| You have been invited to |
| The Tournament |
| You are The Repudiate |
Chapter 26: 35.0°C
Due to the viciously extreme climate of the Anhydrous desert, there were few who ever willingly entered. Even when the Country of Smiling Skies existed, all the trade routes looped around the deadly wastelands, instead preferring to traverse the Dead Lake and out from the Golden Country to reach their destination. Not even adventurers were enticed enough by the prospect of untouched artifacts hidden in buried ruins to risk the journey. There were some, however, few that they may be, who managed to call the Anhydrous desert home. A small tribe whose existence wasn''t even known by most of the outside world.
The roaring day star was beating its scorching rays with an unusually high heat on this day. A blaring bonfire rose high in the sky in the center of a small tribal community. The star and bonfire worked together to cook the surrounding sand, bubbling to languid arms of blackened glass.
The Phlogiston had built their culture on their absolute control over temperature and were mostly immune to the usual heat of the day star. Mostly immune was not completely immune, and not all members shared the same degree of mastery. On particularly scolding days, such as the one they suffered today, most of the tribe gave the central bonfire a wide berth, preferring to lounge at the nearby oasis, hidden under umbrella trees and watching the children splash in the shallow pool. Not all the Phlogiston avoided the bonfire.
Within the blazing flame of the bonfire itself, nestled atop charcoaled logs, a man sat cross-legged. His teeth clattered uncontrollably, his arms hugging himself tightly, fervently trying to rub warmth into his frigid limbs. The short man had long platinum hair and wore around twenty layers of heavy winter coats. His body looked completely bloated as the countless layers of clothing struggled to remain tied closed. He wore an innumerable number of mittens, and he still bunched his hands into fists, recoiling them into his sleeve for more warmth. He had seven cotton hats, each one larger than the last, stacked atop one another and still wore every winter coat-hood on top of those. Stacked atop the layer of hats and atop the layers of hoods, delicately balancing at the very peak of cloth on his head, was a large pewter cauldron filled with boiling stew.
While most of the tribe steered clear, hiding in the shade and fanning each other with fronds, the man in the fire used his power over fire to fuel the bonfire even more. A continuous stream of deep red flame bellowed out from his body, vitalizing the bonfire, melting more sand, and still not warming him enough.
In front of the burning man and the bonfire, sitting about halfway to the edge of the glass was an elderly man, clean-shaven and thin to the point of near emaciation. The elder quietly sat cross-legged upon the burning glass, hands peacefully resting over his knees. Surrounding the elder further to the edge of the glass was a group of distraught children wincing and huffing as they hopped from foot to foot, trying to reduce the amount of time their poor bare feet spent touching the scorching glass.
Not all the children struggled on the glass; there was a pair of fraternal twins, a boy and a girl, who managed to sit themselves. Although they tried to maintain a stoic face, all could see they were in a constant battle of subtly readjusting to avoid having any individual part of their body bear the heat for too long.
The tribe''s clothes could not be any more different than that of the man in the bonfire as they all wore thin light cloths that merely worked to hide their skin from the rays of the day star. The elder was totally unfazed by the glass''s temperature or the children''s radical movement as he continued his lesson. "You must rest tranquil on the glass and meditate on the temperature if any of you wish to unlock the power of the Phlogiston''s flame."
One of the younger boys complained. "But it hurts, it''s too hot."
The elder carefully stroked his beard while ignoring the groans of the annoyed children and continued with his lecture. "The Phlogiston''s flame thrives through strife. When a Phlogiston puts themselves in a position of discomfort and learns to accept and make peace with that discomfort, is when a Phlogiston will finally be able to grow."
"My mom grounded me from going to the oasis for a whole week. Don''t we know enough about strife?"
The elder laughed with such ferocity he fell on his back. "No, you will need to at least be grounded from the oasis for a month to even catch a glimpse of the flame."
The children let out a ubiquitous outcry of displeasure at the impossible obstacle placed before them. One of the children eventually asked the elder. "I could be playing kickball right now. I just showed up for your lesson because I thought I could shoot fire out of my hands like you or Mr. Crockpot. I didn''t know there would be training, and why does it have to be so depressing and sad?" The children resonated with this concern harmoniously as many nodded their heads in agreement.
The twins did not join in this class mutiny as they silently meditated on the glass, using all their will to overcome the overpowering heat, their faces scrunched in pained concentration.
The elder calmly responded to the child''s question. "The Phlogiston flame is not depressing or sad-"
One of the children quickly butted in. "But you said it was all about strife or whatever!"
"It is about overcoming strife. The phlogiston flame is about overcoming one''s limits and dashing away the shackles of leisure which excuse imperfect action. When we put ourselves in these positions or in this mindset, it is then that we can work on improving the core of ourselves and refine the person we desire to become..."
"I don''t know; it sounds like a lot of work when I could just go play kickball."
"¡and you''ll be able to shoot fire out of your hands." The children all shouted out in rapturous excitement and were revitalized into another weak attempt at bearing the glass''s heat. The day continued on, and slowly, more and more children would give up and move on to other things.
On the bright side, there were now enough children to have a full kickball game.
The only people left within the glass perimeter were the elder, the man in the bonfire, a few meditating adults by the edge, and the twins. The twins were the last of the children forcing themselves through the arduous lesson, a mixture of pride and competition pushing them through the hardship. The twins were each trying to best the other by inching closer to the bonfire than the other without having to run out of the glass to cool down. Both had made significant progress since when they first started and were even close enough to confront the man in the fire.
"Psst, psst, hey¡ Mr. Crockpot!" The man inside the bonfire stuck his nose out from under his winter collar, wiggling himself free of his scarves and looked at the little girl in front of him. He pushed through his constantly spasming muscles to show the girl a great, big grin. "Hey, Mondo, looks like you made it here first this time. New technique?"
Mondo pushed off the glass with her hands to give her bum a brief reprieve and then dropped down and shot her arms high in the air to give them a turn, rapidly repeating the process as she huffed in and out with a practiced rhythm. She gave Mr. Crockpot an ear-splitting smile and a thumbs-up. "Yeah!"
"Are you going for the full prize today?"Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
"Huff, huff. Yes, yes. I can do it." Mondo was speaking quickly between winces. Mr. Crockpot raised an unconvinced eyebrow at the girl, but nonetheless, he grabbed a metal bowl next to him and poured in a big ladle full of stew from his cauldron. Now that the bowl was ready, the girl cupped her two hands to receive the bowl. As she felt a lick of the bonfire flame, she retracted her hands, holding them as close to her chest while tilting her head as far away as she could.
Mr. Crockpot snickered at the action. "Now come on, Mondo. I can''t give you the bowl if your hands aren''t past the line."
Mondo''s brother finally noticed how close his sister was to the bonfire and quickly began scooting closer while letting out pained oohs and aahs. Mondo turned her head back towards the bonfire but kept her head down as she couldn''t take the heat waves directly splashing against her face. She slowly stretched her arm out, shaking incessantly.
"I''m going to hand you the bowl now. Are you ready?"
Mondo fought back some small, quickly evaporating tears and bit her lip. "mmhmm."
She gave the briefest nod, and Mr. Crockpot let out a sly smile before slowly moving his arms over hers and descending the bowl. "Okay, here you go."
He placed the bowl onto her hands, and she immediately retracted her arms away, spilling the stew all over the glass. "YEOUCH!!!!!!!!!" She shouted at the top of her lungs and instantly jumped up high into the air and ran out of the glass perimeter in as large of steps as she possibly could. The elder and all the adults ruptured into laughter at the expected result.
Mr. Crockpot held back his mirth and turned to the brother, "What about you, Zen? Are you going to try the stew today?"
Mondo''s brother Zen stopped his hurried scooting as he watched his sister run away. He turned back to Mr. Crockpot and gave a shy smile. "I think I''ll just try and get used to being this close for now."
The elder stood from his meditation halfway out the glass and approached the bonfire, joining Mr. Crockpot inside. The elder grabbed the spilled bowl of stew and started scooping the remaining unspilled food with his hands and eating it. He spoke to Zen as he did this. "Very wise, Zen. Divide and conquer, take every challenge, one problem and one step at a time. Eventually, you will make it here and have a delicious taste of stew, yes?"
"Nope!" Zen swiftly retorted as he rocketed into the air, span around, and bolted out of the glass perimeter, barely even touching the glass, shouting as loudly as his sister had. "YEOUCH!!!!!!!!!"
The elder and Mr. Crockpot broke into laughter, refilling their bowls and gulping down. After downing an entire bowl of stew and wiping his chin of spilled remnants, the elder spoke to Mr. Crockpot. "And what about you, Hiemal? How is your meditation going?"
Hiemal drank two full bowls of stew but his shivering did not relent. "I don''t know; no matter how hard I try, I can''t seem to break into the orange stage. I managed to unlock the red flame just five years after coming to your village, but it has been fifteen since then, and I still don''t feel any closer to orange."
The elder nodded, stroking his chin. "You managed to unlock the Phlogiston flame exceptionally quickly as you worked on conquering the strife that sent you to this desert. But as I told the children, the Phlogiston flame is not about strife but overcoming it and moving on. Even now, twenty years later, you are still holding on to something. Acceptance was but only the first step.
Hiemal''s complexion was wrought with a deep sadness. "But I don''t want to forget and move on."
The elder grew a wide smirk and wagged his finger at Hiemal. "Ahh, but forgetting and moving on are not the same thing. You seem to have it in your mind that if you don''t remember those who were important to you at their worst moment, then you have done them some sort of injustice. You think that if you truly embrace yourself into our tribe and openly call us as a new family, then you are discarding your old family."
Hiemal had nothing to respond to the elder; he just continued to shake as he prepared another bowl of stew for himself. The elder shook his head in disappointment. "You have been listening, but you have not been learning. It is not what was destroyed that made your relationships important; it is what was created, so why are you so fixated on the destruction? Why don''t you tell me about the Country of Smiling Skies."
Hiemal was taken aback slightly by the sudden prodding of the elder. He brought his hand over to his breast pocket and contemplated, though his outermost jacket didn''t have a breast pocket. "Well, it''s colder than here."
"Tell me about before the storm."
It took Hiemal time for him to rummage through his mind to find what to say. He gave a small smile. "It was still colder than here."
The two shared a rapturous laugh; the laugh was much more exaggerated than anyone else would have thought the comment was worth. Hiemal continued on. "I guess since the tribe is so seclusive, you probably don''t know the rumours, but it was just as beautiful as everyone said. Every night, it was so clear that you could see the whole galaxy; you could go swimming all year round and fly a kite at any time. Oh, kites are these sheets of thin material tied to a string that dance in the wind."
"These kites sound very interesting to watch."
Hiemal let out a hollow chuckle at the elder''s comments. "They really were; my sister and I used to love going to the yearly kite festival and watching thousands of crazy huge and intricate kites fill the sky. There was this one time that my sister wanted to see this specific dragon kite up close, so we snuck into the engineering tent. We ended up accidentally snapping the string, and the kite flew wildly in the air for an hour before it crashed down and landed right on my sister. I guess you could say that was karma."
"You seem to be really close with your sister."
"I actually have five, but I was particularly close with Gascon."
The elder burst into a fit of laughter while slapping Hiemal''s back. "Yes, yes, exactly! You HAVE five sisters. You see, fire is very destructive. People tend to think that way, but fire created this glass before us, and it helped create this stew for us, as well as the light that fills our homes. The worst mistake a practitioner of the Phlogiston''s flame can make is to think that destruction negates creation and that the two are separate. I''m going to make an assumption now and say that your sister Gascon is dead. But that destruction did not negate the creation of Gascon. She is still your sister and always will be. The red flame was you accepting what was lost, the orange flame will be you accepting what can be found."
