an ink cursed to spill of its edge ALL THE FREAKING TIME. Even though she was calling it a drawing, in reality it was closer to calligraphy rather than anything, but she was too angry to acknowledge this point by now. She grabbed the paper and violently torn it to shreds with visible bloodlust glowing in her eyes. Once the paper was dead, she took a deep breath and grabbed another clean sheet. She glared at it for ten seconds or so, then glared at the brush, the runework set inside it really pissed her off, it felt somehow wrong. Despite that she still grabbed it and dipped it in the ink. She took a deep breath before she lifted the brush out of ink, and then quickly holding her breath moved to the parchment, carefully placing the bristles on the paper. With a focus of a gem cutter, she moved her hand, slightly,slightly to the side. Success the first line is done. Just 12 more¡­ And then her hand, entrapped in invisible threads, twitched. Some bristles escaping the pressure, moved to the side, sending the accursed droplets of ink in the air, colouring the paper with lovely black fireworks. She looked at the horror, gaze cold as the stone. She stared at it, stared at it as if her gaze would burn a hole through the paper. A droplet fell from her paintbrush, adding another pretty firework to the inverted night sky. She glared at the paintbrush, the hateful creation, the monstrosity¡­ She took a deep breath, placed the paintbrush in its brush stand and moved her hand through the hair, letting the fingers feel the touch of her golden locks and then smirked. ¡°¡¯Transcribe the rune on the paper and enchant it. The paper will become as solid as rock. It¡¯s easy!¡¯ Easy. Easy. Oh, very easy. So very easy ¡­- she spoke in calm tone, recalling Mistress¡¯ Varghnsslffpft- whatever expression as she set up the assignment. And being the na?ve herself she actually believed it. ¡°Easy, truly easy¡­ EASY MY ASS! Look at this shit! Is this what you call easy??! What the hell do you fu¡­¡± ¨C Allana couldn¡¯t contain her inner hysteria and rage, exploding in a violent storm of ranting and self-pity. Good thing or not, her only audience was herself. But a good thing for sure was the wards set on each of the rooms not letting any sounds escape or enter the room, else there would be people storming her room this moment. She spent whole 2 hours, 2 HOURS on this. It was the only homework left to do, the only damn assignment which was (surprise, surprise) due tomorrow. She decimated the paper to pieces with a violent roar, adding another cluster of torn paper, to the floor made from brown bark, littered with white, creating a small snowy mountain around her chair. She took out another piece of paper and then looked at the brush. It was the brush given by the teacher, the only thing that is able to dip in this special ink that the Mistress also provided. Allana knew that there something wrong with the brush, she could sense the faint threads caressing her hand whenever she touched it. She could try to disenchant the wrongness out of it, but was too afraid to break the actual enchantment¡­ or the brush itself. She wielded weaving with raw power rather than finesse, after all. Where she lacked skill, she simply complimented with her tremendous strength, though she was careful about it, not revealing too much of it. But right then she was just about to give up this principle. ¡°Screw this.¡± ¨C she whispered, stretching her hand towards solidified ink, frozen blackness in the transparent crystal vial, feeling the eerie power coming from it. At first the ink didn¡¯t budge, but then Allana closed her eyes and imagined a lake, as she always did whenever she wanted to invoke more of the power. A wide lake, as wide as the world, as clear as ¡®now¡¯, as bottomless as time, flowing into the rivers leading somewhere far away, far into places shrouded by the dark of aberrance and inconsistence. A massive tree the size of the lake, yet unlike it afraid of the dark, with its silver leaves bathed in mercy of grey light, the domain of logic and existence. A dark blur in the light, the scribble of a human shape on a white sheet of paper, standing there gazing at the tree and the lake with its eyeless enshrouded face that didn¡¯t seem to be a face, for the dark was its eyes. It reached its fogged limb, what supposed to be a hand attempting to grasp the platinum bark. The dark passed the trunk as the tree was not there, but an illusion of its presence, yet it was there as sky exists as the moon floats in the night. The shade pulled back, turning its gaze for the lake, walking towards it, entering it¡­ The ink budged, the droplets of it slowly floating out of the vial, connecting with each, forming a symbol, a perfect copy of a rune from the book. Allana pictured a command, a thought instructing the floating ink to imprint itself on the parchment, and then started to weave smaller ideas around, thoughts regarding the weight, mass, forces applied on it, forces needed to be applied on it. Just a second ago, she had no idea about all of this, but once her mind connected to the threads, to the entanglement of webs, all this knowledge flooded her, clearing her mind of everything else. Ink slowly descended on the paper, first barely touching it then etching itself on stark sheet, sacrificing all of its self to create the symbol. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. As she let go of her power, a sharp headache invaded her, increasing in its severity by each passing moment. Her ears started ringing and eyes water. She always experienced this pain whenever she wanted to invoke the weaving stronger than her mind could deal with, though she lied to everyone calling it the usual headaches. Principal even made an attempt to ¡®heal¡¯ her but eventually reluctantly settled for ¡®an otherworldly incurable condition¡¯. No one knew the real truth, but he despite his words still seemed suspicious. At times she passed out, which generally caused an uproar, but with time everything becomes mundane, even someone on the floor having a fit. The longer she stayed at this place, the better she understood how it works. Principal said that this is a den of snakes and he was right, except he forgot to mention, the biggest one and the most poisonous was no one but himself. Succeeding the institution at the young age of 50, seeking to find new potential to strengthen Amrolk¡¯s forces against warring clans of Hjaalmar, Mridrazl Foregvenn was a master strategist and legendary war-mage known for his formidable iron manipulating skills. The previous principals Joran The Lake, Vhsheil The Tree, Forgnren The Owl,( and so on, the number exceeds that of a thousand with some even being still alive), for ten generations remained devoted to science and research of magic, where him Mridrazl The Hawk was obviously of the other kind, the warring, the ambitious kind. Named such by the Oracle, he was destined to soar through the battlefields on winds of carnage, until his wings soaked with blood will rust away and he will disappear in the large shadow he himself would create. It was only by chance she found out the principal¡¯s true side, a simple chance, and even by the magic she wasn¡¯t even aware she invoked. It happened during the usual ¡®shielding¡¯ classes that she and Warax attended. Warax was one of her closest friends in these 3 months she spent in Amrolk. They attended similar classes and she was fun to hang out with, if not a little too up about herself but nobody is expected to be perfect. She was only 20, older than Allana just by 3 years, had strangely coloured green hair, which looked almost real, despite them being utterly ridiculous, brown eyes and fair skin. She wasn¡¯t far off on the beauty list from Allana either, making Warax slightly better looking but still average. Ironically, she was also the person Allana flung in the air when she was pissed off. Warax was the one throwing those spiteful filthy words at her and she was about to punch her anyway, so the effect was desirable. Than Warax apologized and helped out Allana with lessons and learning Ersille, which is just slightly different from the Common Tongue. Naturally, Allana still didn¡¯t trust her, but that still didn¡¯t stop her from becoming friends with Warax. The teacher told them to practice the ward ¡®wall¡¯ - 4 weaved circles, with 5 triangles in each circle and 8 cubes in each triangle. It was one of the easiest shielding wards out there, protecting their minds from dream-wraiths, thought-thieves, dieyelales, taintlings, blotreks and many more at least before they actually will start trying to invade your mind. Allana, as usual was done within minutes of the start of the class, and found her attention wondering from the transparent glass ball, dimly glowing in red due to her ward, to Warax at the side meditating, weaving the symbol in the air with her mind, setting up the invisible wall. Allana closing her eyes, in obvious boredom, imagined herself slowly leaving, passing through her own flesh, up, to float in the air. She viewed the whole class, people and desks blurred in shade, like in an eerie dream, limited by imagination, the instability of her thought. She focused and pictured Warax right beside her but then she was there. She floated towards her, easily passing through the golden halo around her, touching her. Images, sounds, feelings, blurs, tastes, smells, pain, all of these flowed into Alanna¡¯s mind, like a crushing torrent of water, first smashing the mind then drowning it in itself. From the first memory of seeing her mother, to the first kiss, to the time she first hurt herself, to the first time she failed, to the first disappointment, to the first success, to dull school days filled with nothing but hard work and constant homework¡­ till the moment she attempted the shielding of the ¡®wall¡¯ and right afterwards seeing the blinding red sun. Thoughts jumbled between, and with, each of themselves, her memories intertwined with that of not her own, creating mindlessness in which she submerged, forcing her to simply stare at Warax, but not really look at her, looking through her, until the moment later her eyes rolled back and Alanna fell on the floor, blacking out. With the mind resting, the memories organized themselves in the subconscious; possibly thrown there by the powers she herself wasn¡¯t fully aware of. Once she was awake, memories dulled by means unknown to seem rather like a movie flashed before her, showing the ploys principal set up against her, the truths hidden from her. The principal told Warax to abuse her, enforced it in her mind, forcing to hate Allana, to truly despise her, storing the charm and memories of the meeting deep down to the depths of her mind. When it played its trick, he erased the mark, placing another one, tempering with her emotions and recording everything she sees, making her feel guilty towards Alanna, encouraging her to become friends with her. She looked back at the paper, her ears still ringing, a black rune on stark white. Despite the headache she invoked the power, weaving patterns of thousands and thousands of different shapes from circles to octagons, moulding each around the symbol of paper. When she was done, the paper looked exactly the same as it looked before, but only looked. Those with even a trickle of the power would¡¯ve felt that the threads flowed strong through it, weaved itself around it, covering the sheet of paper from anything beyond them, protecting. ¡°Finally¡­¡± ¨C she muttered. Rubbing her eyes, she turned off the lamp, stood up, walked step or two away from the desk and then fell¡­ on her bed, yawning. Tomorrow, same routine as today - healing, runecrafting, shielding and combat classes, calligraphy, element research, biology and biological implementation of weaving, actual weaving with needle and thread. The last was compulsory for all students regardless of the gender. Alanna covered herself in sheets, she was already in her night gown and had a shower right before the homework. She closed her eyes and drifted far far away, to the otherworldly realm of dreams and memories. She saw her mother, her sister, her father, friends, boyfriend, everyone that she held dear to her heart. It was almost reticent in the room, silence exalting the subtle beauty and tranquil majesty of the great pale she-orb and only a quiet, almost silent, whimper could be heard in her room.