The elder stood up and arched his back, letting out an uncomfortable number of cracks. "Now I''m going to join those two twins at the oasis to cool down. I have no idea how you can constantly handle all of this heat."
The elder then tilted his head to either side, cracking his neck. He took a final scoop of the stew and massaged his throat. He shook some life back into his sleeping legs, took a deep inhale and then-
"YEOUCH!!!!!!!!!" The elder shouted at the top of his lungs, running out of the bonfire and its glass perimeter as quickly as he possibly could.
Hiemal was different from the locals; while they worked on mastering temperature itself and overcoming the cold and heat, Hiemal only wanted to overcome the cold. He hardly ever left the bonfire unless it was to help the village in some sort of emergency or building effort, and even then, he would usually bring the bonfire with him.
Hiemal meditated in the bonfire while thinking about what the elder had said. He thought about what it meant to accept what could be found, but his contemplation was interrupted by the sudden chime of a bell.
Directly in front of Hiemal there was what seemed to be a small pink rhombus that grew out of thin air, or it was a rhombus, but its body would reject any stable state. It would shift and transform, shrink and grow, continuously morphing into other shapes. The pink shape finally locked into a form resembling that of a featureless human with only one limb. The pink organism''s single arm was outstretched toward Hiemal holding on to a glowing parchment.
As soon as the parchment was exposed to the ludicrous heat of the area, it burst into flames and disintegrated. The pink organism once again began to morph and transform, continuously changing shape until, finally, it was just a rhombus that simply shrunk out of existence. Then Hiemal heard the sudden chime of a bell.
In front of Hiemal, a little way away just outside of the glass perimeter, there was what seemed to be a small pink rhombus that grew out of thin air, or it was a rhombus, but its body would reject any stable state. It would shift and transform, shrink and grow, continuously morphing into other shapes. The pink shape finally locked into a form resembling that of a featureless human with only one limb. The pink organism''s single arm was outstretched toward Hiemal holding on to a glowing parchment.
For the first time in three months, Hiemal stood up and left the bonfire. He walked over to the pink organism. Hiemal took the glowing parchment and read it.
| You have been invited to |
| The Tournament |
| You are The Hyperborean |
Chapter 27: Hopping
The thinning forest made way to a bright shell beach, its many minuscule iridescent fragments scattering the day''s rays across a glistening lustre. The colourful beach stretched out unnaturally, dipping lower than any reasonable sea level and pushing further out than any reasonable shorefront. As the beach continued out and down, it too grew less empty. Corpses strewn over the basin floor by the thousands, squinting far to the great yonder, by the hundred-thousands. Minnows to sharks, whales to rays, it was an ocean without water, a sea of rot. The decay rank in the air, the angry day star baking an insufferable odour, flesh seared to the shell sands, bones ivory stained and brittle. Even at the boundary of water and sand, the desolate beach could not be contained; pushing outward, it forced the ocean to give way to a dry path of wasted sea life carving into the horizon.
The otherworldly wrongness of the not-beach disturbed her; she curled her bare toes into the rich Golden Country soil as if that weakly moulding dirt somehow anchored her to the understandable real. A wizened hand pressed upon tree bark to comfort in the vital greenery that surrounded her. She was not on that beach yet, and if all went well, she wouldn''t have to stay long. The world''s edge was not a place to visit lightly.
She unwound her toes from the soil''s calming grip and stepped forth. The elderly woman slowly trodded onto the beach, her hands grasping her great cane. It was an odd cane, its slender ebony pitch staff rising higher than she were tall and then topped at the tip with a bulbous mound of black fur. The lengthy fur, wild and growing into thick textured strands that coiled together in uneven rope-like tendrils. Despite the clear, hefty mass of the thick furry coils, they danced about as if billowing in a non-existent wind. The old woman''s spine was so twisted she pushed nearly her whole weight into the cane to complete the tripedal stance of old age.
Despite how far from home she was, the woman looked quite fitting in the disturbing ocean bed surrounded by death stranding. Her damp skin, patched with moss, sagged on her haggard body. The line of flesh to cloth ambiguous as the mossy skin meddled with slimy vines and thick bark to illude some sort of murky dress. On the seafloor, her long brownish-green hair gave the guise of dried kelp, draping over her face, completely obscuring it save for the sharp needlepoint nose poking through.
She hadn''t wanted to visit the edge of the world, but she was running out of places to search, and not even rumours of impossible holes could deter her anymore. That tiny flying bug-person assured her that it never stole her precious scion. Some of the forest spirits mentioned feeling its presence at one point but would always say that it had long since left their territory. The elderly woman had scoured the entirety of Trammel multiple times over at this time yet still hadn''t tracked it down. They were approaching the critical point now; if she couldn''t return it home soon, then the one whom she dedicated herself to would not survive. She was desperate, and out of ideas, and so she came here.
Deep into the trenches of the dried ocean, the elderly woman cleared her throat and spoke, voice crackling, "Umm, excuse me?" She didn''t speak in any discernable language, her voice simply carrying the nature of communication itself. "I''m sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if anyone has seen a particular fruit?" She respectfully asked out to the beach, though she only had the deceased sea life as accompaniment, and so, she received no response.
"Um, it''s a little small and has a cute little spiral birthmark; it''s a very kind fruit that always says please and thank you and¡" The elderly woman stopped her gushing praise of the lost fruit and self-consciously looked around the lifeless beach. "I''m sorry if I look a little scary to some of you, but I mean no harm."
She waited for a reply, but just like the rest of the responses she received, they were only spoken with howling winds and distant waves. "Oh! How rude of me. I should have introduced myself first. You all can call me Granny Ayah."
Granny Ayah paused again, waiting patiently for a non-existent reply. She nervously fiddled with her furry cane and curled her toes, bunching up a pile of broken shells below her feet. "You see, I''m quite worried about the fruit¡ I just want to bring it back home. Everyone there misses the fruit dearly." Granny Ayah looked down to her cold bare feet.
"We have a lot of birthdays to catch up on." A whistle of wind blew her raggedy hair astray, tossing a few strands into her open mouth. "ptui- I guess I''ll have a lot of baking to look forward to. That''s my duty as a granny, don''t you think?"
Just when she thought she was doomed to silence, a squeaky voice shyly cut through the howling wind. "¡ am I invited?"
Excited to finally get a response, Granny Ayah straightened as tall as her twisted spine would allow and exclaimed. "Of course, of course! Our little fruit loves making new friends, especially with your kind. The more the merrier!"
Not wanting to seem threatening, Granny Ayah parted the hair out of her face to reveal her great toothless smile and the swamp lily blooming from the patch of moss covering where a human would have had eyes. She spoke out to the empty beach with a renewed vigour, knowing that somewhere there was a listener. "I just need to find the little fruit first. You must have been all over the world, have you seen the fruit?"
"I don''t know the fruit."
Granny Ayah''s smile shrunk away along with her shoulders. "Oh."
"But I know someone who might."
She quickly regained her energy. "Can you take me to this someone?"
A pause lingered long enough that Ayah worried her shy companion had left, until finally, it meekly responded, "¡Okay."
Granny Ayah noticed a stirring in a small half-decomposed fish carcass. There was a cautious shuffling from within the corpse, though, despite the obvious movements, the body itself rested completely unaffected. Then it rose out from the corpse, transparent and intangible; it appeared as an illusory echo of the very form it had left. The ethereal fish swam out of its twin host, travelling through the air as if the ocean had still breathed about them.
The ghostly fish flew apprehensively, its nervous eyes glancing back to its rotten cadaver home. Granny Ayah patiently waited for the ethereal sea folk to adjust, allowing it time to overcome its anxiety and bravely approach the stranger. "I have to take you somewhere special first."
Granny Ayah presented her cane to the creature, tilting its furry sphere top to it. Upon approaching, the cane''s furry tendrils all statically pulled in the direction of the fish. "You can sit right here as you guide me." When the ghostly fish approached the sphere, its furry tendrils coiled around as a warmly blanket and pulled the fish inwards to its furry confines. The ghostly fish stained the fur it touched, shifting it from its dark hue to a similar ethereal transience. The ghostly appearance infected the entire cane and descended down its shaft until it struck the cold beach floor.
Once the whole cane turned ghostly, Granny Ayah''s feet rapidly dampened, a chilling wave washing over them. Granny Ayah looked down at her feet and saw the faint echoes of water splashing over her toes, then rising to her ankles, and then rising more. The water bore no colour, no weight, nor pressure; it hardly even existed at all, and yet it was felt. As the ethereal water line rose higher, its buoyancy lifted many hiding ghost fish out of their corpses, and soon, the invisible ocean exploded with life.
Granny Ayah strained her gaze up, the ocean''s surface way above her head, taller than even the greatest mountains of her homeland. An incomprehensibly diverse excitation of life swimming abound in every size, shape, and hue of biology. The world''s ocean revealed itself bare to the grandma, all while she stood alone on a dry bed, surrounded by rancid, half-decayed bodies.
It took her a moment to adjust to the stark dichotomy of life''s dead sea and death''s lively ocean, but it was a welcome adjustment. Her spirit couldn''t help lift upon seeing the dancing menagerie of spirits overhead, all who once were, together in history''s sea. The lonesome death that weighed on her before had completely disappeared, being quite literally overshadowed by the excited clamour of a hidden world full of life.
Enthralled by this miraculous world, Granny Ayah found herself mouth agape as she took in the ghostly aquarium. "So, this is where everyone was hiding."
Her ghostly companion poked their little head out of the furry cane top to address her, "It can get pretty boring staying with our bodies all the time, so most of us eventually visit the soul sea. I can take you to see the someone who might know where your friend is."
Granny Ayah obediently followed the directions of her little fishy friend, not wanting to be rude but still unable to restrain her gawking of the soul sea''s splendour. The plethora of colours and shapes, creatures endangered and extinct, some never even seen before. The scale of the entire experience was difficult to put into words; she was walking on the ocean floor as the real ocean was not present, but the ethereal water acted as if nothing had happened. It was the entire height of a mountain dense with activity.The endless history of life and death was peacefully swimming over her head. As she gawked, so too did many of the dead take interest in her.
"Ooh a visitor."
"She''s pretty."
"I like your soul Miss."
Many a curious soul stopped by to share brief pleasantries. The attention certainly slowed their pacing, but Granny Ayah couldn''t find herself minding, with how endearing everyone was. She did note, however, with a little anxiety, that they were slowly winding their way closer to the edge of the world, that dry corridor somehow thinning, almost contracting about her like a hunting serpent. Ayah''s concern was quickly supplanted by the spirits'' tugs for attention. The leviathan soul of an impossible whale easily demanded her full engagement as it wholly blotted any daylight as it approached. The mere size of such a creature intimidated, even if it spoke without threat and a friendly curiosity, "What brings Miss over to the soul sea?"The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Her little fish friend was quick to answer. "She''s looking for a lost friend."
"Oh, well his lordship should know then."
Even upon the expressionless form of a fish, souls had such a way of communing to which their thoughts were undeniable, and her little companion spoke with proudful empowerment, "That''s exactly what I was thinking; I was taking her to him now."
"Good luck, Miss. I hope you find your friend."