Ah yes, forgot one thing. The cover page for this FF is actually moon and sun cycle with moon in the center and sun going in the circle around it. Everything else will be unfolded gradually/eventually. Cheers! Chapter 7 - Bindings Hey, it''s been a week and chapter 1 wasn''t edited yet ! Aaaaah... I know... I''m sorry... lalala... Btw i started to have a habit giving chapters weird names... Anyway a lot less darker in this chapter and i even tried to be funny in this one part...''What a joke!'' i know......... Aaaanyway enjoy this chapter and pls point out any spelling mistakes and/or missign words. Thanks!.... And yes one more thing in this chapter there is A LOT OF SWEAR WORDS, like A LOT. i warned you, you know.... ___________________ He was lying on his back, staring at the same grey sky. It¡¯s been grey like this for the past 3 weeks he was here, cycling the dullness with even darker clouds, bringing stronger storms and hail. This time it was light grey, maybe some sun will even pop out in the next couple of days. The thought brought him a smile. He noticed a flock of birds moving in similar direction as he was. Looking closer he noticed that the birds looked different; the wings felt a little off. Then he noticed one of the ¡®birds¡¯ dropping a projectile, his reflexes forcing him to move away from the dead zone closer to the goat and the products. There wasn¡¯t much of the former in the cart so there was plenty of room to make himself comfortable. ¡°Fecking ¡®yrms. Fecking shittin¡¯ erywhere.¡± ¨C he heard a gruff voice of a peddler behind his back. ¡°Mweeeeeeeeh¡± ¨C the goat replied, to its owner¡¯s sorrowful words. Nick tried hard not to laugh at this exchange, feeling just a little bit bad about himself. He turned around to see what Rom was up to. Unsurprisingly, he was covering his face with his cape, trying to hide his smile. His body was also tensing, it was so obvious he was about to crack up. Nick quickly turned back and covered his mouth, attempting to supress his laugh but ultimately failing. Rom heard him and couldn¡¯t resist the urge either. Peddler looked at both of them with a betrayed look, sighed and muttered something, while wiping away the shrapnel from the projectile away from his shirt. ¡°Mweeeeeeh¡± ¨C the goat tried to encourage its master in these hard times. A minute later when both of them calmed down, the road returned to its previous state of monotone clatter of hooves, hitting the ground on the silent road, surrounded by the silent plains inhabited by no one but the occasional farm, crows and ravens and other peddlers, some riding the same way as themselves or some the opposite and all of them seeming far better and well off then theirs Marren. Nick looked at the sky, the direction where the strange birds flew away, now only black dots, disappearing into infinite grey, changing their tones to grey as each second flew by. ¡°Rom, what were those things?¡± ¨C he asked, his gaze staring at the grey mass, further up just above the horizon, where the black dots have just disappeared. ¡°Wyrms, lesser dragon-kin. Sort of like a Chihuahua compared to Brehmrir.¡± ¨C answered Rom, noticing Nick¡¯s confused look. ¡°Chihuahua is like a sma¡­¡± ¡°I know what a Chihuahua is, thanks. Breh-mrir on the other hand I don¡¯t know. What is it ?¡± ¨Cinterrupted Nick, maybe, just maybe, with a little bit of a sarcasm in his voice. ¡°Hoh, Sire Mills, in Hjaalmar, ye not has these fe¡­ bloody creatures?¡± ¨C The answer Nick received was a question and from a peddler. ¡°Yes, I would imagine that they would at least give a rule book with monsters to young adventurers, in Hjaalmar? Or those adventurers would at least bother to just skim through them before asking stupid questions, don¡¯t you think so Nick?¡± ¨C Rom added nonchalantly, a payback for Nick¡¯s sarcasm. ¡°Hmmmmmmmmmmmm¡­¡± ¨C the peddler turned back to the road, trying to be as quiet as possible, attempting to shrink away so they won¡¯t drag him into their scuffle. ¡°Mweeeeeeeeeeh¡± ¨C goat proclaimed, soothingly. Marren knew that letting these two scvoia for a ride would be a mistake. In town they were known to fight verbally with each other all the time, but despite that seemed to be good lads. He knew Rom, personally, an acquaintance rather than a friend though. In reality what actually made Marren to consider, is that they were also feared in that same town. What was scary about them is that they were known to kill many high-grade tainted, which is already a feat that can only be done by a handful here in Kairin and maybe a hundred across the whole of Roan. What made them especially scary is the fact that some of the tainted that they fought were so utterly destroyed that only a stain or distorted mess of gore would be left from them. Nick Mills of Hjaalmar, a newcomer, a young stovmann just 20 years of age but already a master-scvoia and rank 3 adventurer in Roan in just 3 weeks. Then there is Rom Lisdeth a renowned master-scvoia known in each part of Roan both by commonfolk, nobles and fellow scvoia/adventurers, killer of many tainted and saviour of many towns, wielding the card of rank 1 adventurer. From one hand good protection for free, on the other giving a ride to two monster-killers, whom are monsters themselves. ¡°Ignorance is bliss. But not for a fucking mentor, Rom. You¡¯re full of shit. But you¡¯re also right I do have the book. So I apologize, for asking you a question you can¡¯t answer. Though, I must give it to you, the evasion of my question was almost perfect, almost. So much for being a mentor, huh?¡± ¨C replied Nick, first with visible anger but then with a mocking smile at the end. Seeing Rom¡¯s expression his smile grew even bigger. ¡°Hm. Marren! You were wondering if I had any wyrms in my homeland? Well, we don¡¯t have wyrms, nor do we have any¡­ um, how was it?...oh,yes¡­ Bremrer.¡± ¨C Nick said as Rom was about to open his mouth. ¡°T-thank yeh, sire¡­¡± ¨C Marren sheepishly replied, he wanted to disappear. ¡°Hahahahaha¡­Ho. It¡¯s Brehmrir, you lightweight shit.¡± ¨C Rom said with a hearty smile. ¡°Pft. Fancy hearing it from you, Mr. ¡°Uuuuugh, I¡¯ve had enough I¡¯m tired. I¡¯ll go to bed¡±, right after finishing one pint of honey-beer. Lightweight? Open your damn eyes, oldman!¡± ¨C Nick replied, smile radiating brighter than the sky and his voice imitation skills lacking everything they could possibly lack. ¡°Hah! Whom did I drag out of the tavern, just yesterday? You can¡¯t handle your shit, you lightweight alcohol-obsessed fuck!¡± ¨C Rom countered, with a smile and a twitch in his brows. ¡°Mweeeh¡± ¨C the goat added, trying to calm these two children down. ¡°Ye¡¯, mah dea¡¯. I ¡®no. This¡¯ll be a lon¡¯ trip.¡± ¨C whispered the peddler, while rubbing his ear. He was not looking forward to the next 4 days. ___________________________ He was staring at the flame, shaking. Flickering quietly in the dark, placing the dark shade of sacks, not-so-full anymore, on one wall and himself on the one he was leaning on, it created the orange outline of their shapes, a thing that will last only a night¡­ or a day, or half-day, maybe half a night or perhaps a little of a day and a little of a night. He already spent 5 days here and his sense of time grew distorted. This coupled with enormous headache, he was experiencing every day, made his progress relatively slow, particularly in the last couple of days¡­ if it were days. He glanced at the wall, just barely touched by the light. He came from there, if this is the wrong route¡­ Chills came down his spine, he wasn¡¯t sure it was the cold or the fear. He sneezed, giving the wall one last look. He sighed, glancing back at the fire. The place was cold, so cold even the fire could only warm him a little, even though he was right in front of it. With each exhale, steam was coming out of his mouth and each time he was taking a breath his nose, chilled by frost, tingled in a strange charming half-pain, relieving him of a headache, just to bring it back the second later. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Covered by many layers of clothing, which he didn¡¯t disregard to wash, he looked to the other wall, unbound by light, shrouded in the dark. It was both befitting as well as it wasn¡¯t. Dark=the unknown, but he knew where it would lead. To the other choice. This labyrinth is all about those choices. ¡®The chances to take, the choices to make¡¯. Each turn you have two choices, either left or right, right or straight and left or straight. Kai knew there were more choices, he knew there even more that didn¡¯t even know could be his choices, but giving up and dying was not a choice he would take, ever. This labyrinth, the first time he entered it, he completed it within 4 days, simply walking without thinking, turning where it would be stupid to turn and walked straight where the wise would take turns. The second he did the same¡­ and was lost and died from starvation. The next times he mapped it out, sometimes dying and sometimes passing to the next floors. He shivered, looking back at the flame, flickering in this windless harmony of stone, dancing the dance only fire can perform, possibly calling forth to gods known only to it alone and places unfathomed by the human mind in the tongue of fire or telling us what is, might be and could be, with their mysterious shapes trying to word letters, or weave a picture with their threadlike blazes of different feelings some distant as if not his own, but some so very close and familiar, he knew them if not every day. They mixed in the fire, with each move of their dance producing silent cacophony of madness, hate and love become one, justice and corruption morphing together in a twisted creation, kindness and animosity, hope and doubt mixing with each other like a pallet of different colours creating an ugly mess, or at least supposed to. The flame weaved an image, and that image was weaved into a larger picture, a picture of a firestorm ever-creating destruction and seeding creation on the deathly remains of the old. Fascinated by the fire, he didn¡¯t notice the dim blue light coming from one of the sacks, where the mysterious glass ball was lying. ___________________________________ ¡®Brehmrir [brekhm¡¯rir], a mysterious, if not mythical creatures. Little is known about them. Originated from Brehan direwolf(p.155)*, these large species are capable of unrestricted teleportation as long as the end point has enough mana to sufficiently sustain them. Brehmrir are twice the size of Brehan direwolf, making them about 5.3 meters tall, largest naturally created animal in the dog family for exception of Zakirian War-Hound (p.203). There is a theory as to how Brehmrin was originated. During the fourth era of¡­¡¯ ¡°¡­is-¡®is Sokolgrad, mommy?¡± ¨C Nick heard a child¡¯s voice, he looked up to see a line of men and women, young and old, stretching in about 100 meters across the bridge from a large gate, decorated with many strange writings, the so-called ¡®protective runes¡¯ and a statue of the falcon at the top of the gate. The wall was about 50 or so meters long, with defence towers located on each side, he saw three but was sure there was a lot more. Under the bridge you could see a wide river, down below about 10 seconds of falling. Rom wanted to meet a friend of his here, before setting off to the Broken Land. ¡®The Broken Land.¡¯ ¨C Nick thought of the words Rom told him. The place where they need to find a certain something as a price to pay to the fairy for healing Nick 2 weeks ago or supposed to pay. He sighed, stretching on the cart, slightly touching the goat. It flinched and ¡®told¡¯ Nick that he was an asshole, or so he thought it to say so. It was much more entertaining to think that the goat actually had intellect. It would make all those times it tried to interject between his and Rom¡¯s argument at least as twice as hilarious. He smirked. ¡°Rom, is there some protective ward or magic set up around the city to prevent forceful teleporting?¡± ¨C Nick asked, looking at the sky. It was grey. ¡°Hmmmm, read the fucking book¡­¡± ¨C Rom replied, falling into his usual grumpy sleepy old man mode. It was already late morning but he was there, beside Marren, hunched on the seat, hibernating and being a dick. Nick gave him a glare, but then smiled. ¡°All right, if that¡¯s how you wanna roll, I can do it the other way.¡± ¨C he said childishly, before he started singing. It was one of those annoying catchy 90¡¯s pop songs, something about a plastic doll. He was loud, really loud. And he wasn¡¯t bad, just utterly atrocious. Screwing up a note here, than making silly voices there. People started looking in their direction and children pointing towards him. Marren covered his face and regretted once again taking these people. They done shit like this every day, if not Nick, then Rom, all to just piss each other and those around them off. ¡°Ye gods, please give ¡®is man patience. Jus¡¯ a lil left.¡± ¨C he muttered under his bangs. ¡°¡­life in plastic, it¡¯s fanta¡­¡± ¡°SHUT THE FUCK UP!¡± ¨C Rom snapped, causing even guards pay attention to their small cart. ¡°Shh!¡± ¨C Marren hissed. He was on the verge. Nick, baffled a little by Rom¡¯s sudden sound attack, stood up, waved to the crowd of his ¡®fans¡¯, then to the guards, cleared his throat and then started another song same 90¡¯s and same cancerous pop, except this song was about ¡®questioning the existence of love¡¯. ¡°Baby, don¡¯t hurt meeeee..¡± ¨C it was horrible, you could hear some in the crowd yelling ¡®shut up¡¯ and some laughing. Rom was growling now, half-asleep. Nick didn¡¯t even stop when the guards were checking Marren¡¯s papers, though he toned the volume of his beautiful voice, moving closer to Rom¡¯s ear. ¡°Wha ¡®bout ¡®ese two madmen?¡± ¨C the guard said, lifting his brow and giving the look to the men beside him. They were armed relatively well and the swords looked of good quality. Pity it was nothing to Nick¡¯s ability. ¡°Ah, ¡®ey scvoia. Sir Mills and Sir Lisdeth.¡± ¨C said Marren, while Nick took out his adventurer card and reached in Rom¡¯s pocket taking out his platinum one, with a song coming from his lips of course. ¡°Oh¡­ L-Lisdeth, haha¡­ Let them through.