Granny Ayah thanked the kind whale for their concern and continued on with a wave goodbye. In an attempt to make small talk, Granny Ayah asked the little fish. "So, who is this lordship?"
"He''s not actually a lord or anything; everyone just calls his lordship his lordship since his lordship knows everything. I think he called it omnisciscince or something."
"To garner the praise of so many spirits, he must really be something."
"Oh yes, yes. If anyone would know where your friend is, it would be his lordship."
The journey from shoreline to world''s edge was not a short trek; in fact, it was incomprehensibly long; sometimes, it felt like with every step forward, that corridor grew two steps long. The ocean walls tightened on either side, now close enough that she could see the geometric spikes and tunnels undulating upon its surface. The little fish turned to Granny Ayah and spoke. "From here on out, make sure to follow my exact steps. If you walk even a teeny bit different from where I say or do, then it might be impossible for us to find each other again." Granny Ayah thought the fish was a little dramatic, but she played along, giving it an affirmative nod.
The two kept delving deeper into the barren beach all the way until Granny Ayah felt a light spray splash her face. It was a strange, overpowering feeling, not like the intangible coolness of the soul sea. It took her a moment to remember that was what real water felt like. They had finally arrived at the true ocean, the end of the carved corridor where she faced a flat wall of water. Craning her neck to either side, she saw it stretch to either horizon as if she hadn''t just been trekking between a divided sea for the past couple of hours. Gazing up, the ocean continued forever, conjoining to some impossible point far beyond where the blue hues of sky and sea blended seamlessly. The ocean''s face a turbulent assault of convulsions and impressions, shapes impossible to fluids forming and breaking but it would reject any stable state. It would shift and transform, shrinking and growing, continuously morphing into other shapes, her mind finally supplanted: they were waves.
She comforted herself in knowing that it was all on the other side, trapped and inapproachable, beyond the edge of the world. A place that no being would ever dare trespass; Granny Ayah could only hope that included her fruit.
"We''re here." The fish had stopped in front of a stone well. A quaint wooden roof peaked above, a rope drawn back on a spindle and tied to a bucket that rested on the well''s walls, smoothed by the wet of the ocean. Inside the bucket was an odd mixture of real and ethereal water, as if unsure of which world the bucket was meant to provide for. The little fish jumped out of Granny''s furry cane and into the well''s bucket with a little splash. It happily span a few circles, then surfaced, "His lordship will be at the bottom of the well."
Granny Ayah walked up to the out-of-place well and peered down its deep rocky shaft. The well pierced deep into the depths, the smoothed brickwork eventually ending, but a natural cave continuing the penetration into abyssal darkness. Granny Ayah gave her fishy companion an apprehensive eye but kept faith in her friend.
The first cause of concern with her tiny friend''s simple plan was that there was clearly no way she could fit in that bucket, but under the insistence of the little fish, she put her first foot in. At a distance, it looked like even her foot would hardly fit, but as her foot got closer, it almost appeared like it shrunk to fit in the bucket. As the rest of her body followed it too seemed to contort to its new small environment. Granny Ayah still struggled to fit her entire body into the small bucket but eventually managed to squeeze herself in with her folded knees rubbing against her ears. Then, she began feeding the rope some length to commence her descent.
Granny Ayah kept a firm hold of the rope, making sure to maintain a steady decline into the black below, and below they went. Down, deeper into the planet''s bod. The first thing to disappear was any smell of the outside world; the scent of rotting corpses and rushing saltwater had all but gone. Then, any sound of the outside world left; the howling wind, crashing waves, and chatting spirits seemed part of a faraway land now. Eventually, even light couldn''t make its way to the cramped shaft. Minutes turned to hours, and Granny Ayah found her skin getting more wrinkled than it already was from sitting in the bucket''s strange liquid for so long.
After a few more hours of descent, when Granny Ayah''s arms grew wobbly with fatigue and she struggled to maintain her steady pace, a saving light pierced the dark below. An eager fervour flooded her exhausted arms, and she accelerated her descent. Going lower more, she was welcomed by the methodical drip of droplets striking a shallow puddle. She descended even further down, and her nose was finally embraced with the stagnant stench of fish, the otherwise horrible scent a welcome relief after hours of sensory deprivation. Then, she finally came to an opening.
The base of the bucket could just hardly graze the surface of a shallow pond, Its connecting rope having been fully extended. A crack in the cave flooded the hollow with light. A single flat rock peaked out of the small pond. On top of this little rock, a fat toad perched proudly. Granny Ayah looked around the small cave before finally pointing to the toad and asking her fish friend. "Is that his lordship?"
The little fish gasped in horror before speedily stuttering. "I''m so sorry, your lordship; she is a guest and is still ignorant of some things. It is truly an honour to meet you."
Granny Ayah, having noticed her mistake, made a pained attempt at formally bowing in the cramped bucket. "I apologize, your lordship; I did not know exactly who or what I was going to meet, so I did not recognize you right away. I humbly ask for your forgiveness."
The toad made no gesture of acknowledgement as it replied. "Ribbit"
The little fish''s eyes widened in absolute bliss while happily wagging his tail. "Oh, you are so generous and merciful; your lordship, thank you."
Granny Ayah shot a confused glance at her fish friend but then looked back to his lordship and asked, "I have come here to seek your lordship''s guidance. I am looking for a friend, and I heard that you would know where they were."
Granny Ayah stared pleadingly at his lordship, trying to contain all her expectations and hopes. His lordship took a moment of deep thought and analysis and then bloated out his vocal sac and spoke. "Ribbit"
"I apologize, Your Lordship, but I do not understand the language that you speak. Would it be possible for you to translate, please?"
Granny Ayah couldn''t quite believe her own words. Perhaps she was just feebly grasping at straws to justify the time and effort of this trip. She waited patiently for his lordship to respond. His lordship remained quiet for an entire minute as he sat on his little rock without making a single movement. Granny Ayah also spent this entire minute silently watching His Lordship''s every action. Eventually, after a minute, the silence was broken. "Yes, I can see your friend, ribbit."
Granny Ayah''s face beamed with elation. She excitedly attempted to scooch forward in the bucket to get closer to his lordship as she asked. "Really! Where are they!?"
"They are in the bucket with you, ribbit."
The little fish did not waste a second to shower praise. "Wow, you are so wise, your lordship. Thank you for your great guidance!"
Granny Ayah threw a puzzled expression to the bucket, but inside, she could only see the little fish. "Do you mean this fish spirit, your lordship? Well, yes, it certainly is my friend, but this is not the friend that I was searching for."
Granny Ayah paused while she waited for his lordship to respond. She waited patiently for an excruciatingly long time, with only the occasional dripping sound of water filling the air. After a few minutes, his lordship stretched out his vocal sack and responded. "Oh, ¡ribbit."
"Your lordship, do you know where the friend that I am looking for is?"
"Of course, I know everything there is to know of the world."
"May you tell me where my friend is?"
His lordship did not immediately respond; however, he did blink for the first time in their meeting. His lordship sat on the little rock and truly took Granny Ayah''s question to heart searching deep within himself for how he could be of help. His lordship turned around on the spot, scanning the contents of the entire cave. Finally, he had fully turned, returning to his original position, and his lordship gave Granny Ayah his answer. "Your friend is not here, ribbit."
"Of course they aren''t! I thought you knew everything there was to know in the world?"
"I do know all there is to know of the world. I have just looked around it. I could not find our friend. I''m sorry to say that they must have passed on. It is time for you to move on. Ribbit."
"I know they aren''t in the well. Where are they outside the well?"
"Outside the well? What''s that?... Ribbit."
Granny Ayah was stunned silent. She could not believe what was unfolding before her. The little fish swam over to her to share their condolences. "I''m so sorry Granny, I had no idea that your friend had passed away. I will be here if you need a shoulder to cry on."
Responding uncharacteristically quick, his lordship said. "She cannot cry on your shoulder, for you do not have one little fish."
"Ooh, you''re right, your lordship. How very wise."
The sweet old Granny Ayah could not contain it anymore and burst into a fit of shouts. "No! His lordship is not wise! He hasn''t told anyone here anything they don''t already know! He knows nothing about the larger world, and this was all just a great big waste of time. I have rope burn from coming down here! His lordship can''t even consistently keep up his gimmick of croaking at the end of every sentence, and you little fish! His lordship is just a frog in a well, but what is your excuse, why did you tell me that he would have all my answers!? What do the two of you have to say for yourselves!?"
His lordship and the little fish both recoiled at the sudden outburst from Granny Ayah, and after a few seconds of her echoing shouts, the cave returned to an eerie silence. His lordship was the first to respond. "¡ ribbit?"
"Too late, frog boy."
Granny Ayah turned back to the little fish with a pointed finger, awaiting its excuse. "He said he knew everything."
"That obviously wasn''t true."
"I didn''t know that¡ I''m a fish."
Granny Ayah gave in to defeat. All of her rage faded just as quickly as it had roused. What happened was not the fault of these two simple creatures. Granny Ayah spoke with a calm, soft voice. "I am sorry for shouting at the two of you, I was just in a hurry to find my friend."
"I''m also sorry, Granny Ayah, I just wanted to help, but I didn''t know how."
The little fish swam over to Granny Ayah''s cheek and rubbed against it in a fish''s terrible attempt at a hug.
The frog awkwardly interjected into the tender moment with a question. "So, umm. In my infinite wisdom, I heard that there was going to be a birthday with baked goods. Will I be invited?"
¡°¡¡±
"¡ ribbit."
Granny Ayah looked over to the toad with a scornful glare; even the little fish still pressed against her cheek glared him down. Granny Ayah gave a curt but resolute answer. "No."
Suddenly, the loud sound of a bell chimed in the cave, echoing all throughout the small room. The toad felt its rock was being disturbed by something, so it hopped into the small pond and swam over to the bucket to crawl in.
On the small rock, there was what seemed to be a small pink rhombus, or it was a rhombus, but its body would reject any stable state. It would shift and transform, shrinking and growing, continuously morphing into other shapes. The pink shape finally locked into a form resembling that of a featureless human with only one limb. The arm was outstretched towards Granny Ayah holding a glowing parchment: It read.
| You have been invited to |
| The Tournament |
| You are The Mother |
Chapter 28: Recorded History
It had currently taken on the form of a female human, bushy hair puffing up into a haloed silhouette, untamed rivulets framing its round face. A brown tunic draped loosely over its slender frame down to the ankles that hid any human imperfections. A thick leather belt clamped the tunic tightly at the waist, and a large yellow headband over its forehead helped push that unruly hair out of its eyes.
It had just arrived at a quaint village, an unnamed hamlet, mostly quiet with little of note to fill meandering conversations. This made simple matters such as the arrival of strangers newsworthy, whose simple narrative would spread like a plague through the unpractised ears of bored villagers.
The reason it had arrived at this village was solely to confront the supposed vvitchenbreiver that called such an inane place home. It wanted to see one before they all disappeared, and supposedly, there should be one here.
Its initial impression of the minor hamlet and its plain shanty huts was of concern. The whole town was an uninspired dreg, each building the bare minimum to house its tenants. It was plain to see this was a village of farmers; the massive fields of brilliant crops were endlessly more impressive than the withered gathering of housing. The only point of contention was the grand Devootian temple, which, even from the village edge, could be seen looming over the town. It was the only building of stone and the only one constructed with any care or attention. It was still a plain, unimpressive thing, but relative to the homes surrounding it, the temple appeared a divine work of art.