¡± ¨C said the guard, quickly giving the paper back to Marren and stepping two steps back. ¡°Nick?¡± ¨C Marren called. Nick asked him before to just call him by name, ¡®sir Mills¡¯ here and ¡®sir Mills¡¯ there annoyed him. He felt equal to the man, so he should be spoken to like equal to him. ¡°Yea~s, Marren?¡± ¨C he stretched, yelling just a little in Rom¡¯s ear, causing the other one to pull his hands up, from his ¡®hunched position¡¯ and grab him by the hair. ¡°Can yeh please, be a lil bit quiet now ¡®at we¡¯re in city?¡± ¨C said Marren turning his head towards Nick, just to see him being pulled by the hair, to hit the board that was dividing them. Marren then sighed. ¡°Owowow, yeh sure. Ow! Fucking stop!¡± ¨C he loudly whispered to Rom. ¨C ¡°Go asleep or something!¡± ¡°Well, thanks to you, I can¡¯t now. So I¡¯m gonna pay you back for ruining it for me.¡± ¨C he said, straightening his position and turning around, his face glowing in a grin full of malice. ¡°¡­I¡¯m sorry?¡± Marren sighed. Chapter 8 - Thus Lied Zarathustra ¡°¡­And dead.¡± ¨C he proclaimed as beads of blood, flew through the air, shining red in cyan light of the underground. The rat squeaked in its last final moment, before its eye, carved out with an axe, hit the floor colouring the dark green malachite. Seeing their comrade dying, the giant rats squealed, some lunging forward towards, towards its corpse devouring it. Some of them were covered with cuts, some were missing a limb here or a limb there, some had their ears ¡®trimmed¡¯, while other¡¯s tails cut short. The axe, covered in fresh blood, danced in the air slashing and hacking away in a violent tornado of blood and steel. As the trails of blood fell on him and the blade traced with red travelled through flesh, more and more corpses fell. Spin, attack, hack off leg, hold axe in two hands, attack the head, ¡±dead¡±, dodge, spin, hack in the eyes, dodge, jump, hack again, ¡°dead¡±, sidestep, slash, twist, slash again, jump, hit, dodge, dash, hack off arm, spin, hit the face then dodge forward, hold in two hands, hack at the spine, dodge, sidestep and then sidestep, making some distance. The rat he hit in the spine started wobbling, hitting its brethren in its fit. The rats looked at their friend in silence, a moment before devouring it. Fixing his hair, he spat the monster blood, cleaning his mouth and drawing a small dagger. He was a lot more fit than he was a month ago(at least it only felt like a month) and a lot stronger too, still he favoured the rotary movements and agility over the strength. His body now was relatively toned, with muscles barely seen through skin, yet still seen. He had an idea as to why he was able to change his body this fast -the healing factor and change of foods. Back in his world he fancied to eat many things, here dried meat, bread and water, maybe some dried fruit on the side every now and again. If he marches in the labyrinth it is another story altogether. His modest rations will eventually run out and the only thing left to eat is monster meat. Highly nutritious, yet disgusting and literally painful to eat. The first time he ate it, it was goblin meat. By ¡®goblin¡¯ he meant child-alike monsters, with jet black skin, smooth faces and yellow markings on each shoulder and tail, glowing in the night leaving a trail, with long five fingers with claws on each hand, large three claws on each foot and a spike on the tail. Despite how they looked, they were actually pretty docile, slow and easy to kill. Their meat was black, which was discouraging and eating it felt like munching rubber which tastes like shit. Generally a minute later when the meat will start to properly being dissolved by the stomach, the acid or whatever the meat contains will seep out, hurting him. It¡¯s like having a heartburn, except you ¡®cough up¡¯ blood not only with your mouth but your eyes, nose and ears. Even so, human hunger can make you get pretty desperate. At first he tried munching on his own flesh¡­ which ended in an unfortunate way, so eventually he gave up. After a week of torturing his stomach it generally adapted to it siding only with a mild indigestion before disappearing a half of month later. It felt just like eating normal food. Felt. It tasted like cancer¡­ *squeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak* He wasn¡¯t waiting for rats to attack him, dashing to the first one in line and ramming the dagger in its neck. With a spin his axe flew through the air before encountering the skull of another one, easily passing it by leaving decimated flesh and pieces of grey matter covering the floor. Ripping the dagger out, he jumped aiming it at the other rat¡¯s eye. He missed, striking the rat in its skull. The blade, unable to pierce it, simply slid off, ripping the skin of the rat and ruining his balance. He lost his balance but not his composure, taking advantage of the shifted weight of his body, he twisted it, delivering a crushing blow with his axe, burying it deep inside the rat. He pulled and the rat squeaked, he thrust his dagger and another one did too. He then sidestepped again, releasing the grip on the dagger and gave in to the rhythm of the dance. When he was done he was soaked in blood, his hair mouth and ears, his clothing his axe. Around him dismembered corpses, not all, but a good amount. He walked towards one rat and pulled out a dagger out of it, then walked towards the next one pulling another dagger out of its eye. ¡°How nice¡­¡± ¨C he said as he looked at his torso and arms, checking for injuries, there were some minor scratches and bruises, but nothing that wouldn¡¯t heal within an hour or two. He felt pretty good about this; after all it was an indication of his progress. The first time he fought these giant rats he was ripped to pieces after all. ¡°Ok, now puzzles¡­¡± ¨C he said as he walked towards malachite door, ornate with ebony and gold. He didn¡¯t bother changing his clothing or washing it. After the next floor, it was a boss fight. He would be able to complete the next floor within the next 2 hours, so he¡¯ll just slap his best armour on top and roll into the boss fight, which in his state right now, with his level of skill and strength would probably mean death. He sighed¡­ He couldn¡¯t afford to submit to despondency, nor he wanted to, but he had to be realistic. He fought the thing multiple times, already, usually taking off about 5 of its heads and then dying, miserably. The creature was at least 15 meters high, had wolf heads, lizards body and 9 necks, not to mention the acid blood it has, so saying chances were slim would be an overstatement. He touched the marble wall looking for a switch, tracing a small red line from his fingers. He found a small button without much hassle, after all he already found it before more than 100 times. Without much thought to it he pressed it, flattening it into the wall, forcing it to make a ¡®click¡¯ sound. *thunk* followed it. As they always would, spears appeared, stuck in the floor, a freshly baked projectile from the ceiling. He lazily walked around them, tapping at some in a strange beat, submerged in the thoughts about next fight. The moment he will enter its domain, it will attack from the side, with one of its wolfheads. ¡®Sword will melt from one hit¡­But the axe won¡¯t be able to slice the whole neck off¡­¡¯- he thought, giving a look to a large empty room, with square slabs as the floor, no more than a second, before returning back to his thoughts. While walking, he took out a sword from one out of his two bags. Reflecting the light, the silver sword seemed green, similarly to how a chrome car seemed to mirror to its surroundings. He looked at himself in the reflection. His face and hair all in blood and muck, even the small grey thread that he used to tie his fringe with, is deep in crimson now, the colour of the rags on his hands, improvised gloves. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.With each step, each slab went down releasing air stored under it for decades if not centuries, at least the ones he was stepping on. Others had ¡®mines¡¯ installed under that. By ¡®mines¡¯, implied set of runes inscribed on each other slab. Some sliced the bones, others gave frostbites and froze blood, while the others made the blood boil and skin evaporate, in all cases it would be better to be blown up by the mine as that at least kills quickly. Even so, unlike mines do (which blow you up the moment your foot is off it), some these enchantments have a time lag of about a second, which for Kai is enough time to dodge. Though only some. ¡®Coat the sword in poison¡­? Maybe the axe too¡­ It weakened it the last time¡­kind of¡­¡¯ ¨C he continued and trailed on with his thoughts, desperate to come up with any sort of strategy against it. He spent too much time here, 100 weeks, 2 years. He was already 19, yet nothing really changed about him. His friends have already long graduated from school and are either in university or working. They accomplished something. Him on the other hand, what did he do? Learned how to fight? To kill? To kill what? He will die now and every single achievement he has achieved, every single thing he did will disappear. He will start at square one, again. Mental solitude? He grew wiser? In his own opinion he simply grown to hate his life and everything that just simply comprises of it. He hated humans, he hated fighting, he hated the grey sky, the rain, the mud, the air, the cold, the warmth and most of all his weak self. He hated hating, being angry made him angry and futility of it simply thrown him into despair which was again masked by fake rage, making him more angry and frustrated than he already was. He was aware of this childishness, but that didn¡¯t particularly help. This awareness was like a punch in the gut to him, a reminder that he was still weak, trapping him in a constant cycle, where it only gets worse. Having no one really to talk with in the dungeon was bad too. So bad, sometimes he even started having small conversations with the bandits before going dungeoneering. They wouldn¡¯t last long or end well, but still it was some sort of interaction with other humans that he needed. That would get him by, but only for a short while, when the anxiety, depression and headache would peak it, he would generally catch up with Uncle Rohg and his family. But not anymore. Last time, it was 20 deaths ago. That time, Kai found himself reciting Rohg¡¯s lines. His headache was only getting worse as he watched the same events unfold before his eyes, eventually ending in him being spearfished or slowly rotting away, either on the battlefield or in someone¡¯s room. _______________ The door to the next floor always looked different. It was distinct from other ¡®normal¡¯(as much as that word could be stretched) doors. Here, normal dungeon doors had ¡®some¡¯ decorations here and there, but at the same time were made out of high grade materials, per se malachite. This door in turn, was made out of simple grey iron, but saying that, it also had elaborate engravings etched in a picture, a story, over it. The wolf, fighting with the snake, both disappearing into a small box, with hexagonal shapes drawn on its sides and human fingers supporting its base. Despite the peculiar taste, the artisan knew what he was doing. The work looked perfect, throwing Kai in awe, captivating him in a similar manner that his father¡¯s work did. He raised his hand, barely touching it and gave it a tiny push with his finger. The gears in the door started moving, hitting each other, moving the contraption, almost silently, in order to let the intruder pass through. He always wondered at how this door worked, every time he passed here. Triggered by a touch, some magic must¡¯ve been used here for sure. This place looked really old, just to get to here he had to go through a crack in the cavern deep in the ground. Yet, the iron, gears specifically did not make any sound. Iron rusts with time and any contraption without any care will eventually collapse or at least screech here and there before it dies completely. ¡®Magic. Huh?