Despite how small the village was and how little space there was to hide, The being was still caught by surprise when two small children snuck up on it, "You do look weird." the voice carried that high-pitched squeal of prepubescence and the being disguised in the form of a human female had to look down to spot their tiny forms. The childrens¡¯ hands were inversely cupped together, fingers in a constant dance upon each other''s palms.
The two children could not look any more different; the male on the left had black hair, brown eyes, too-small ears, and a black gown, his skin darker than the most pitch of blacks. The girl on the right had white hair, sharp, long ears, and a white gown, her skin paler than the most pristine white. The stranger part of the girl, however, were her eyes, which were a strange glazed red, clouded and unfocused. These eyes surprised the being; it had seen eyes like this many eons ago before the homomorphism, but surely the Devadoot worshippers of today''s age would go mad if they saw them.
The being disguised as a female human asked the two children. "Why do I look weird?". It awaited for a harshly honest answer to come immediately, blurting out as children were wont to do. Perhaps it would be about the being''s eerily unblemished skin, or its stoically perfect posture undoubtedly foreign to a farmer''s village, or maybe it would be about the bewildering yellow headband, a colour the children had likely never seen woven into fabric before. The children did not indulge in such juvenile curiosity; they didn''t reply at all, in fact. The two children instead turned inwards, their fingers exploding into a litany of silent activity across each other''s palms.
First, the girl moved her fingers over the boy''s palm, and then he to her. To the being''s surprise, the girl then responded. "Your clothes don''t quite fit."
Though the extra steps were unexpected, the children''s response was just as curiously pure as the being thought it would be. The being smirked with entertainment but couldn''t help asking, "How do you know what I look like? Is it not hard to see with your eyes?"
The little girl burst into laughter, and the boy, confused by his friend''s sudden movements, squeezed her hand questioningly. The little girl''s fingers fired into a flurry of movement over the boy''s palms as she simultaneously spoke. "I can see everything with his eyes, and he can hear everything with my ears."
Curiosity peaked, the being focused on the children''s hands and from the convoluted patterns of movements, the being saw it, a language. A girl without eyes and a boy without ears, yet they communed as well together as any other. The being waited for the girl to finish recounting the conversation to her friend through their hands. Once she finished and the boy was let in on the joke, he, too, burst into laughter, though his voice was strange, raspy and atonal, as if inexperienced.
"Do you two talk with your hands?"
"Yep, that''s right. We can always feel each other like this." The girl responded, both verbally to the being and with her fingers to the boy. The being drew its gaze over to the boy and spoke; this time, the being accompanied its words with a series of complex hand gestures. "Do you understand sign?"
The girl, confused, translated the sentence to her friend and then asked, "What''s sign?"
The boy excitedly released the girl''s hand to curl his fist up and down while nodding his head. The use of two separate sign languages impressed the being, though the little girl thought differently, letting out a panicked squeak the second the boy let go of her. Her panic continued to build until the boy reclasped her and translated the exchange for her.
The being spoke with both its voice and its hands. "Sign is a way that I can speak with your friend. This way, I can use sound to talk to you, lady, and visuals to speak with you, sir. I am impressed with this special touch language. Did you invent it yourselves?"
The boy, rather than sign back to the being, allowed his friend to respond for the both of them. The girl gave an unsure shrug, "I don''t know, I guess. We kind of just made whatever up as we went along."
"You two are very talented; how old are you?"
Once again, it was the girl who answered, likely a habit built from a vocally inclined society. "We''re both four."
The being tried to be discreet about voraciously analyzing every stroke of their movements in an attempt to decipher this new language. On the surface, ''she'' provided a kindly smile, "I have never seen four-year-olds quite like you two before."
Unused to such open compliments, the two children couldn''t help blushing with suppressed giggles. "Master says that we''re very smart for our age."
The being suppressed the spark of worry that word choice created and pressed forth, "Since the two of you are so smart, maybe you can help me. I am looking for a vvitchenbreiver that lives here. Do you know where they could be?"
The boy, with his free hand, pointed down one direction of the street while translating to his friend with the other. The boy was rapidly transcribing the directions to the girl who then relayed them to the being. "Um, so go down the road until you reach a¡ yellow house? Um, and then um go right for three blocks, then um left, then uh¡"
The being wasn''t sure if the boy chose to speak through that touch language instead of directly using sign language because he didn''t want to let go of the girl''s hand again or if it was because he was simply more familiar with that language.
After receiving the incomprehensibly confusing directions, the being nodded with a smile as if the instructions were even remotely helpful. "Thank you very much. I hope I will be able to see you both again."
The boy waved with a smile, and the girl cheered, "Goodbye, weird person!"
The girl waved to the now-empty space and translated what she said back to the boy. They were cute kids, and the being had to suppress another pang of sadness when thinking of the obstacles they would surely encounter. The being would definitely want to speak to the children again before leaving, but for now it had to go visit the vvitchenbreiver.
The being tried following the children''s directions, though it quickly became apparent that translating directions from a deaf boy through a blind girl led to less than stellar instructions. It was no surprise then that the being found itself utterly lost. A feat that was almost impressive given how miniscule hamlet was. The being was a little disheartened, having to abandon the children''s guidance, but it was getting nowhere quickly.
The devadootian church was an ever-present weenie in the town, with its structure being the only one taller than a single storey. The being thought that there would surely be people there who could give it more functional directions, and upon arriving it was not disappointed.
The church''s courtyard was oddly bustling for such a small town. The town''s priest was having an animated discussion with an irate mother bouncing her babe, what was likely the father on the periphery failing to placate either side. A couple of burly men carried a thick pillar to an unlit bonfire in the street''s center. A group of mismatched children, none near in age, played an uneven game of tag, their chaotic running disrupting their hardworking parents.
The being approached one of the citizens who was currently off to the side observing the pole mounting. "Excuse me, sir, would you happen to know where I could find the vvitchenbreiver?"
"What! Why in the Devadoot''s honour would you possibly want to see that disgusting recluse? I can tell you this now, stranger: if you¡¯re here to find that miserable wretch, you¡¯d better turn around and leave. Nothing good comes from associating with him. We''re already dealing with one of his messes; we don''t need you coming and conjuring another. I''m telling you, this is the last straw! There''s no way we''re letting him stay in our peaceful town after this."
The being was taken aback by the aggressive citizen but not surprised; humans tended to be rather close-minded in this generation. "May I ask exactly what did the vvitchenbreiver do?"This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
The citizen glared at the being with what could only be described as a mildly unsettling and certainly unfriendly look. "We¡¯ve all known he¡¯s been harbouring monsters in his drab hut. There''ve been strange sounds in the dark of night and he buys enough food for a whole family despite having been a hermit for years. He¡¯s finally gone and lost it. They say he¡¯s let the beast loose into our town, no one is safe anymore. You should be careful. Our town is usually such a peaceful place, but you¡¯ve chosen a poor time to visit, stranger"
"Oh my, that does sound horrible. I should definitely avoid getting anywhere near where he lives if there could be monsters there. Can you tell me where that is exactly so I can make sure to steer clear?"
It took longer than expected and a few more detours than the being would have liked, but it finally arrived at the vvitchenbreiver''s hut. The false-human slipped into a nearby alley, loosened its belt a few notches and transformed into a short, broad male. The being was never fond of staying in any particular form for too long; It did not like having humans know where it was and what it was doing. The ¡®broad man¡¯ left the alley and entered the vvitchenbreiver''s hut.
Upon entering, the being was surprised to find some familiar faces. Unexpectedly, the two children were here. If they were coming here all along, why didn''t they just guide the being in person? None noticed the being''s arrival, the two children with their heads down solemn and a pudgy elder with a deep hunch lost in a dramatic scolding rant. "I told you two to never leave here without my permission! Are you not aware of what you have done? The danger you have put yourselves in?"
The girl translated to the boy.
The boy then transcribed his response and she repeated his answer verbally, "But we had to go and see the weird person. Moiety saw it. It was the only way we had a chance of being free."
The older man was undeterred by the children''s excuses and continued his reprimand. "Moiety''s eyesight is still too weak. We can''t trust everything he sees; there may be as of yet unseen consequences from what you did today." It was then that the old man noticed the being silently watching. He stood tall, stepping between it and the children; his voice hard and authoritative. "I''m sorry, sir, we''re closed for the time being."
The boy turned around to see the being in its new disguised form. His face immediately glowing with recognition, his hands excitably scribing to the girl. "It''s weird person! See? We told you they would come. They can help us."
The being frowned, discontent with being outed so quickly. "How can you tell that I am the same person?"
The girl answered with a cheeky grin, "Like I said, he sees everything."
The old man reinvestigated the stranger now that he was armed with the newfound knowledge of who exactly it was. His suspicion did not leave, only strengthening, and he commenced an unceasing string of interrogations. "So, you''re this so-called saviour. What do you want? What are you going to do to them?"
The being was at a complete loss; it hadn''t even known of these children''s existence a few hours ago, and now it''s supposed to be their saviour? "I''m just as confused as you are, sir. I have no idea; I had not come here for them but for you."
The little girl''s posture plummeted, "What? But, but you''re supposed to take us away. You''re going to change the world so that we can truly live." There was a desperation in the girl''s voice. A little hope trying to fight against the crushing pressure placed upon it.
"I am sorry, but I am merely an observer. I don''t know what your friend''s eyes saw, but I never enact change; I merely document it." The being had long since gotten used to these conversations but still dreaded them as much as the first. The next part always pained it. The part where the others realized that it had come to watch their downfall, not stop it.
"So why are you here for me?" The old man asked, skepticism filling his voice.
"The vvitchenbreiver are not long for this world. I must document them before it is too late. You are the last vvitchenbreiver."
Grief flooded the man; his legs suddenly weak under him failed and he plopped into a chair to steady himself, "It, it can¡¯t be. Are you sure that I am the last vvitchenbreiver?"
The being merely nodded its head.
"What about Mosey?" Just because the being was used to these conversations didn''t mean that it enjoyed them. When the being came across other librarians, they never shared the same dread that the being did. They always apathetically completed their tasks; not even Luna understood. It wasn''t going to betray its occupation, but there was always that lingering hesitance in these moments.
The old man looked toward the being in hopes of finding an answer, but after a few seconds without response, he understood. "I see." His colour drained, strength sapped from his bones; perhaps it was just the being''s imagination, but his wrinkles seemed heavier.
The little boy, Moiety, approached the man, placing his free hand on the man''s lap. The boy could not fully understand what was happening, but he could see the grief. His fingers moved over the girl''s palm.
The girl gave Moiety a confused look, he nodded in assurance, and she hesitantly translated his message. "It''s okay, you don''t have to be sad. There was never really a Mosey anyway."
The old man looked up to the children, his pained visage contorted in puzzlement. The girl waited for the boy to translate the rest of his message to her.
The being felt a sense of importance from the encrypted words being traded between the two children, so it decided to record the event. The being raised a hand to its head and removed the yellow headband. Adorned upon the centre of its forehead was a third eye with three dark pupils enveloped in a pink iris. The three pupils merged into a single massive orb so large the optic rods were faintly visible within.
The trio were too enthralled in their own conversation to notice the being. The little girl continued to translate the boy''s message, her voice atonal and quick in a way which seemed rote. "Strange person is here to help us; they have books that can help us, that can save us. And when they do, everything will be okay again, and-¡± The girl paused, her face scrunched in confusion. She looked to her friend and he nodded affirmatively, repeating the same message upon her palm. She continued her transcription but this time with less surety, a repetition without cognition ¡°and Mosey can finally be born for the first time."