¡¯ ¨C he thought with a little cynicism. He liked the concept of magic, before he arrived here and even still. He doubted this love when he had negative experiences with magic, but still this awe, the thought, that there is this unknown power in the air, which he cannot grasp but with training can eventually use, failed to die out. He was pretty sure he even had ¡®some¡¯ power or hold of it already and his healing factor was a proof to that. Before entering a narrow hall in front of him, he decided to prepare first. Taking out poison, couple of potions and some more weapons, the main thing he was actually looking for was conviction. Knowledge that even if he dies, again, he will be able to proceed beside this point. Once he was done, he walked into the darkness of newly made passage, descending down the stairs, walking through a hall, walking the way he did many times before, step, semi-circle, step, recalling the patterns of the creature, allowing his body to feel the movement it will experience in the next 5 minutes. With each step, his breathing was getting stronger. Inhale, exhale, inhale¡­exhale. Small purple blaze was dancing maniacally in a torch stand above, reflecting his anxiety or even perhaps the opposite cheering him on. He hit his breastplate with a dull ¡®thunk¡¯, trying to snap out of his melancholy, sending an echo through the hall. It wasn¡¯t long till he eventually reached the iron door to the boss. Similarly to the etchings on the one guarding the hall, this door also depicted the battle between the wold and the snakes on its surface, except the wolf was missing its limbs and some snakes were torn apart, the box looked scratched, broken on the side and was missing a finger too. Before opening it he closed his eyes and covered his face in his hands, standing, simply standing and listening to the fire crackle in this empty hall. He took a deep breath again and checked his equipment, taking out one last important factor in his upcoming battle. Sword on the back, three daggers and an axe on his belt all coated with poison, potions in the small leather road bag at the side and a small ¡®bomb¡¯ in his hand, or at least that what he liked to call it. He gripped the fabric of the sacks that he was carrying and touched the door, watching it slowly open, showing him glimpses of a large room, enshrouded in the dark. *gulp* He took a step forward. __________ Hiatuses... Mmmm... I apologize to all my readers and all the people that support me... for those things. Anyway i should be back right now and i''ll try to keep these updated weekly. Anyway enjoy! Chapter 9 - Sinners Providence I heard the large golden door being shut behind me. The large hall filled with men on both sides with a large throne in the middle surrounded by cushions and couple of columns embroidered with gold and gems, reflecting morning¡¯s rays, illuminating the whole area with its purifying whiteness, contrasted with the dark floor giving this place even more of a surreal atmosphere. The moans were a bit of a drag, echoing through from all sides drowning together with other sounds turning mixing into a wave of noise. Not to mention, the air was full of stink and sweat mixed with heat, making it hard for me to breathe. You see it is not my kind of kink so i tried to avoid looking as much as possible. I mean, I knew like this could happen. She did tell me that Seirirg''s men are like animals in heat. One thing knowing, other experiencing. ¡°Darren McCain, quen of the Ko-Dushi Syndicate, an envoy of the city Marjidushi, in the presence of his holiness, Patriarch Ter von Seirirg ruler of the Laeres Dominion.¡± ¨C said a slender man beside me with an incredibly high-pitched voice. He was probably a (an) eunuch. She told me that governments with harems and such, preferred their male servants to be¡­ focused. Nonetheless, he seemed pretty good for a man who spent half his life in the court. He had only a small rotting blister under his left eye, the skin on his bold head was only just rotting near his forehead, closer to his left temple, his ears were in the same state too and lips, of course, tattered with blisters and gushing with pus. I bowed the way she taught me. Left hand on my chest, covering my heart, right arm lifted straight forward then in semi-circle to the side, with the palm facing up, body slightly tilted forward, right foot half a step behind the left one and head facing the floor. Ignoring pride and all, I never really complained to be honest; the floors at places like these always were a joy to look at compared to the people that walked on it. This one for example was a black marble, polished to such an extent it seemed like a mirror. A pretty design feature if i may say so. Too bad i hated it, considering i could see everyone and myself without a mask in particular, making a tad too much to bear with. ¡°I greet his holiness.¡± ¨C I said loudly, giving the man in the throne and the concubines around a look. Truthfully, I say ''concubines'' but these 9 women are in reality his wives. Regardless to my distaste, which ironically was of no matter seeing as how i look down and gag would not be much different from looking up and gagging, well maybe a little bit more severe. Still as a matter of fact it is one of their customs, to always look when you greet the Patriarch. The gag reflexes rushed in as i was afraid with stronger intensity. Looking at the patriarch and his wives wasn''t a particularly horrible experience, the devil lied in the background, in parts where my vision was not focused. Rotting flesh hitting each other, pus flying in the air, corresponding with each moan the woman-like creature was making on top of the bustling flesh i could assume was the man, filled with bleeding cysts. Watching an orgy is a pretty fucking disgusting experience. It''s pretty up there on my list of things i would never want to see. Watching an orgy of half-rotten corpses and ghouls is a completely another experience. Not only is it more fun, you also want to blind yourself afterwards. The Patriarch himself didn''t seem particularly impressed either, face cold and solid as stone, devoid of any emotion, which coupled with his missing eyes, lips rotten to the gums, a fist-sized ulcer on his neck and his hand, flayed to the bone and covered with pus, lifted up towards his face with fingers missing nails touching his temple, made him look particularly nightmarish. At least his battle wives were covered in dress and cloth from face to toe, only revealing a set of eyes, which ironically were missing in some. I wanted to look down¡­ No, I wanted to run away from here and vomit somewhere in the corner, erasing all memory of this, but I couldn¡¯t. Customs said, one must look before the Patriarch would answer, which was perfectly fine in my opinion. The other kind of custom was pretty bullshit. The king must always share the pleasures and pains of his men. But only ''his'' men, not the whole army which is a conglomerate of private forces of each individual noble, and each division designated to different commander or general. I''d assume a 40 thousand men orgy isn''t a nice thing, but still to me this 200 man one is by no means great. Well, I had to keep looking, trying to imagine that this mess of decayed meat in front of me were just a bunch mouldy vegetables, quietly humping each other. Get rid of ¡®quietly¡¯, they were loud. Patriarch lifted his hand from his temples up in the air. The hall instantly became silent. ¡°¡­Strange name for S¡¯tlkar. An outlander are you, quen of Ko-Dushi?¡± ¨C he answered coldly with a strong accent on my ears, something middle eastern, yet a gentle soft voice, something a boy would have or a eunuch. I averted my eyes down as I was supposed to, only then I spoke. ¡°Yes, your holiness. I come from Roan. I¡¯m here, on behalf of the Syndicate, to renew the trading partnership between our respected governments. ¡± ¨C she told me that there were many men with pale skin on this so-called Roan. To me it sounded like Europe from her stories, really, and a medieval one to that. But that was irrelevant. I spoke loudly but not too loud, it was against the customs, yet despite that my words still echoed through the hall, his men giving me a special look. I didn''t particularly want to anger an elite group of men capable to stand their ground against 40 thousand men. Hilariously enough, here, in Jokhnaven people view Seirirg almost as God This man here isn''t just a ''Patriarch'', but, and I quote, The Father of War, the real Holy Warrior. A man capable to overtake the Dominion with just over 200 men. Betrayed and left to die by his own kin, just to return strong with his own harem of monsters and emerge victorious. A hero! And a legend ! But ignoring the sarcastic remarks, his body and his scars tell their own story, well if you can see them behind the cysts and greying flesh. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. I swallowed hard again. The stink in the air, arousing sounds and the imagery in my head were not going well with each other. And his silence¡­ was a little bit sickening. By this point my screws started to get slightly loose and I was getting a little bit tired of this whole painful situation. My fingers started to move a little, play invisible strings, in the painfully long moment of my impatience. I even thought of forcing it through for a moment. ¡°I thought Ko-Dushi liked their¡­ er¡­negotiations to be peaceful,¡­¡± ¨C I couldn¡¯t not have looked at him in that, as if there was a shine in his hollow sockets, filled before with the darkness that remained in place of his eyes. I didn''t like it. I was really losing it with my imagination starting to play tricks on me. Curious thing, this dark was how I''d imagine his real eyes to be, judging from his voice and his whole atmosphere, his demeanour. He smiled greeting my look only lips moving, the rest of the face remained cold, his eyes, invisible to me felt to me the same like before, cold. I wasn¡¯t sure whether I was outplayed at the game I myself set up or whether it was a completely different game that he wished to start with me. But so far the negotiations were peaceful and it was supposed to be such, to a certain point at least, if that point ever reached. I opened my mouth wanting to speak, but then caught myself. I looked down, inhaled and only then spoke. ¡°Your Holiness, how could you think that this is¡­¡± ¡° A farce? I do believe it is a farce, quen. It is only a convenience to me if you refuse to drop the act. Did the Syndicate really think that I would not notice their activities on my border? The spies? The smugglers? The assassins?¡± ¨C His smile disappeared like it was never there. Snappy there a bit, eh? I thought for a second, sides of my mouth almost curving up. The men around us started shuffling, moving, some screaming, some spitting, other cursing but all definitely in my general direction. ¡°Silence¡­¡±- he whispered, and like enchanted they became silent. ¡°In your land, you live by decisions. Here we speak of options. We are given options, carefully sculpted and presented to us by the destiny, other¡¯s deeds and possibilities and ultimately the tree itself.¡± ¨C he pronounced, keeping an eye-contact with me. ¡°Your holiness, as I said, I come here on behalf of the Synd¡­ No, apologies, I come here in place of The Moon Twin of the Marjidushi. Before I ask of you anything let me clarify certain things.¡±- I took a deep breath. You¡¯ll do that often when 200 hundred commandos stare down your neck. ¨C ¡°While sadly I can see other¡­ branches of our merry conglomerate taking a dire interest in your borders¡­ or lives of you officials¡­ not to mention their great interest in purging the reputation of The Night Ether. You have heard of The Moon and Stars Dancing on the Bleeding Sun. I¡¯m sure Voradushi wish The Eternal River be colored in crimson again¡­¡± This time I didn¡¯t bother looking down keeping the eye contact. Disrespect or not, truths must be told with a straight face, just like lies. A small grin appeared on his face for a moment, seemingly genuine, not demonstrational. ¡°How do I know whether you are a liar or a cheat, whether crook or whether the thief? Reassure me, quen.¡±- he said, rhyming a small pub rhyme. At that point I couldn¡¯t keep a straight face anymore. ¡°Easy, I submit my will.¡±- I said with a grin, mirroring his. But then I felt the tingle, the heat in my hand, the burning fire, the purging furnaces hidden within my palms. It called, it screamed ¡®sinner¡¯, it ate away at me while growling ¡®destroy¡¯, hissing ¡®purge¡¯, mixing in my mind with the noise of the crowd, their screams of ¡®enemy¡¯ and ¡®attack¡¯. My skin started to bubble and the hand as if guided by some spirit moved by its will up in the air and straight to the right¡­ _____________________________ ¡°Errr¡­ What are you talking about, mate?¡±-yelled the ghoul sitting next to him. It was a lot louder in tavern now then it was before. ¡°Ugh. Not again¡­*sigh*. Never mind man.¡±- said Darren, finishing his tankard, standing up from his seat, moving for the exit. ¨C ¡°Good day to you, Resal.¡± ¡°Aye, you too¡­ err¡­¡±- replied the ghoul back, the piece of rotting skin beside his cheek dribbling in confusion. It was always like that. Whenever Darren spoke to the outlanders or pretty much anyone who was not Syndicate¡¯s noble, a magic would kick in. A minute of conversation would pass and the person would not remember the start. The conversation will finish and within 5 minutes the person would forget even his face. There were exceptions though ¨C mages, rogues with pages of runes inscribed in their minds and people with exceptionally strong willpower. Resal was none of that. If he was though, he would get in trouble with the Twins, especially The Night one, Margo. And he was always looking for a reason to get in trouble. The moment he stepped out, he regretted. The tavern at least had some weather enchantments to cool himself down, the outside¡­ oh, the outside! It was insufferable. He opened up the collar of his cape a little and set out to find his companions. It was going to be a long trip ¡®home¡¯ and he was sick of wearing black¡­ especially in this ¡®fucking bullshit heat¡¯. ____________ Alas, we have another mc! Oh no, but he''s a douche! Oh well... ;_; Anyway next chapter is going to come out in 5 or so days so cheers. Chapter 10 - Locks And Doors It was hard. Walking was. Each step filled with pain, bones clicking, gashes bleeding. A small trail in the making from the bigger stain. The burns were still aching from weeks ago¡­ But healing¡­ only slowly¡­ In these moments recalling the past usually helped. Clinging to something that happened forever ago. It would ease the burden at least for a little, give some sort of strength. But now they were just blurs. A shade of what they seemed so long ago. Days turned into moments or even worse¡­ blurred out so much, they are no longer to recognise. The headache didn¡¯t stop, it seemed it will never do. This scared. Not even the headache, not the unending pain. Memories. Those that make men in what they are. Fear. Fear that someone who used to be loved and cared for, someone who liked to tell a joke, someone who belonged¡­ was dying. Replaced by someone with almost no humanity, remorse or care. Tears flowed, like a gash in the cheek. Sound echoed through the labyrinth, thin broken and ever so painful. The same sound that echoed in the mind, mixing with the whispers at the edge, deafening them little by little, until one broke through. ¡®The sea¡­ Ocean¡­ Lies in the lock¡­ Truth¡­ hide¡­ Break¡­ Free the world¡­¡¯ ________ With a slight push, the gears moved, shifting the giant slabs of stone to sides, revealing a small room with a black trapdoor. He leaned on the door, shaking. Glaring at his trembling hands, he wanted to curse but vomit came out instead. ¡°Not again¡­¡±- he grumbled, wiping vomit and blood off his chin, clenching his fists. The day he finally was able to discern objects with his left eye, he had to go out and get bitten by freaking spider. And all¡¯s good and well if the spider wasn¡¯t half a meter tall and its jaws didn¡¯t bite through whatever was left of his green leather jerkin. The black one turned into rags. As if feeling the weakness of its owner the box started rattle, serpents screaming to be freed, hissing for the lid to shift just a little, to see the outside just for a moment. He took a deep breath a touched a side of his face near his eyes, where the skin was scarred and an eyelid was missing. ¡®All it took was to just close the lid¡­¡¯- he smirked. *Hissssss* As if taken away from his thoughts, he quickly grabbed the tiny box in his pocket. ¡°Silence!¡±- and the hissing stopped with a tiny bark just at the end of it, so did the rattle. Sighing, he braced himself, trying to walk straight without wobbling or falling. He swallowed¡­ often. Opening the trapdoor proven to be harder than it seemed at first. Puking took away almost all his strength so the little rock fell quite often, until it fell right, actually leaving the space open. That didn¡¯t make him particularly intrigued or happy. Nothing at this point really did. But let¡¯s say that this point in its essence made him especially unimpressed and discouraged. Ladders. Ladders mean heights. Mean climbing either up or down. And this one in particular was going down¡­ With no lights. One thing descending down to the place that you know, another going down into the darkness. ¡°Of all things¡­ Really?¡±- he said, wiping his nose. Little red on his wrist. Looking at the opening he could barely fit himself through. Sighing and on the verge of crying he looked through his last sack for any glass or anything that could break. ______ After gulping down what¡¯s left of the potion, he tossed the glass bottle aside. Checking his pockets he had that crystal ball secured in one of the pockets in his jerkin and a couple of tiny potions stored away in the pockets of his pants. ¡°Here goes nothing.¡±- he said as he dropped the sack into the unknown. Silence. Nothing. Bam? Nah, nothing again. Sighing deeply and dispirited to do anything, he slowly started to climb down. Placing his left foot down, then right, then left hand and then right, all while shaking. He felt the cold touch of iron, the old rust ripping into his palms, the heaviness of his body and of course crippling headache. As the darkness was embracing him further, the light soon became a round in the sky like the sun, progressively becoming smaller. The tiny spot seemed smaller and smaller the lower he was descending. It was as if he was moving down the giant spearhead, walls waiting to crush him. He placed his left foot and the iron clanked, the bar collapsing and falling down with his sense of balance. Hands, not ready for a sudden increase of the burden, betrayed him slipping off. Rust one last time scraping them. His body went backwards hitting the wall with his back and head, then down, body strained, with every muscle stiffened in shock. He screamed in panic at first but then moments later grumbled in pain. His right leg was caught on the bar, while his back was still pressing against the wall. In that moment he was really happy that he was never able to do splits. _______ When the light was as small as the stars in the night sky, the paranoia was finally starting to kick in. By this point his shakes were happening not only due to venom in his system, but also because of the fatigue and fear. Fear that he would slip up again and had to go through this all over again and being tired didn¡¯t particularly help him either. But saying that, he wasn¡¯t as much as afraid of his body being tired, granted he could heal anything and had stamina constantly replaced, due to his condition, as he was afraid of being accustomed to this monotonous movement. He was afraid of boredom. The moment he will see this action as a routine, he will lose the edge. And if anything ¡®out of norm¡¯ happens he won¡¯t be able to react to it in time if react to it at all. The negative thoughts were not helping it either. Whining was fine. ¡®When will this stop?¡¯ ¡®Why am I doing this?¡¯ But the real devil was in the creeping ideas that this is a trap or that this labyrinth simply leads nowhere. Here in darkness imagination, doubt, ambiguity and hopelessness start to really work their magic. A slight unconscious scrape of cloth on the side and he was already expecting something hop at him. A slight trick of mind ¨C shade dancing on the edge of his visions, fed by his imagination, unsettling him even further. A slight whisper in his ear from nothing, a whisper that he always could hear but strangely different this time. Then the scream. Even though it was dark all around him, he knew he was unconscious, he didn¡¯t feel the pain, he didn¡¯t feel the coldness of iron, nor could he smell the stuffy air. All he could feel is his own body falling, endlessly, through the loop of events, places, times, seconds, moments. Until he reached it. _____ By luck, by chance or by divine intervention my conscious was ripped out of the limbo, forcing my eyes to open but seeing nothing that can be or could be discerned. Blurs screaming, blurs shining, blurs flying, blurs running, blurs falling. Colours mixing. Indigo on the ocean of grey. Liquid fell on me and on the blur I was lying on. It wasn¡¯t not long, but maybe it was. It was forever, briefly till I saw the green blurs, flying. Like birds, soaring giant seas and rivers of grey and purple and red. Like cold whispers silently telling me warm nothings. ¡®Curse¡­Ash to rot¡­Night to sun¡­Circle¡­The moon¡­ Seek the ocean¡­¡¯ ____ The first thing I felt was the cold and then it was the stink. When I opened my eyes I saw the sky. Greyish red of Semerian sunsets. Something I for once enjoyed to watch. Semerian skies rarely shown different colours mixed in with its eternal grey. I tried to stand up. The response I got was horrible pain all across my body. I tried to look down, but all I could see was someone¡¯s split scull staring at me. This plain shocked me and in my aversion I tried to move again which proved to be successful, before pain hit me again. With an outcry I went down to the mud. At least now I could see my body. My grey shirt turned crimson and I wasn¡¯t sure whether that was my blood or the blood of that man. It didn¡¯t hurt, at least not as much as my legs did. Them facing directions they should not kind of does that. I looked to my sides. My left arm was twisted, the right one had a cut, but I could move it and it could move me. I needed anything that could move me. I took a deep breath, then coughed¡­ badly. My chest hurt a lot. Taking deep breaths was a mistake and I was wasting time here coughing, asking for attention. I read somewhere that after battles appear looters and they don¡¯t like anyone whom is still alive. Crawling on your back among corpses on the battlefield was not something I ever thought I would experience or want to experience. Staining yourself with other people¡¯s blood mixed with dirt mixed with feces mixed with little pieces of rotting flesh. But that was the least of my concerns. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. The idea that I had to go back to that place to that village, seeing those people that would kill me in cold blood scared me. I didn¡¯t want to go through that. I wanted to run away and make a peaceful living or go and learn magic and find a way to get back home. ¡°Ey! Look here! That one is alive !¡±- a shout so far it is almost impossible to hear. I looked around in panic there was no one around me¡­ yet. I increased my pace. I thought of straightening my legs and then crawling on fours (or threes), but just looking at them made want to barf. In the end I settled for just turning around and crawling on my stomach that would make it a little bit faster. Easily said than done. Moving to the sides, moved my legs shifted them a little, and when I finally turned to my stomach my knees responded with an unsettling crack, I clenched my teeth and screamed in my shoulder. This way crawling became easier and much faster but also a lot more painful, anyway speed was the priority here. I saw corpses of the villagers and some people from nearby hamlets, hair golden stained with blood and mood and skin white even before they died. The soldiers weren¡¯t different either except there were a lot less of their corpses lying around and they actually had armour and shields. Underneath they were all Semerians. That¡¯s it. Both citizens of one country, just foolish men joining on the insurrection against their local vassal or count, I wasn¡¯t sure. But I was definitely sure that Uncle Rohg or Lim or Seb weren¡¯t sure why they joined or why all of this started. To them it was something to do besides feeding pigs and growing potatoes. Lost in my thought, my hand slipped under me, spinning me to the side. I hit my head onto something, I wasn¡¯t sure but I felt blood coming down before I passed out. ___ The sound of hooves hitting mud, a sound that is familiar to me after so many days spend on the field. Beside me men moaning, all in injuries, with visible damage to them both physical and moral. Above, a starless night with a giant moon peeking from the horizon. The time for Moon Dances or so Rohg told me. When men and women come and dance around a fire, praising the tree and the sentinel for great harvest or asking for a better next year. Better next year¡­ I hope. ____ I was looking at the fire. Flickering dancing playing telling, doing fire things. I thought about past. About mother and father, my friends, my hobbies, everything. Fire flickered. Sudden scream of a man beside me snapped me out of my melancholy, bringing me back and almost giving me a freaking heart attack. I think his name was Tet. Like Ted but with a ¡®t¡¯ at the end. I met him only moments before battle started. He seemed nice enough guy. He was a carpenter and liked to make wooden soldiers for his son. He told us how funny it was he became one himself. Now he was crying. To be honest I was about to join him, until I heard a woman¡¯s voice. ¡°You¡¯re young. How old are you?¡± I tried to speak but only quiet hissing came out. ¡°If it¡¯s me, I¡¯m 14¡­ What about you?¡±- I wasn¡¯t sure whom she was addressing and it was a bit hard to talk. ¡°Hah, I¡¯m going to be 28 this winter. You know for someone we found with a pike sticking out of his head, you speak¡­ normal. You can tie sentences together. Maybe it¡¯s because you¡¯re young. Anyway it¡¯s rare.¡±- she rattled cheerfully. Even Tet quieten down, though there was a guy somewhere coughing horribly. ¡°Not really. I wasn¡¯t¡­ hit by a pike¡­ man. Man in purple¡­ indigo. His flash hit me¡­¡±- I whispered back, clarifying things. ¡°Bloody hell.¡±- she said with a sadness in her voice. ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡±- even I was surprised at my tone there, my voice almost silent. She sighed. ¡°You got hit by a Soulripper or a mage. Whatever you want to call it. Sometimes people survive their attacks and gain abilities. Like better healing or superior strength or speed. Men become a touch faster a touch stronger and some even claim to see the magic itself or alter their destiny cutting through the bark of the tree. You can be like them child¡­ A great hero.