Distraught turned to rage ill-founded from mourning. He leapt from his seat, spitting bitterly. "You''re wrong! We''re not like you, we''re not monsters. I don''t know how life works for you, but when a real human dies, they don''t come back. If you were human, you wouldn''t come back either!"
The little girl was stunned still, her cloudy eyes tearing like a storm. The elder immediately realized his mistake. He regretfully begged. "I''m sorry, Tsela, please don''t translate that. I was angry; I didn''t mean it."
Tsela ignored the man. Her fingers trembled as they struggled to form the signs on the boy''s palm, salty tears raining onto their entwined hands. "Tsela, please don''t. I''m sorry." Her heart was nearly unable to pass on the words, but honesty forced her forth. Once Moiety received the message, his face filled with betrayal, then it morphed into anger.
He shouted in a broken, unpracticed voice. "Ur nah umin eiwer!" and released the girl''s hand, running out the door and disappearing into the village. When Tsela''s hand was released, she let out a terrified yelp and chased after Moiety''s fading footsteps. She struggled to find the doorknob but eventually managed to leave the room as well.
The old man buried his face in his hands, remorse and fear and pain and anger all mixing into a dizzying soup of self-loathing. "What have I done?" He didn''t stay depressed for long; pulling himself back together, he steeled himself. He had to make this right, "You have to help me bring them back!" He turned to the being ready to demand more, but all fight dissipated to naught upon seeing the leviathan third eye in its disturbing pink hue upon its forehead.
The being did not respond. It just stared back at the old man, unmoving, eyes watered with shame. If he wanted to get the children back, he would be alone. He huffed irritably, pushing past the being on his way to chase the kids. As he gripped the door''s handle, the being had an idea, "Did you teach them the way of the vvitchenbreiver?"
The man paused and turned back hopeful, "Yes, why?"
"Because when the day is over, I will need a vvitchenbreiver to observe."
Relief and resignation warred about the man''s face. He did not respond; instead, he gave a single nod and headed out the door.
Now, the being was alone in the quiet hut, only accompanied by the bizarre repertory of a bygone trade. The being took its time exploring the cozy hutch. Its third eye drank every detail left behind, the exact curves of the glassware, the age of the hanging plants, and the colour of each befuddling liquid, even the dents and scars of the stoneware cauldron. It was a packed room filled with unconventional ingredients and complicated mechanisms. Each trinket came together to tell a story; as the being surveyed more, it began to differentiate the scars of expected use and those of clumsy learning. Entire lives were hidden in the details, three separate nooks, two shorter working desks, and one with wobbly unpracticed writing, the other devoid of ink. It took a lot of time to fully observe it all and properly comprehend the meticulous documents. It did not rush, ensuring that every nuance was burned into its third eye, never to be forgotten. Once satisfied that it had observed every possible detail, the being left.
The first thing it noticed was that the day star was beginning to set, creating a beautiful purple sky; the sky was so peaceful that the being was willing to waste a few minutes just to observe it. The second thing the being noticed was a tall black smokestack that stretched up from the devadootian church. There was a faint hum of perhaps shouting or cheering; the being couldn''t quite tell.
It placed its yellow headband back over its third eye and went to see the plume. It was much easier to navigate the town with the large smokey beacon guiding its way. The closer the being got, the harsher it was assaulted by the scent of cooked meat. The being had not eaten for a while yet, but for some reason, this scent quelled the being''s hunger rather than enticed it.
Before it could arrive at the church and see what was happening, it saw a familiar face sequestered behind some trash in a narrow alley. The little girl, Tsela, was balled up as small as possible, suppressed sniffling gasping through the cover of cloth.
The being chanced a cautious glance to the sky, in day, it only saw the brilliant day star and faint moon. The being fought back any sympathy but, this time, could not hold back. Luna wouldn''t tell. The being approached the little girl and asked. "Are you a vvitchenbreiver?"
Tsela turned to the sound; her blank red eyes, not quite looking at anything in particular, were strained and had gone puffy. Streams of tears were pouring down her pale white face. Her perfect skin was marked and battered with dirt, scratches and bruises.
Tsela tried responding through choked tears and streaming phlegm. "Th-They''re¡ not¡. really gone¡ right?" Each word interrupted by full-body hiccoughs, chest heaving for breaths. "I-I-I¡ never really¡ met them¡right? We can¡ like¡ m-make¡ them¡ born for¡ th-the f-f-f-f-first time¡ or¡ something like that?"
The being paid no heed to the child''s trauma and asked again. "Are you a vvitchenbreiver?"
"We¡ don''t¡ac-ac-actually¡get¡ the br-breiver title¡until¡we finish¡ our¡training. W¡we get¡ a¡pseudo¡t-t-title¡until¡then.¡±
"So, what is your title?" Tsela wiped a thick string of snot viscous enough to hold as her thumb pulled away from her nose. The being noticed her arm was caked in dried red, a disturbing concoction of blood both hers and foreign. Tsela then brought her hand still laced with green slime, up to her drowning eyes. The being quickly stopped that, grasping both of Tsela''s arms and pulling them down. The being took its own cleaned sleeve and gently dabbed the tears from the child''s cheeks. The being pushed its questions forward again. "What is your title?"
"My¡title¡is¡ the White Vvitch."
Chapter 29:Reunion
Loneliness, it was devoid, the void, infinite nothing, finitely defined. A place that coldness consumed, not through presence, but through absence, an emptiness so hollow it denied existence. Land and sea rejected from the frigid void, incapable of bearing against such violent silence.
Loneliness was cramped in a sense; there were always many others traversing through that quiet vastness. The loneliness crowded beyond any world''s capacity, beyond any system''s capacity, yet it all remained lonely. It may have been crowded, but the loneliness was even more so empty to deny any contact amongst these beings, each lost, flailing through the loneliness, doomed to never cross paths, as was the curse of the void.
A heavy mass hurtled itself through the loneliness. A mass sent on its journey by the catastrophic death of its major, a journey it had travelled for time memorial; a silent escapade for nobody going nowhere. The mass never even existed as an idea, as a possibility; it was naught but a conjuration in the wandering imaginations of the past.
The heavy mass, packed with reminders of places once been and things once done, could only stupor in memory of times before the loneliness. Before the loneliness was the only place in which meaningful experience could even be fabricated.
The heavy mass, weightless and unyielding, moved forever, accepting the rest of its Sisyphean life.
Until a child called.
Eddy had just finished collecting the eggs from the roost. The day star had barely risen, yet he was already deep into his list of chores. Even in the cool pre-morn, his shaggy hair clung to his neck, sticky with sweat.
Coming to the foot of the home''s entrance, he was obstructed by a cry of blithe laughter, piercing clangs of cutlery, sounds separated by a door and an impossibly large chasm. Eddy could even imagine this chasm as a physical moat of bubbling lava spurting out angry belches of scolding flame, the heat smothering his face. Eddy, like a great hero, would brave through the daunting obstacle, leaping across the terrifying ravine and catching a stray vine to swing over the chasm and escape with the bountiful treasure in his basket. The chasm, in reality, was not so easily surmounted by physical actions. He opened the door and walked into the dining room.
Three younger children cheerily sat about a long well-worn table; two blond twins were mischievously play-fighting with their forks while the third child patiently waited for breakfast, a stoic poise battling with childish impatience. The rowdy children were energized by the warming embrace of the climbing day star reaching through open windows to blanket the hall in a homely yellow light.
The children shone in a familial glow, a beacon light calling from across another chasm. Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Eddy''s aunt and uncle were preparing the much-anticipated breakfast. In a happenstance turn, reaching for more flour, the uncle caught sight of Eddy. The uncle spotted Eddy''s muddy boot stepping forth, about to breach the home''s sanctity, and, so fast it were like magic, he was standing before Eddy, large frame blotting the dining room from sight. The man was so close, and so suddenly, Eddy took a shocked step back, tripping over the welcoming mat and landing painfully on his tailbone. His uncle glanced at the eggs uncertainly, though they remained steadfastly sequestered in the basket, and he smiled down at the prone Eddy. "You finally got the eggs perfect, now we can finish making breakfast."
The twins cheered in excitement while the third child failed to hide her satisfied smirk corrupting her patiently stoic face.
"Eddy." His uncle spoke firmly. He always made every moment feel like the pivotal turn of a century. The gap between child and guardian tight with tensioned gravitas. "Go muck the stalls." Each word spoken like it were more vital than the last, he always had that overpowering sense of authority, "You can get your plate after." It was like a grand quest, a king delegating to a uniquely qualified hero, a motivating reward dangled at the end and everything. This was an urgent task which had to be accomplished as soon as possible and Eddy was the only one who could do it.
Of course, Eddy knew he had a poor habit of projection, that he inserted more into that sharp tone than it ever deserved, but Eddy preferred to feign faith into his initial fantastical assumptions. "Yes, Mr. Caitiff."
Eddy handed over the basket of eggs as his uncle funnelled him out the door he had barely breached. Glancing back, Eddy still couldn''t help but see those small white rhomboids as a lavish stockpile of gems, handed from tyrants to paupers, the cheering of children in the background. They weren''t cheers for eggs. They were a celebration of the great Eddy, who had saved this town and brought peace to the world.
The door slammed shut in front of him.
Eddy briefly paused to gaze at the day star carelessly beating down on him and let out a tired sigh. It had seemed like such a gentle caress on his cousins'' cheeks, but on him, it felt like a terrible blast of fire melting him down to the bone. Perhaps this fire was summoned by an evil wizard; the Sodality of Cinder, with a renewed lust for power, instigated an assault on Aegis, and it was up to Eddy to stop them.
The destructive orb of enflamed death was too much for the mere small folk, forced to hide in their pitiable homes, comforting themselves with a final breakfast. It was up to the unmatched Eddy to halt this dastardly evil from wrecking its grim ideals upon the innocents.
With such a noble quest, of course, he would attract the aid of other fantastical paragons, and who better to swoop in than the Saviours? Doyen, The Hero of New Heirisson Conquest, rode in with Iatric, The Holy Light, on a beautiful white steed. The pristine mare flanked to his left, and the two fleshed legends gave him a deferential bow. Soon, to his right, Jocund the Wall, Ken the Preeminent, and Forgo the Ballista line up, their chosen weapons ready in white-knuckled grips. The Saviours were nervous; they had never faced a foe as powerful as this Cinder Wizard, and they all looked to Eddy for hope. Only upon his reassuring smile did they gain the confidence to move forward.Stolen story; please report.
Eddy led the charge, ducking and weaving, making short and accurate movements as he dodged the mental balls of flame that the evil wizard whizzed at him. The Saviours fought like they''d never fought before to open a path for him to the barn''s cover, as powerful as they were, Eddy was the only one that could do this.
With a desperate dive, he escaped a meteoric fireball and landed in the barn. Here he could acquire the legendary weapon, the ancient relic of myth left by the gods-
Wait, was it still okay to call the devadoots gods?
-an ancient relic of myth left by the devadoots, the holy-
Wait, it''s probably not good to call it holy, either.
The transcendental shovel! The second he gripped the unparalleled weapon, he felt a wave of unimaginable power wash over him, he sheathed his weapon into a wheelbarrow and carried it over to the horse stalls. Shirking his duties would never end well, so he obediently entered the first stall and shovelled the manure into the wheelbarrow. The sedate activity did not last long; before his very eyes, the pile of manure morphed into a legion of soldiers bearing flags of the Sodality of Cinders.
Eddy''s shovel sharpened, and the weapon would explode into sparks of emboldened light with every strike into the manure, and with every strike, he felled an enemy. The barn was filled with overwhelming pressure, an aromatic pressure so putrid and omnipresent that Eddy had to wear a thick linen mask over his mouth and nose to just maintain a grip over his consciousness. No, the pressure was not aromatic in nature, no matter what reality was trying to convince him of; the pressure was from the thousands of enemies stretching out to the horizon and beyond, from the weight of battle, the gravity of this very moment so overbearing it manifested as this unidentifiable pressure.
Just when Eddy felt so overwhelmed he thought he could no longer hold his own, an arrow came crashing down and knocked out an entire battalion of enemies. Eddy swung around to see Schlemiel, the beautiful Savage Archer give him a cheeky wink. The Murugan Squad, with their genius commander Ad leading the team, the Unstoppable Duo Emeritus & Emirita, and Liederkranz, the Child of Victory, quickly followed behind. The squad bolstered Eddy on either side, just barely saving him in time from complete defeat.
Even with the support of most of Murugan Squad, they were still only able to hold back the incredible forces; it wasn''t enough. The burning heat of day redoubled, stronger, harsher, and Eddy started to feel dehydrated. Wait, no, he knew what this was! He could hardly even feel the scorching heat; the berating star of the evil wizard kept smashing down on him, but his skin felt impervious.
Although he heralded from the cinders, he was a member of the Pangean entente and the Murugan Squad, and he would not accept this insubordination; Bennu The Phoenix directly opposed the enemy wizard in a beautiful show of magnificent flames.
Eddy had to make several trips to and from the manure pile to carry the massive load of dung. Eddy found his back aching and his arms losing their will with each consecutive lift and toss of the substance, with each consecutive swing and stab of his weapon. To muck every stall, along with the several trips back and forth from the pile, took Eddy several hours to complete.
After his gruelling combat, he and the squad finally managed to conquer his enemy. The evil Sodality of Cinders had been stopped, and the evil wizard in the sky could do nothing but watch. Although his imagination carried a resounding victory, the day star had actually only gotten stronger as noon approached.
He stood in front of the entrance to the dining room, another impregnable chasm gone blurry from the sweat cascading over his eyes. This time, he didn''t even bother trying to jump the gap; he just let himself fall down the endless pit.
The door opened.
The house was empty, quiet. Chairs pushed away from the table, twisted at odd angles, dirty plates and dishes littered the table, food spilled over the floor and sipped through the cracks of floorboards. There was a cold plate at the far end of the table, which was mostly barren, with a tranche of bread and a few dollops of mashed potato.
A terrific rumbling shook the whole house when suddenly a giant stone smashed through the roof, carrying a beautiful purple drape that fell onto the table. A magical portal on the tablecloth expunged a superabundance of silver platters adorned with immense succulent meals of wonderous variety. His imagination wasn''t strong enough to replace the taste of brittle bread more akin to a cracker, but in his mind, he could pretend.
After finishing his meal, he cleaned the room, wiping the floor from the smears of abandoned food. As his stomach grumbled, he couldn''t help but steal a few of the abandoned scraps of eggs, a little taste of the fatty meat glued to the floor. After tidying the dining room, wiping the floor and table, fetching water from the well, washing the dishes, tidying the kitchen, putting the food away and wiping the kitchen''s floor, his uncle walked into the room. "Finally finished the cleaning up? About time, we need you to send some of the left-over eggs to Dour''s, she''ll also need your help with sheaving the hay."
A great depression sunk into Eddy''s shoulder. The weight of his day bore down on him; it dragged his skin down and filled the dark bags under his eyes. It pressed into his heaving chest.
"Hey, are you listening to me, Eddy!?" His uncle shouted with his usual boiling temper intermixed with a strange panic. "You should do as your family tells you, Eddy. We''re all you have left, and you owe a lot to us. You owe a lot to me. Think of where you''d be if it wasn''t for me. You hear me? Think you could manage on your own, letting our good will go to your head."
Eddy chose to remain silent; he found it best to not get involved when his uncle spiralled into his hysterical paranoias. "Eddy, you need us, you need me. Without me you wouldn''t have a roof, you wouldn''t have the food you eat or the clothes you wear. Without me, you would have no means to even attain, to even think of how to attain these things!"
Eddy brought his chin down to his chest and clenched his jaw closed while keeping his eyelids shut. His uncle approached, and a bell chimed in between the two.
In between the two of them there was what seemed to be a small pink rhombus that grew out of thin air, or it was a rhombus, but its body would reject any stable state. It would shift and transform, shrink and grow, continuously morphing into other shapes. The pink shape finally locked into a form resembling that of a featureless human with only one limb. The arm was outstretched towards Eddy holding a glowing parchment: It read.
| You have been invited to |
| The Tournament |
| You are The Bolide |
Chapter 30: Cool Kid
Trammel''s heart, the dead center of the continent and bordering every one of its major powers, lay the greatest geopolitical marvel ever conceived: Proselyte. Proselyte was most known for its two omnipresent megastructures that dominated its skyscape. To the north were the dizzyingly towering spires of Ersatz University. To the south, was the incomprehensibly behemoth sphere of Empedocles only held aloft by its own vomitorium steps. Each megastructure was infamous in its own right, and each was home to some of the world''s most powerful and influential figures. Yet, for all their grandeur, these monolithic creations did relatively little for its massive population and bustling tourist industry. For the most part, the city-state strived on the stretch of streets that bridged the two buildings: Proselyte''s wild market district.
The market Streets thrummed with an electric vivacity. The chattering of fervid haggling and familial blather intermixed to create that particularly unique music of a living market. Thousands of stalls displayed various foods, jewelry, and any other commodity that one could possibly fathom. Such a thriving market in such a distinctive locale also invited some more extravagant fare, from displaying opulent magical instruments to peddling exotic reconstructed artifacts. Anything and everything could be found in the trove of Proselyte''s wild market district. Everyone was searching for everything, children to toys, elders to memories, and somewhere within it all, a group of teenagers enjoying their recently purchased ice cream were bargaining at a stall.
A young boy just reaching his late teens scowled unimpressed, his wide-brimmed conical hat dangling at his back by its strap, mauve tie loosened, and duel-wielding twin ice cream cones with queer art etched on their surfaces impossibly rebuffing the sweltering morning haze. He whipped out an outstretched arm to bar one of his female colleagues from handing off a pouch of coins. The younger fourteen-year-old looked up, unsure, at the boy. The boy kept his stern eyes on the merchant, "Nu-uh. There is no way she is buying that necklace for twenty-six platinum."
An old lady sat crosslegged behind a carpet of intricate jewelry and simpered openly for all to see her jagged yellow teeth, tongue coloured through alchemical abuse. "Your friend should be thankful she can find such a powerful essence-phoretic rune. You kiddies are still young, so you should trust your elders when I say you can only benefit from an increased essential flux. And this artifact right here-" she emphasized with a patronizing tap of the bracelet in discourse, "-is only the best foci for such a task."
The throng of teens erupted into laughter, a particularly boisterous boy leaning onto his friend for support, ice cream slipping off its cone to a tragic death on the dusty cobbled street amidst the hysterics. The old woman frowned, a little offended by the insulting reaction and definitely confused; she wasn''t sure what she had said that was so comedic.
One of the boys in the group next to the main haggler spoke up. "Lady, you have no idea who you''re talking to."
With his arm still blockading his naive companion with the coins, the lead boy picked up the rune-woven necklace in question and began inspecting it. "Lady, you shouldn''t talk to me about rune quality, I KNOW rune quality, and I could tell with my eyes closed that these runes could have been drawn by three blind mice¡ Now that I look more closely, it''s way worse than I imagined. Did you layer a D¨©pika with a V?k?a ?" That made him choke in disbelieving humour. "This wouldn''t even be worth ten platinum. Don''t bother haggling with this swindler, Patsy. I could easily make you a better one later."
The crowd of teenagers all released a collective gasp of astonishment. Patsy spun on her heels to face the lead boy, her eyes wide and face flush with eager anticipation. Patsy grabbed onto the boy''s hand, exclaiming hopefully. "Really Picay! But I thought you didn''t enchant for people anymore?"
"Yeah, but I''ll make an exception just this once because this crone pissed me off. Don''t get used to it." Picay turned to face his posse, "Don''t get used to it. This is not an open invitation!" A few in the crowds mumbled their jealous displeasure.
The old woman could hardly believe what was unfolding in front of her. "Kids these days are so arrogant. Who do you think you are that you could possibly craft a finer fetich than professional wizards?"
The boy dismissively scoffed at the long-forgotten woman; he lazily tossed the necklace back to her before speaking. "You''re in Proselyte. Who do you think we are?"
The group left the stall and continued to browse the market as they joked about and mocked the encounter they had partaken in. After some wandering the group spotted a friend of theirs lost in the market crowd. "Hey Belabor!" The group tried to wave her down, but it took the piercing whistle of an overexcited friend to overcome the sonic haze of the market and catch the girl''s notice. Once she noticed them, Belabor shuffled through the crowded street to get to the group.
The group left the stall, their laughter echoing through the market as they teased and mocked the encounter they''d just had. They resumed exploring the lively market, enjoying the vibrant chaos that buzzed around them. As they passed through the crowd, they spotted a familiar face¡ªBelabor, lost in the sea of people. "Hey, Belabor!" one of the teens called out, hands waving in the air, others joining to hail the girl down. The eventual sharp whistle of an overly enthusiastic friend finally cut through the market''s cacophony and drew the girl''s attention. When Belabor turned and saw them, she gave a half-grin before beginning her awkward shuffle through the packed street, weaving her way toward the group.
The group parted for Belabor, allowing her pride of place next to Picay. The shorter girl rose on the balls of her feet to plant a kiss on his cheek. Belabor then pouted exaggeratedly, "Can''t believe you seriously left without me."
Picay laughed her off and handed her the untouched ice cream cone he had saved for her. "You had class; what was I supposed to do, sit in on your lecture?"
Belabor''s faux pout couldn''t hold against her boyfriend''s coy smirk, and her acting broke into a familiar smile and a roll of the eyes, "Yes! I sit in on your classes." She laced her arm between his, and the group continued their meandering, the bustling market swirling around them.
Picay groaned. "But your classes are so boring."
"And your classes make no sense!" Belabor exclaimed, earning nods of agreement from the group. Soon, smaller conversations erupted around Picay''s perplexing courses, each person adding their own thoughts.
With a satisfied lick of her cone, Belabor glanced up only to find Patsy staring at her with a puzzled expression. "How is your cone not melting?" Patsy asked, genuinely baffled.
Picay gave Patsy a mischievous smile. "I frosted it."
The younger girl looked confused, "Isn''t that water magic? I didn''t know you were a water bug?"
Picayune briefly scowled, but swiftly corrected, "First of all, you shouldn''t call them water bugs. Second of all, what I did wasn''t water magic. In fact, water manipulation isn''t magic at all. I used something called calefaction. Calefaction isn''t actually a part of the somatic elements but is an elemental field that can be manipulated, so although I can''t-"
"PATSY NO!" Another boy took hold of Picay''s shoulders, shaking him theatrically as he lamented, "You can''t get Picayune started; he''ll never stop."