¡±- she said, trying to encourage me. Her tone spoke it all though. I will die. Later I would learn that sometimes, something like 1 in 10000 a person hit by a death spell would live to see the next day but only 1 in 10000 out of those people can actually survive and live on as that ¡®hero¡¯. The first week is what counts. If you can live through it, you¡¯ll live. If you don¡¯t, well you don¡¯t. I was always found it ironic how one of the easiest killing spells can prove to be a great source of power. What actually happens is your body gets charged with foreign magic, exceeding the capacity of the magic pool inside of you. It¡¯s like overcharging a battery. But then with those whom survive they say that ¡®their soul¡¯ adjusts to the new magic or takes it in or something. Different men tell different stories especially when it comes to magic. But at that time I didn¡¯t know any of that. After hearing her story I simply smiled. ¡°Thank you¡± ¨C I said, straining my voice so that it came out as clean as possible. Strangely I didn¡¯t cough and as other men asked her and she continued to speak, I started to feel dizzy slowly trailing off into the land of dreams until everything around me was black and I could hear nothing. *ding* ____ He woke up choking on his own vomit, which he found quite invigorating. His back was sore, but not broken. He didn¡¯t fall that long then. He tried to stand up, snapping something at his feet. Standing up ultimately turned out to be a failure as the footing was not stable at all, dragging him to the side. *rattle* When he landed face down on the floor, with loud groan, a small glowing yellow ball came out of his pocket, dimly illuminating the dark room. ¡°Isn¡¯t this great¡­ A pile of bones¡­ Mmmm¡­¡± ¨C he said with a deadpan expression, once he stood up, staring at what was his former bed. The room was relatively small and had large tubes/pipes coming out of walls and ceiling. He figured this was something like a cemetery or dump for this place. He thought it to be strange that there were no real piles of corpses in this place, blaming it all on monsters ¡®recycling¡¯, but hey he was wrong after all. Rubbing his eyes and wiping the ¡®honour¡¯ off his mouth, he picked the small glass (at least it felt like it) ball, partially giving up on why was it glowing, and used it as a small lantern to find his luggage. Once all business was done and bag was found, he turned around and located the door. This door didn¡¯t look special in any way. Same as all the other normal ¡®next stage¡¯ sort of doors. With a push, gears clicked and slabs moved. He gripped his axe, engravings on it melted by the serpent¡¯s acid blood, ready to attack any time. What he saw shocked him and at the same time made him a little happy. Neon lights on the ceiling, drawing weird futuristic shapes, circles, squares, triangles. Screens, some broken, some still operating, showing strange symbols and numbers. Computers with keyboards smashed in, yet further out towards the middle, some managed to look relatively pristine. It wasn¡¯t just that, there were also other ¡®gadgets¡¯ and some strange looking contraptions placed around the room. A few were even bolted to the floor. The room was huge, probably the biggest he¡¯s been in this whole dungeon labyrinth place thing, with the exceptions of probably being the ¡®mushroom forest¡¯. Though saying it¡¯s a room is a bit of an understatement it was a hall. But the most peculiar thing was the man standing in the middle of the room. All but the area around him lit by the neon lighting. He was standing there shrouded in the dark. Facing me, but looking down, staring at the white laminate. Clad in black armour, with sharp angles coming out from his side as horns and a giant iron claw of a hand, reflecting the acid green lights of the screens. The man looked very ominous if not plain demonic. Again ¡®man¡¯. His claw twitched mechanically, fingers moving into fist all but the index finger. It then rose, with the finger pointing at me. __________________ Author''s Note ;P __________________ Well here we go chapter 10. Story is progressing. If there are any mistakes pls point out. It''s fucking 12 o''clock and im about to die. Next chapter again in max 5 days. Cheers! Chapter 11 - Pathways And Lanterns I think, when I first met him I was in my thirties, or maybe I missed a decade or two somewhere. This whole area repeating itself over again and again, similarly to a crappy rpg with low budget. It was easy to lose yourself in it. Same lines, same events. I remembered sometimes, I liked to spice it up by stealing or fighting someone. It was kind of funny even, seeing a man¡¯s shocked expression as I effortlessly dodged his advances. Until he drawn a sword or his other ¡®compatriots¡¯ joined him. I once set a building on fire too. Partially by accident by once the fire started I decided to help it a little. The guy was a dickhead and also ironically a mage. He told me that I could cast spells as well as the horse dung could rule a country, adding on the side that in Semeria that is a complement, following it with a kick to my bum. See a dick. He did live in the end, but usually would leave on the next day. There was a loop where I did convince him to teach him, but he would generally leave the next day. Teleportation I figured. Here in the toilet, there in the king¡¯s chambers. See a dick nonetheless. Regardless these here are just details. When I first saw him I thought of demons and monsters. The first fight I had with him wasn¡¯t particularly human either¡­ for most part at least, I couldn¡¯t remember the last half of it for so long¡­ ______ The man or rather the demon lifted its head, slightly tilting it to the side, judging. A helmet with 4 long horns, ebony as the shade he was standing in, reflecting the blinking screens of the hall. His claw dropped. In silence they stood for almost a minute, him seemingly sizing Kai up and then Kai thinking of how he will move. What strategies to use and how bad of a situation that he was in. If the opponent looked like a high level player, Kai himself looked like he just finished the tutorial. Only the beeping sounds from computers interrupted this almost ¡®serene¡¯ atmosphere. This wasn¡¯t pleasant and when the demon started walking towards him, it became even less so. With each new step more lights fell on him, reflected from his armour. His plate or rather, scale armour looked draconic-ish. It really implied that he was a high levelled player. Kai felt cold sweat and chills running on his back as he noticed something about the thing. The light was passing through him despite being reflected, as if he was a blur, yet still physically there. As if the man was partially detached from this place. ¡°Yeh nah, thanks but I¡¯m not doing this.¡±- said Kai as he released the grip of his axe, leaving it hanging on his hip, reaching for a small box in his pocket. ¡°Enjoy.¡±- he added as he shifted the lid off it. Shadows appeared out of the box, taking shapes, first of the wolves, a wolf pack, crouching, quickly approaching it pray, then with a synchronous jump morphing into 9 necks, hissing and barking at each individual. *choom* Blood steamed off his claw, wolfhead smashed in the floor. The man himself was screaming or rather roaring like a wild animal, before the other serpent grasped him with its teeth and then propelled him in the nearby wall, mauling him down couple of times before that. The shadows continued escaping the box, now almost forming the serpents¡¯ body. Kai felt the grasp of the box, the little human hand, digging its fingernails into his flesh, screaming for release. ¡°No.¡±- he said, smiling sarcastically, moments before he closed the box. The wolfhead that stormed to him, disappeared back into shadow as its siblings did, only ghastly breeze moving through Kai¡¯s hair. The hand disappeared and the only thing left in his grasp was a small iron box with a wolf fighting a snake etched on its side. ¡°This should solve it like.¡±- he gazed across the room where the man should be lying. He found it always strange, how quickly it is to flung a person in the air and how very much unexpected it usually is. View of the hall was replaced with a view of the ceiling, just to be clouded by the dark for a solid 5 seconds. He growled, body wanting to vomit but nothing coming out. He tried to wipe blood off his nose, but his hand was not responding. He felt all the pressure of the gravity on, as if not for the meat holding it, it would simply fall off. Leaning on the wall, he stood up, noting that there was a little red stain where his head was. With a pop and a scream his shoulder was back in, arm moving. Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. He grasped his axe and braced for the worst. His body moved left, half- staggered rather, inadvertently dodging demon¡¯s fist aimed for his head. It was just his normal fist, but it still entered the stone of the wall quite easily. Sidestepping back, he again barely dodged the man¡¯s claw, pieces of wall flying in Kai¡¯s face, the thing tracing a a giant abrasion though wall. He knew that the claw would leave nothing of him but the stain on the floor. Another swipe and he dodged barely again. It was strange, even though the thing in front of him had human shape, the way it moved, the way it attacked¡­ was animalistic, monstrous, no technique, just pure power and speed. With a sidestep to the side, away from the creature¡¯s scary offence, Kai decided to initiate offence of his own. Blacking out for a moment he almost lost his balance, but recovered advancing to the monsters side. The axe clanged hitting a side of the armour, but the edge still went in, but only barely. Pulling the axe, the irons touching, screeched leaving a spark, too bright for the neon. He moved back in hopes dodging its claw completely. The iron went into his chest, scraping a mark, definitely a scar, scratching the bones, ripping the flesh out. Abashed he couldn¡¯t react to the punch, sending him into the neon ceiling, breaking the lights. The floor felt cold, contrasting so much to the blood flowing out of his chest. He could hear them, many whispers. Some, telling him what to do, others telling what not to, some blaming him, some soothing him and some just screaming. Screaming be let out, repressed, freed trapped, combined, collapsed, devoured. His mind screamed with them, with the voices, the whispers. He kissed the floor in tears, then his body lifted straight as if a puppeteer picked up his doll, invisible strings attached to him, whispers. He gripped his axe tighter, whispers holding his fingers, tying them to the handle. He moved his hands, moved his legs, following the whispers, trailing whispers, screaming whispers, spinning in whispers, bleeding whispers. His other hand itched to take something, disappearing and reappearing as if in shimmering haze, trying to grasp whispers. The thing jumped back, scraping 5 lines in the floor when it landed. The claw morphed, shifting, switching shapes, disappearing back into human hand. The spikes slowly withered, leaving only black plate armour, the helmet was gone all together, revealing a man in his thirties with snow-white hair and pale skin. The man staggered, covering his face for a moment, touching it as if it he hasn¡¯t felt it in ages. He stepped aside dodging Kai¡¯s axe, whispers trailing the blade. He felt slight pain on his cheek, jumping back 5 meters. He looked at the boy¡¯s other hand and in it was¡­ something. Spear shaped haze or distortion of some sort. The light passing through distorting, reflections taking on strange shapes, dark coming as it was enveloped in neon. The man knew what it could be. He grinned that the art was not lost. Like a wild hound, Kai turned and propelled his whole body on the opponent, twisting mid-air. The blade in his hand was screaming as it was trailing shapes through the air, literally. The man was a little bit surprised, but despite that, managed to dodge the sloppy attack, grasp his hand and lightly punched him in the chin. The screaming quietened down until the only echo in the hall was of the computers conversing between each other. ___________ Author''s Note ___________ Allright another character... spooky skeletons are spooky. What are those whispers? Who is that guy? Why is Kai not acting like an asshole? Tune in for the nex... Ugh. Anyway next chapter as usual max 5 days. Pls point out any mistakes. Cheers! Chapter 12 - Messy Mistakes He woke up with a crippling headache. It was so bad he couldn¡¯t quite see or focus for at least 5 minutes, kind of staring there at the wall. He moved his lips, but he only received a dull feeling of flesh scaping past his canines. Hung over, he tried to stand up, wobbling, feet uneasy. When he placed his first foot on the floor, he was surprised that he didn¡¯t fall, putting more weight into the step. He tried to move his other leg, to actually stand up, but then someone or something pulled on it, resulting in him plummeting into the floor face first. *Crunch* ¡°Fuck! Ow!