Belabor cheerfully chimed in between indulgent licks of her deliciously preserved dessert. "I''ve just learned to accept that Picayune can do anything with magic and just not question it," Patsy responded with a dishonest laugh, casually tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. Belabor, still holding her cone, paused mid-lick, her eyes narrowing as she studied Patsy more carefully. "I''m Belabor, by the way-" she said, her tone too sweetly friendly, "-Picay''s boyfriend. You can just call me Bela." Belabor placed her free hand before Patsy, inviting a handshake.
Patsy took Belabor''s hand and shook it with a firm smile. "I''m Patsy. I''m just in my first year, so I hope you guys can help me learn the ropes around here."
Belabor''s brow furrowed as she tried to place the name. It tugged at the edge of her memory, and after a moment of searching, it clicked. "Wait, you''re Espy''s little sister, right?"
Patsy''s cheeks flushed a soft pink, and she let out a shy chuckle, her fingers nervously rubbing at the nape of her neck. "Yeah, he''s my older brother. I have big shoes to fill I guess."
The tension coiling in Belabor''s chest relaxed, and her smile blossomed into something genuine. Her playful tone returned as she threw an arm out toward Patsy, giving her an exaggerated thumbs up. "You show that work junkie who''s the boss, best of luck."
The group wandered through the market, stopping at the occasional stall for some fun Knick-knacks. As they strolled, they shared tips with Patsy on the best routes and hidden shortcuts, veering away from their usual path to point out some of Proselyte''s iconic landmarks. Along the way, they filled her in on little-known bits of trivia about the city-state, their voices light with excitement as they highlighted the quirks of their new home. All the while, their journey slowly routed them back to the university entrance.
Picayune and Belabor broke off from the group with a casual wave. "I''ve got to head to class, but you guys have fun."
Patsy separated from the group of older teens to join Picayune and Belabor, her voice tinged with hope. "Can I come with?"
Picayune hesitated, glancing awkwardly between Belabor and Patsy. He shifted uncomfortably, "Uh... maybe next time. Ken doesn''t like me bringing too many hangers-on." Neither girl looked pleased at that answer. Both pouted, their expressions flat with quiet dissatisfaction.
Patsy was swift to recover. She shot Picayune a strained smile that didn''t quite reach her eyes, poorly masking her disappointment, "Okay, next time!" She slowly tried to reintegrate with the friend group, but being a few years their junior, and without anyone she personally knew, she awkwardly hovered around the edge. Picayune winced at the sight, the guilt sinking in, but he couldn''t say anything before Belabor tugged him by the arm, pulling him into the university building.
They walked side by side in quiet contemplation, the only sounds those of hushed whispers and lingering gazes from passersby. By now, both were used to the occasional stares and muttered comments. After a stretch of silence, Belabor broke the stillness, her voice light but with a knowing edge. "So, Patsy''s pretty... forward, huh?"
Picayune chuckled, shaking his head. "She is, isn''t she? It''s kind of weird, to be honest."
"She seems quite fond of you."
Picayune took a few moments to consider it. "A sister of Espy is a sister of mine. Although I feel like eventually, we''ll have to have an embarrassing talk about her crush." He turned a coy smile to his girlfriend, "but you don''t need to worry."
Belabor crossed her arms with a playful pout, " You''re not exactly helping by promising to take her to lectures. And I wasn''t worried¡ªshe''s just a kid."
Picayune''s grin widened, and he pulled her into a side hug as they walked. "Right, right, not jealous at all..." he teased, his voice light. "Oh, and speak of the devil." Approaching the two was a young man in his early twenties with a muscular build and heavy dark bags under his eyes. His clothes were dishevelled, his shirt was partly untucked from his pants, and his vest seemed to decide which buttons to be buttoned at random. His hair was obviously lazily drenched in water at an ill attempt to quell the beast that it had become; the attempts were a failure, though, as different clumps licked and reached out in every direction.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Picayune called out to the obviously mentally preoccupied Espy. "Hey, Esp, we were just talking about you!" Upon hearing his voice, Espy looked up from the ground and instantly lit up with a beaming smile, although the smile soon turned sour. Picayune ignored the conflicted expression, and the two swept into each other with a firm embrace.
Espy spoke with a strained warmth. "Good to see you, Yune! What is up? How are you?" Espy was clearly relieved to see a familiar friend to just stop and chat, but there was also a clear undercurrent of concern.
They would probably end up being late to get good seats in class, but it was a worthy sacrifice. Lately, getting a chance to hang out with Espy had been rare. "I''m doing great, Esp; we just finished giving Patsy a brief tour of Proselyte''s wild market district."
Belabor made sure to quickly add as a half-joking quip. "And, next time you meet your sister, let her know that Picayune already has a girlfriend."
Espy stifled a chuckle and quickly responded. "Patsy has always been fond of you, Yune, but I hope you can still help her out every now and then since she''s never been the most¡"
"She''s very awkward, yes." The three burst into a fit of silly giggles at the curt response.
Picayune clapped his buddy on the shoulder, "But enough about us. What about you? Big Tournament employee now! I haven''t seen you for months, man. Are they running you ragged over there?"
Belabor couldn''t help her own interest take over, "Invitations should be coming out soon, right? What''s that like?"
The innocent intentioned questions somehow reinvited that tired weight that had plagued Espy before he encountered them. "It is such a mess, man, I can''t say much because I''m under a nondisclosure agreement, right-"
"Sure."
"-But there has been a lot of... there''s been a lot. And it''s¡ it''s just weird. I can''t really get into it."
Picayune joked as he lightly fist-bumped Espy''s shoulder, "Sounds pretty rough, but I guess that''s what comes with the most prestigious job in the world. Just make sure to save some front-row seats for us." The joke did not have its intended effect. Espy seemed utterly stunned by the comment, lost for words, gaping like a fish.
Recognizing his misstep, Picayune tried backtracking to comfort his panicked friend. "I was just joking, Esp. We can buy our own tickets. We wouldn''t want you to get in trouble or anything." Somehow, that comment only made things worse.
Belabor gently rubbed Espy''s arm in reassurance as she tried to lighten the tension with her own joke. "Maybe he can''t get you a ticket Picayune since you''ll actually be invited to the Tournament. You''ll get to compare your genius with the Hero of New Heirisson conquest." Picayune and Belabor dismissively chortled at the notion, but when they looked over to Espy, he had stiffened cold, face white as a sheet. The couple''s eyes widened in flabbergasted surprise.
Belabor shouted in complete disbelief. "NO. WAY. Picayune WAS invited to The Tournament!? That''s insane!" Belabor bounded into Picayune, arms wrapped about his neck in a crushing hug. "Congratulations Picay!" She pressed a deep kiss into his lips, but he did not return the kiss.
Belabor pulled her head back to see her boyfriend more clearly, with a puzzled expression on her as to why he wasn''t sharing her glee. Picayune had frozen stiff, eyes unblinking as they stared at the saddened Espy.
Picayune recollected himself and forced out some optimism. "That''s... great; maybe instead of asking Ken to get an autograph for me, I can just- ask the hero himself as he beats me blue." He followed his stammered sentence with a hollow laugh.
Espy looked at Picayune. "Sorry¡. Sorry. I have to get back to work."
Without a reply, Espy went on his way, leaving the two alone in the hallway.
Belabor snapped her fingers in Picayune''s face, startling him back to attention, "Hello? Picayune, want to bring your brain back to the planet?"
Picayune shook his head as if clearing an internal fog, "What, oh yeah. Sorry, I just got totally brain-wiped by finding out I got invited to The Tournament. Feels like I secretly opened my birthday present ahead of time."
Belabor giggled with amusement as she wrapped her arms around his and began walking him toward class. "So, what will you wish for when you win?"
"What?"
"The winner of the Tournament gets a wish granted, right? What will you be wishing for?"
Picayune stopped dead in his tracks, a disbelieving cry forcing itself out of him, "Woah, woah, slow down. I don''t think I''m going to be winning the Tournament."
"Why not? You''re the best magic user I know!"
Picayune quirked an incredulous brow, "No offence, Bela, but I don''t think ''people you know'' is a good enough sample size. Sure, I''m honoured to be invited to The Tournament. I mean, one of the sixty-four greatest specimens of power in the world is a pretty nice ego boost. And it''ll be a great experience to meet amazing people like Human Star Scoria, the Golden King, or even see some dragons in person. But I won''t be disillusioning myself into thinking that I could really win."
Belabor grinned while shaking her head in disapproval. "You''ve always been too humble for your own good."
"How about this? I''ll try to beat Ken''s score. I''ll find out how many rounds he made it through in the fifth Tournament after class, and I''ll beat that."
"You could make it all the way, but if you want to just start with that, sure."
The two opened the doors to the classroom and were welcomed by a chaotic symphony of over a hundred voices, each person vying for space in the crowded lecture hall. Students, teachers, and hobbyists alike stumbled over one another in the frenzy, jostling for seats as if they were back in the marketplace. The air was thick with energetic anticipation.
The two shuffled through the packed room, sidestepping elbows and avoiding stray bags, until they finally reached the very back of the class. Upon finding that there were still no available seats, Picayune approached the nearest seated people and cleared his throat. "Excuse me, I''m actually enrolled in this course. Do you mind if we commandeer your seats?"
What Picayune recognized as the faculty of wandmaking Dean and a History professor turned to face him, "Of course, certainly. Must really suck for you two always having to fight for seats against all us fans."
Picayune and Belabor carried placating smiles as the four exchanged places. "Well, we get used to it. Plus, it''s nice to have so many people interested in higher theoretics; the learning never stops, right Professor Fancier?"
The four exchanged a few more pleasantries before the professors went off to find a good view despite knowing that such views had been unavailable for a long time.
Belabor craned her neck, trying to peer around the sea of bodies between her and the near indiscernible podium at the front. "You can''t even see the blackboard from here. How are you supposed to win the Tournament if you can''t even take notes?"
As if answering her, an elderly man shuffled through the front doors, his thin glasses teetering at the edge of his nose, his thick beard nearly tracing down to his waist, and a heavy stack of parchment and materials clutched in his arms. The elderly man scanned the room and then sighed¡ªa deep, weary sound that seemed to echo through the chaos.
Picayune shrugged, a wry grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Don''t worry about it. Ken usually clears up the room when it gets overcrowded like this. We can get better seats then."
The elderly professor dropped his stack of materials on the podium and addressed the crowd. His voice, though soft, carried an undeniable authority. "Anyone not enrolled in this course, leave. The students who are actually taking this class get priority seating. Once class begins, you can return."
At his command, the class erupted into a frenzy of movement. As the mass of bodies parted, Picayune and Belabor clambered over the aisles, leapfrogging from row to row to claim some better seating. Once they contentedly sat down roughly around the center, Picayune leaned in close to Belabor''s ear so she could hear him over the horde. "Besides, I never take notes anyway."
The crowd had dissipated entirely, leaving only thirteen people, including Picayune and Belabor, in the room. The two of them were the only ones not in the front row.
Belabor rolled her eyes at her boyfriend''s antics, "Yeah, yeah, I know Mr. Eidetic Memory. Your whole existence is a cheat."
Picayune flashed a cheeky grin, his face practically glowing with mischief. He leaned over to peck her gently on the lips. "No need to be jealous. I''m your Mr. Eidetic Memory. Plus, who knows, maybe I should ignore what Ken says; he might try to sabotage me so I can''t beat his Tournament record."
The two snickered like a couple of schoolchildren, their laughter bubbling up uncontrollably. But, when Belabor, mid-giggle, let out a strange snort, it sent them into a fresh wave of louder laughter that eventually caught the professor''s attention.