¡± ¨C he said, nose blocked or rather broken. He pulled on his entrapped foot, a soft ¡®mmm¡¯ came as his only response. He pulled as hard he could and then his foot was finally free. Covering his bleeding nose, he stood up, staggering. What he saw on his bed, was his latest conquest¡­ which he didn¡¯t remember. Last thing he remembered last night was chugging his second yard glass full of ale. He contemplated how impressive of him that he didn¡¯t spew, but then looked at the wooden floor closer. Something ached at him, a thought. Something worrying¡­ especially about her. He looked at her red hair, they reminded him of something. Looking at them he almost realised what it was, but then a horrible need for the toilet rearranged his priorities. Running out of the room, he saw the hall which was a ¡®bit¡¯ of a mess. Drunk men and women lying on the floors, covered in¡­ things. Some dude in the corner was still drinking a pint. He stumbled on some gents, stepped on a bunch of hands, got slapped on the knee at some point, but eventually reached the stairs. Everything seemed that it¡¯s going to go right from then on, until he ran into someone. It¡¯s not particularly that he disliked the guy or wanted to avoid¡­ but he needed to go to the toilet. ¡°Morning there, Nick.¡±- said the bearded big man with a great ginger beard and a great white apron around his belly, well not so white after yesterday. ¡°Hey there, Mjar¡­ How are you doing there, mate?¡±- he replied awkwardly with an awkward wobble, in sync with his awkward need. He always found it strange how all tavern keepers tend to have big great beards, big great tummies and big great white aprons. Was it a dress code or something? ¡°I been asking around here, if anyone seen my daughter and most of the good people pointed your direction. So, my good friend, do you know where she is?¡±- he asked quizzically if not a little bit intimidating. ¡°Errrrrrrrrrrr¡­No?¡±- he asked semi-caring. The priority was the toilet and the speed of the conversation. ¡°Anyway, I have to go to the ¡®special place¡¯.¡±- Nick added. Seeing Mjar¡¯s confused look he said with a tiny hint of annoyance in his words. ¨C ¡°The toilet.¡± ¡°Aaaaaah. Well I won¡¯t keep you for long then.¡±- he scratched his beard, regretting the decision. As he wiped his stinking hand on the apron, the tavern keeper started walking upstairs, dodging hands, heads and vomit and wondering how could such a small and usually quiet place turn into¡­ this chaos. _______ Rom didn¡¯t like cities. No aura. No class. Whores here, cut throats there, thieves beside you. Sad depressing stuff. It especially buggered him how cities and villages twist magic, sucking it out of all surroundings, defiling the land, the creatures and spirits. Shitting all over his and other scvoia¡¯s work, adding more firewood to the flame that is burning through Roan. The boy in the cloak behind Rom, the one that was trailing him now for a while, finally decided to go for it decreasing the distance between them. The youth bumped into him, apologized and then ran off in the nearest corner. All the usual stuff that he was used to doing. Grinning he decided to count his spoils, trying to open the little pouch in his hand. His grin disappeared as inside was ground mixed in with the spices, thing he was used seeing and landing on, when he started out his job. In that moment he realised that he felt considerably lighter, checking the pouches of his own. Not only was it gone, his coat was also torn, missing a piece of cloth. Looking at the pouch, everything suddenly made sense. ¡°Well, well. Aren¡¯t we rich here? I may even buy Nick a drink tonight.¡± ¨C said Rom, counting the gold. He was already out of the main streets, trailing the back alleys, towards a specific place or rather shop that he planned to visit on the first day. ________ ¡°God. I am never going to be fucking used to walking through this place.¡±- Rom muttered, as he trailed through the dark shady alley. On the right a slaver with a bunch of greasy kids, probably some rich bastards future entertainment, on the left an old man brewing poisons and other interesting goods, that will either make you feel good then kill you or will make you feel bad and then kill you. Pretty good stuff. He always wondered why she set up her place in this shithole. He knew she was a smuggler, but fuck she could¡¯ve chosen at least a better smelling place than this. He increased his pace, feeling an itch to punch that fat bloke near slaver in his golden teeth, maybe a kick in the crotch too. He generally wouldn¡¯t tolerate seeing a bunch of children sold on the streets, but here he is watched and that would be against the law. The back alleys, back streets have laws, structure and the ones whom break them, those don¡¯t live for too long. ¡®Well, maybe a little.¡¯- he thought as his fingers started to dance in the air, playing the strings, tying knots. The end effect was desirable, somewhat. Rom smiled as the fat man wobbled first, like jelly and then collapsed on the slaver, knocked out cold. The man underneath the debris grumbled, while children beside tried their best not to laugh, but the brew(poison) maker didn¡¯t make that attempt. Rom was quite far away when that happened, but he could still hear the ¡®hur-hur¡¯ of a laugh coming down from the alley. Soon enough, he finally saw the place of his destination. A small door, with a colourful sign and grease smears all over it. ¡°Greatest Fortune-teller in whole Roan, do not miss this chance, exclamation mark.¡±- he said, mockingly, as he twisted the handle. The door cracked revealing a room, filled with aroma, thick with incense, it was rather well lit to his surprise, but it only revealed a bunch of her ¡®spooky¡¯ artefacts, all to impress/encourage customers that she is not a phoney. I nodded to the kid that I saw, at which he dashed off, calling for his master. ¡®Another one.¡¯- he thought, looking at the place where the child was just a moment ago. He could feel it from the aura around the boy, he is dying. ¡°Oh god, I really expected this day to follow different path. Hello to you Rom¡­¡±- she gave him an unpleasant look, which worsened the moment she saw my smile. ¡°No. Get out. I am not going to do that for you. Fuck off.¡±- she said knowing what Rom would ask. ¡°Oh! Come fucking on! I mean how bad would it be?¡±- Rom said, stretching his arms in a shrug. ¡°Fucking. Get. Out.¡±- she proclaimed, her hands grabbing the threads. _________ ¡°Jesus fucking Christ.¡±- Nick barked as he touched his nose, more broken than it was before. He felt a tingle on the edge of his finger, air felling strange around him. Walking through the street and considerably pissed off, his destination was the main street. There he would be able to find some other inn where he would be able to stay. He thought of buying Rom a meal or a drink, to make up for this. Fucking Mjar. In Nick¡¯s head, yesterday after a good dosage of alcohol, his reasoning was blurred and he was as they say ¡®non compos mentis¡¯. He is not that dumb as to purposefully covet something he should not. Alcohol is known to beat the last decency out of a man and Nick wasn¡¯t that decent of a man from the start. Regardless, to Nick, Mjar graduated from being a nice guy and achieved the first stage of a state called douchebag. He turned to the side through the alleyways. He didn¡¯t know the city, but new the general direction, besides walking through back streets isn¡¯t a new to him. Finding a place to drink and a bed to pass out on was the goal. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. The back alleys are the same everywhere, even in this world. Shady individuals there, occasional sobbing here, blood on the walls... Well not really. You see a person passing by occasionally, rarely they show any kind of animosity or look at your loot. This is a completely different matter if you look rich, though. Literally everyone hates you¡­ even outside of back alleys. A dude there eyed, Nick¡¯s luggage, but seeing him covered in mud and face covered in blood, just smirked and moved on. Everything pointed towards a peaceful and quiet trip through the back streets, until he heard a child¡¯s screaming and crying. Generally, this wouldn¡¯t particularly force him to do anything. He wouldn¡¯t give a shit if some brat wasn¡¯t getting a candy or some other shit, here, again, it¡¯s a little bit different. Ever since that happened to him when he was a child, he could never walk out on someone in dire need of help, especially if they were a kid. His sense of justice, no matter how twisted it was, clawed at him, pushing him towards the screams. In a small alley two men, were holding a child, trying to subdue her and shove in the big black sack. The girl had white hair and some strange shadowy markings on her hands and feet. Nick didn¡¯t give it even a second thought, rushing towards the man. His surprised face crunched under Nick¡¯s fist, as the man himself collapsed, seemingly flying a little. The next adversary, a gentleman much taller and bigger in his form, looked at Nick and then to his friend, then back to Nick, trying to unsheathe his sword, releasing the girl. He suffered fate worse than his companion. Knee in the face is generally a lot more colourful than a good punch in the mutt. The impact forced the baddie back, but he didn¡¯t fall. Nick grabbed the man¡¯s coat lifting him up, or so he wished it to be. The man was too heavy, he also proved to have good strength of mind, as he didn¡¯t pass out but in place grabbed Nick¡¯s hands in an attempt to twist them. Nick resolved it with a kick to his crotch, a quick tap to his throat and a dramatic knee to his face, yet again making a little firework. The man staggered and just for any case Nick knee¡¯d him one last time. Once the job was done, he turned around to the girl, smiling and wiping some blood off his face. Her eyes filled with strange glitter, like raw diamonds in the shine of the dusk rays of the sun. ¡°Well hello there. How are you doing little miss?¡±- he said almost falling. ________ They sat in front of each other, glaring a little in annoyance. The kid between them seemed a little out of place. No animosity just plain confusion. ¡°Why am I doing this again?¡±- said Zani, giving Rom a complex look. ¡°Let¡¯s just get it over with, ok?¡±- said Rom tired of this bullshit. It always proved painful to persuade a seer. They always cut you off and when you open your mouth they already understand some things that you yourself hasn¡¯t come up with. Rude, irritating and plain frustrating. But even with them there is a trick. A bit of a mind magic there, a bit of a normal magic here and there we go everyone is happy, mostly. Seers can¡¯t see something ¡®that doesn¡¯t happen around them¡¯ or at least if they¡¯re not aware of it. And who cares that she is a friend she was acting a bit shitty. ¡°Ugh, fine. But you do know that you are full of shit, I hope?¡± ¨C she said as she stretched her hands towards him. ¡°Sure.¡±- he grabbed them. It didn¡¯t even take a second for her to let go of his hands. As if burnt she screamed, falling off her chair. Her wrinkled face seeming even older, as it distorted in pain and fear. ¡°He saw me! He grasped me! Ocean of nightmares¡­Cracked open like an egg¡­¡±- she screamed, rambling something afterwards. The boy fell to her, trying to soothe her, panicking. Rom tried to help too, but they boy pressed a hand against him trying to push. ¡°Get out. NOW!¡± ________ Streets passed him, faces, lights, colours. He was running. In his mind there was only one thing, the inconspicuous house, the one that he saw as he entered the city, just after they said their goodbyes to Marren. The girl told him, her parents were there, stolen from her, kept there, that place on the edge of the city, near the walls. He heard someone scream, then saw someone clothed in black jumping at him. He simply dodged, punching that someone in the chin and then continued on running. Air around him felt fuzzy, strange, as if some sort of threads were caressing him, tickling his brain, weaving through his eyes. As if in a dream, he felt detached from everything around, led only by the conviction he had in his head, pushed by it towards the house. The colours slowly changed from brimming bright colours to those of darker tone, grey, black, brown. And the faces, from happy to despairing, hollow and hopeless shifting, until they were replaced completely by nothingness. The world woven itself from light slowly darkening to the fabric of shadows, shades passing, dancing in threads in his eyes, flowing through to his ears and enveloping him. The looming shadow in front of him, somehow different from the other ones around, connected to ashen silhouettes of houses, was the place of his destination. He stopped, raising his hand. Something inside of his head, deep deep inside, deeper than his conscious, something akin to an instinct but much more chaotic, something that was not touched by the threads, no matter how distorted they were, that something took over him. The door, the wall, the person that was standing behind it, the man¡¯s hair, his dagger, the magic around him, the air, his leather shoes, his iron locket on his neck, intestines, his emotions, the time around him, the threads, the space, all moved in tranquil entropy, morphing, mixing, combining, tearing apart and then connecting, infinitely but also finite. Nick¡¯s hand fell, as his body moved through the opening, ground slimy, solid, watery and gaseous at the same time. Things fell on him as gravity kicked in. The air, a mixture of many different scents both disgusting and nice to smell at the same time. There were other people in the room, screaming, running, some away from him, some towards. His hands rose, dancing in the air, trailing through the strange air, densely filled with magic and the space itself messed up, weird. People fell. Unconscious or just knocked down, he didn¡¯t care, his hands danced, as he moved through the house. Sometimes hands trailed distortion, chaos everywhere it touched, sometimes skin on them falling off morphing with the air or whatever it was near, sometimes everything around him was distorting little by little, shapes in his eyes taking different forms, human silhouettes dissipating and morphing with threads or everything that is everywhere, forming either horrible amalgamations or majestic work of art. It wasn¡¯t long until more threads appeared near him, all different with colour, brighter than the previous, desiring to weave around him, to choke him, kill him, tear him to shreds. But all of them were disappearing, dissipating in the brief endlessness of this chaos. Until a thread, strong and solid enough appeared, bounding him, reaching through his ears eyes and mouth into the mind, weaving something in his mind, until it was broken by the chaos and dissipated into useless information, overloading the brain and ultimately shutting it off. ___________ Author''s Note ___________ Eeeeey, It''s Me! This took unusually longer than i anticipated. Anyway enjoy this fresh chapter. The weird prose i use is to generally describe the weird nature of mysticism that happens to them or the insane nature of supernatural or some other bullshit like that. Nonetheless next chapter soon (i hope in next 5 days). Cheers! Chapter 13 - Illusions When the fucker finally fell, fear that has been creeping towards me disappeared. The chains that were keeping my anger together also came loose. I lunged towards him, dagger still in my hand, but not shacking like it was before, steady, guided more by my bloodlust rather than strength. Moments before the dagger would enter his throat I stopped, feeling the strong pressure, the density of magic. ¡°Never thought you to be the caring type.¡± ¨C said Jean, the mysterious man, clothed in purple cloak. He was the supervisor from the employer¡¯s side. ¡°Well, I am. This will make it a lot more expensive as you understand.¡±- I said, while standing up, unable to resist my temptation to stomp on the bastard¡¯s face. I felt satisfaction as his nose crunched under my foot, curves of my mouth slightly going up as I heard a muffled snarl. Someone already did a fine job on his nose, my work was simply a finishing touch. ¡°Of course, that is evident. Mind you, we don¡¯t want the package to be crippled¡­¡±- seeing my glare, he added a slight smile. ¨C ¡° I understand the inner turmoils that you are currently undergoing, but remember Ushan, my enterprise had agreement with the Golloth¡¯s Eye, so please be mindful.¡± This shitface was really getting on my nerves. He was right, of course. But what was getting on my nerves is that he only helped after witnessing his power. To this ¡®supervisor¡¯ we were nothing but lab rats, after our fuck up. My fuck up. No matter how shitty it was, I had to swallow my pride and calm my anger in that moment. The Eye does not forgive those who tarnish its reputation. I had to remind myself ,constantly, no matter how sour it was, it was my fault ultimately. If only I judged the strength of our target correctly. My fists tightened, as memory of his aura flashed. Chaotic and messy, very very similar to a young weaver, but only a touch different. With weavers you could feel some control, here it was only pure chaos. ¡°FUCK!¡±- I yelled, some of my team giving me a heavy look, rest just vomiting. Some slime fell on my shoulder and I looked up. Qir¡¯s face stared back at me, his body broken an torn, connected to the wooden ceiling, face distorted, even liquefied but still recognisable, though barely I looked down, realising I still had my dagger in my fist. A bit of the old anger flowed in me, calling me for vengeance or some sort of retribution. I am used to seeing people dying, on both ends. People I don¡¯t care about, people I hate, people I love and cherish. It always felt strange, seeing the corpse of a person, you just talked to yesterday, here frozen, unmoving, with a still expression. But the way Qir left the world¡­ was too cruel. I clenched my teeth and shook my head, these emotions are dangerous and mostly unnecessary, especially in my line of work. I sheathed the dagger back, and turned around, trying to walk towards my men. Something produced a sound under my foot. I looked down, it was an eye. This whole place turned into one big mish-mash of things. Things morphed with each other in one big circle or rather ball, this fucker at the center of it. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. I increased my pace walking, looking down and regretting, trying not to soil the corpses more than they have already been. There is something particularly disgusting about an idea of walking on the floor fused with the corpses of your teammates. When I reached them, I asked the man with a broken jaw, Vocir, how Gale was doing. His response didn¡¯t particularly lighten my mood. She was still in the same state she was after her performing mind magic on the target. ¡°I already knew something was wrong, when she started shaking. He was supposed to pass out before he would fight those thugs or at least in the middle of the brawl. She must¡¯ve thought plan b would work and sent the house to his mind. But the cunt reversed it. The little stage act we were playing, he turned it real in her head. Ushan¡­ she was still screaming that her mother and father were stolen, she thought she was that little girl¡­ she¡­ couldn¡¯t remember me¡­ tell me will that fucker will suffer. ¡°- Vocir said quietly, tears almost rolling out of his eyes. I really should¡¯ve scolded him for attacking the target without orders, but I just patted him on the shoulder. Everyone was full of it today. ¡°You heard him, Jean.¡±- I said, trying to keep my voice impassive. After so many years of practice it came out perfect. ¡°Uh, yes?¡±- he looked at us, away from the target¡¯s face. He was examining him, rather the aura that he had, the flows of magic around him. ¨C ¡°Yes, yes. You should not doubt that. He will experience the cruellest of fates¡±- he said clasping his hands, with a sly grin across his face. I nodded. ¡°So¡­ Shall we¡­ proceed?¡±- he said smiling satisfactory, whatever he was doing there, definitely lighten his mood. The rest of the team stood up, some still shaking. I commanded Jores, a tall blonde man to pick up the target. I, myself, took out an incinerate device, weaving a little runework, a fuse and a timer into it. ¡®They deserve a better way to be buried.¡¯ ¨C my conscience told me, rare cases where it was right. ¡°No evidence must be left.¡±- I spoke quietly dropping the little triangle on the floor. When we were out it was already twilight, but the darker kind, clouds covering the sun, blue pre-night if anything. ¡°They were good friends.¡±- said Vocir. Friends is a hard thing to gain working for the Eye, but if anything this little family of ours are truly friends. ¡°Yes, they were¡­ friends.¡±- I said, giving quick glance back, to the orange lights of fire, replacing the absence of the twilight sun. ______________ Author''s Note ______________ Sorry, for the short chapter. Things finally start to pace up(Kind of). Also i used the naughty word (huehuehue) Anyway expect next chapter again within next 5 days. Cheers! Codex thing or something I decided to create a small codex thingo for places, so that it makes a little bit more sense. With the way i rush the story i don''t really have enough time to flesh out the world or the characters to their full potential. Anyway, I stylized this codex thingo as a book from that world. And yes if you don''t want any minor spoilers don''t read this. The codex is not finished but is planned to be updated regularly. Enjoy? _____________________________________________ Salvador¡¯s Guide Around Seven Sacred Continents. Hello, there! Yes, you dear reader! It is I, Great Traveller Salvador La Costa address you, dear reader. I travelled across many different lands, seen many different sights and ate many different foods.* In this majestic guide, you will find many great and interesting places that I have visited and wrote down for you in great detail. I hope you shall be inspired by this and yourself will travel around this vast and, yet, not fully explored world. *Find your copy of ¡®Salvador¡¯s Great Cooking Guide of All Seven Continents¡¯ in your local bookstore, so that even you could surprise your guests with the spice of Hjaalmari food! ____________________________________________________ Roan ¨C 3rd largest continent. Summers are hot and winters are cold, but ale is always strong in Roan. Has 2 large countries Semeria and Kairin and many other smaller states, controlled by kings, counts and so on. Angry little place. Lots of scuffles between old families, lots of blood vengeance. Yuck! Scary stuff! In the middle, at the heart of their land, they even have a so-called place of Old One¡¯s battle. The Iron Forest, where the Trolls battled and left their giant swords in the ground, at least according to their pagan beliefs, But when I was there I heard some rumours about demons trailing through those woods. Chilling Stuff! ________ Semeria ¨C Second largest country in Roan, after Kairin. Divided into Hamlets controlled by lords and Counts like. Semeria whenever you hear of it, you always think about revolution or insurrection¡­ or at least a failed one. The place boasts to have the most powerful magicians employed in their ¡®Ethereal Light¡¯, all required to dress in indigo and slaughter things. Ugh! In Semeria indigo is associated with fear. _________ Sokolgrad ¨C A city-state near Kairin. ¡°City of the Mighty Hawk.¡± At first a small fortress around a place walled off by rivers and waterfalls. The count discovered a mine underneath it, filled with many precious minerals and gems. He seized the opportunity and divided from Kairin, turning the fortress into the trading center off all western Roan. Fast forward 200 years later, the place is gigantic, with an army capable to overtake a country. Hated by Kairin but still trade with them. That¡¯s what Salvador would call an underhanded trade! Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. _________ Hjaalmar ¨C 4th largest continent. Filled with deserts, rocks and mountains. It always surprised how people could live on this barren land, full of nothing but danger. Filled with small clans of Jharen, stovvman warring between each other and killing seemingly almost for fun. Crazy men with crazy traditions. Always tend to raid Marzale, annoying them greatly. Known for their warped vision of honour and their use of axes and spears. But Hjaalmar also is known for its rich city-states, some as big as some countries. But the gem of Hjaalmar and a must-place visit is, of course, Amrolk. _________ Amrolk ¨C ¡°City that Never Sleeps ¡±or ¡°The Enchanted Amrolk¡±, this by no means magical place truly stands to its names. Not only does it host the infamous Erridelle¡¯s Chasm and the no less famous Amrolk Institution of Magic, but also it is a great tourist spot. People are kind and things seem very controlled. Place may seem a tad expensive but it is worth it absolutely. Sometimes merchants may get annoying as they will definitely swarm on you, trying to sell you their merchandise. Do not fret to shoo them away, no matter how rude it may seem. _________ Illidan ¨C a country named after continent, situated on the largest continent in the known world, named after the country, my homeland. Though ironically most of my continent is uninhabited, being the Eastern side the only civilized place, we do indeed truly use the pinnacle of technology across all lands of the world, so it¡¯s all good. We have steam- paths drifting between giant houses, we call heavencrawlers, we have magic force flowing through houses and many, many, MANY other things, that an intelligent mind such as yourself would surely enjoy. Everyone in our society is respected and highly regarded. A great place over all. There are downsides, like demons constantly pouring out of the black wall on the western edge of our land and the world, but that¡¯s why we have hunters and that¡¯s why the place is perfectly safe. Our Emperorship cares about us and loves and provides every visitor with many gifts. __________ Faram ¨C continent of 4 nations, so very different from each other. The place is like 4 different continents mashed together and presented on the platter. Despite from what it sounds the place is amazing. The heat and spices of Laeres Dominion of their rocky mountains and dusty planes. The flower deserts and pink forests of Ko-Dushi syndicate. The cold temperature and warm welcomes of Ishvadir Republic and magical storms coupled with entrancing crevices of Marzale. A must place, though a little bit dangerous, lots of magical beasts and magic distortions, but hiring protection solves this problem. Faram is known for their sell-swords as much as it is known for its 4 countries.