"Ms. Impel," The professor''s voice rang out, sharp and commanding, "that includes you."
Belabor''s smile faltered, a look of disappointment flickering across her face as she stood to leave. Before she could go, Picayune snatched her wrist, stopping her. Picayune then whined to the professor. "Ah, come on, Ken. The whole class is here¡ or almost, can''t you just let her stay? She''ll just wait for the bell then come back in." Picayune silently cursed Laggard''s ability to always be late.
Ken replied, a note of finality in his tone, "I can''t give her any preferential treatment."
Picayune quietly grunted in frustrated annoyance. Ken always played the role of a strict, upright professor, but Picayune knew better. "But you can give me preferential treatment?"
Belabor stood frozen, half-upright, half-sitting, her eyes darting between Picayune and the professor, trapped in the middle of their tug-o-war. Picayune shot a pleading look at Ken, who seemed to be weighing the costs of giving him yet another break.
Just then, one of the doors creaked open, and the short Laggard, wearing his thick glasses, hurriedly scurried in. He paused, surprised by how empty the room was, but shrugged it off and sat at the front.
Ken let out a deep sigh and replied to Picayune in defeat. "I didn''t hear that¡ and I''ve told you before to call me Professor Ream. I can''t have anyone thinking that I tolerate you."
The class laughed agreeably, and Picayune grew a cheeky grin that cradled his entire face. Ken was never particularly good at hiding his favouritism and lenience. Belabor sat back in her seat.
"Now at the end of our last lecture one of you asked me about why mercurial essence was-"
Picayune quickly tuned out once he confirmed that the professor was just going over questions from the last lecture and turned to Belabor. The two whispered gossip and jokes with one another while the professor rambled on. Professor Ream certainly knew that the two weren''t paying attention, but they were quiet enough not to disturb the others, and he was confident that Picayune already knew all that he was covering. Midway through his explanation of the expanded aether model, the bell rang, and all of those kicked out of the room came rushing in, scrambling for an adequate seat.
They eventually settled, and the class continued. Picayune would intermittently tune in and out depending on whether the professor was sharing new interesting information or not. The professor often moved slower than Picayune would have liked since he had to accommodate the rest of the class.
About two hours into the lecture, Ken was interrupted by the loud chime of a bell; he turned around to face the class so he could find the source of the sound. Right in front of Ken, separating him from the stunned audience before him, was what seemed to be a small pink rhombus that grew out of thin air, or it was a rhombus, but its body would reject any stable state. It would shift and transform, shrink and grow, continuously morphing into other shapes. The pink shape finally locked into a form resembling that of a featureless human with two limbs. The limbs were extended out, one pointing towards the audience, the other towards Ken. Each arm held onto a glowing parchment.
Ken approached the strange creature and took the parchment facing him; he carefully read its contents and then pocketed the parchment; he then walked over to the second parchment and took it slowly, reading its contents. He glanced at the crowd in surprise and back to the parchment. He pocketed the parchment and cleared his throat. "Picayune Distingu¨¦, come see me after class."
When The second parchment was taken, the pink shape seemed to reverse its process, eventually turning back into a rhombus and shrinking out of existence. The audience exploded into whispers and conversations, which the professor silenced and then returned to his lesson. Belabor leaned over to Picayune and whispered into his ear. "Do you think that was it, the invitation to the Tournament?"
Belabor could not contain her excited glee, her entire body nearly vibrating out of her seat. She seemed so full of energy. Picayune, however, couldn''t help but shed a few beads of sweat.
The final hour of the class was unbearably grueling, time was frozen, and each minute felt like days. He felt like he was spending the rest of the lecture at the bottom of the ocean, any sound muffled and obscured into incoherent ramblings. Nothing was sticking in Picayune''s mind except the countdown to his conversation after class. Eventually, class ended, and Belabor took Picayune''s clammy hands into her own. She pulled him in and gave him a final kiss. "Good luck!" She cheered enthusiastically.
"Yeah." Picayune made his way down the stairwell of the empty room and stood directly before the elderly professor, their eyes both solemn and anxious. Without a word, he took a parchment out of his pocket and handed it over to Picayune. Picayune took the crumpled glowing paper and unravelled it: it read.
| You have been invited to |
| The Tournament |
| You are The Apprentice |
Chapter 31: What is Value?
The creature had egressed from Ingress. It had found a hole in a hidden recess near the dungeon''s surface; the hole was relatively small but large enough for an insignificant creature of its size to fit through.
The creature had egressed from Ingress. The outside world was a much more beautiful and brilliant grey than the dreary, drab grey of the darkened caverns. Trees and grass painted a lush silver nature that the creature had never seen before; there was a wonderous blue sky with an enormous yellow circle that hurt to look at for too long. It seemed like it could run in any direction without ever hitting a hard, stony wall, unlike those cramped caves it had spent its entire life in. Sometimes, the creature even thought it could see vibrant greens out in the distance; it could hardly remember another time it had seen such oddly luscious colours. Of course, whenever it approached, those magical greens would always reveal themselves to be that same dull grey.
The creature made itself at home in this new and bright place. Without ever having truly intended to do so, the creature had once again furnished its home with the usual decorum of statuesque stone creatures of all varieties. Anytime some animal wandered into its territory or attempted to investigate the unusual dungeon intruder, the creature would instantly freeze upon meeting its horrible gaze. The opponent would then flush of all colour and join in on the growing collection of statues.
The creature was very aware of the might contained within its eyes; it could almost be said that anyone who saw it would be petrified in fear¡ and in stone. The creature did not mind this so much since it was that very stone which was the staple of its bland diet. It was a constant conundrum that the creature faced between growing its immaculate garden of stone art and filling its peckishness. A menagerie of chomped stone stood sophist to the creature''s self-control.
It was only on exceptional days that the creature would sometimes smell unpetrified food from a distance before it was too late. The creature, prodigy amongst its race that it was, had developed an ingenious strategy where it closed its eyes and followed the scent of that enticing meal. Its unfailing nostrils would lead it to a new, never before explored taste of something other than bland stone, an unbelievable explosion of flavour and joy so rarely enjoyed by the creature.
Today, the creature was aimlessly wandering around the grey forest, searching for that wonderous smell. Sadly, although it had been walking a while, it had yet to capture anything of interest. It eventually caught the sound of rushing water in the distance, not quite as exhilarating as a meal with flavour but still an interesting event to excite the day.
The creature shut its eyes and followed that alluring trickling sonnet of water hopping over rocks. When its feet splashed into a cool, refreshing liquid, it expertly predicted that it had arrived at its destination.
It channelled all the willpower it could muster to restrain its eyes and carefully squinted its eyes open. It briefly witnessed a small waterfall that draped off a steep cliff and drained into a calm pool; regular swathes of waves washed out from the waterfall, slowly shrinking as they barely caressed the edge of the pool where the creature stood. A vibrant tapestry of moss thrived upon the slick cliffface; a doe and her mother peacefully lapped up the refreshing drink opposite of the pool, and a few iridescent fish danced across the twisting eddies under the pristine surface.
The creature blinked, and a dull grey still-shot greeted it. The disappointed creature threw its gaze up to the sky and listened for the sinking plate of stone to shuffle under the waterfall''s current. The creature focused once more on restraining its eyes before returning its sights to the pool''s watery depths. Within the water was a massive thin slab of stone nearly perfectly flat, if not for the slightly curved imprints of shallow waves. Far more interesting than the common grey sight was the thing atop the water''s surface.
A face stared back at the creature, a small head with large penetrating eyes and a thin beak led to a long neck connected to a plump, multicoloured feathered body. Two thick wings rested on either side of the creature''s body, and just like all those other stone things with two wings, it could not fly for long with them. Two thin, featherless legs poked out from under the creature''s body. The creature had remembered back when it was in Ingress a human had barked a laugh and called it a chicken. When the creature turned to see the human, it had only been met with another statue, a frozen snapshot of a life once present and then not so.
When the creature lost itself in the thought of whether it was a chicken or not, its concentration on its eyes dwindled, and the reflecting waters turned to a dull grey slab. The chicken quickly regained its composure allowing that growing slab to sink to the bottom of the pool for new unpetrified liquid to fill in its place. The chicken took this opportunity to enjoy a few soothing mouthfuls of the fresh liquid.
The chicken, having fully quenched its thirst, left the small pool and continued on its search for a meal with actual flavour. It lifted its head up in the air and tried to sniff out that delicious scent of actual food; it was such a shame that the chicken had a far worse sense of smell than it did of sight. Usually, any wafts that it could catch were just the residual teasings of a meal already turned. The chicken did not lose hope; it continued to waddle down the stony path ahead of it, sniffing for something, anything.
The second that appetizing scent chanced across its nostrils, the chicken immediately closed its eyes. It did not want to risk accidentally spotting the meal and destroying its only source of joy in life. The creature carefully wandered around, slowly trying to triangulate the location of that scent. The creature wandered aimlessly until it felt the scent dissipate, then readjusted and blindly walked in that new direction. The process was slow, but it was the only way to ensure that the meal remained untainted.
The creature was sure that it was close to its meal when its search was interrupted by the chime of a bell. Another animal must have caught that glorious scent and come to steal its rightful meal. The hungry chicken knew it could have easily felled its enemy with a simple opening of its eyes, but then it would also risk losing its meal. Thankfully, the creature''s hearing was vastly superior to its smell.
The creature darted between the sound and the smell, defending its meal from the new intruder. Yet, to have pinpointed the precise source of the scent, it could only hope it had maneuvered correctly. The creature listened for the enemy to make its move, but it was not making a sound.
Why was so much time passing without it hearing anything? Perhaps the enemy was a stealthy opponent, one that could move without the chicken''s sensitive ears catching notice. A sudden anxiety began to brew in the chicken''s empty stomach as it considered the prospect of losing track of its enemy. Not one to be dissuaded by a setback, the chicken moved on to another plan. If it couldn''t threaten one direction, it would have to threaten all directions!
The creature raised its neck high, stretched its legs tall, unfurled its puffy tail, and extended its stubby wings. Once the small avian had enlarged itself to the fiercest-looking threat it could, it violently flapped its wings and loudly cawed. It used its incredible powers of intimidation to warn any challengers of how dangerous it truly was. If the aggressive gestures weren''t enough, then its feathers'' bright and varied colours would demonstrate to onlookers that this creature had a deadly gaze and should not be approached. Indeed, when the enemy saw these colours and verbose actions, it would be scared off.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Then, the enemy moved. The poised creature listened to its opponent''s movement. As it strained its ears, it could tell its enemy was moving in wily, unpredictable motions; it was trying to throw the chicken off. The strategy almost worked, but the creature had one more trick, and just as it was starting to lose track of where its opponent was going, the chicken activated its final defence and opened its eyes.
There was a grey, featureless human standing before the chicken. The grey being had a single limb outstretched toward it and holding onto a dull grey thin sheet. Good thing the creature opened its eyes when it did, or else the humanoid would have attacked it with that thin weapon. Instead, it was joined as yet another statue that had fallen victim to its ocular might.
The featureless humanoid was unlike anything this chicken had seen before; it floated slightly above the ground, even when petrified, and had a perfectly geometric body with a long, thin arm and a small seven-fingered hand at the end of it. The last feature of interest was that perfectly round head with a flat divot where other animals tended to have their faces. The chicken was not unfamiliar with humans, or at least their statues, and was sure they did not look like this.
The surprises from this being did not just end with its looks. Beyond all belief, the chicken heard a slight crackling. The being was shifting and transforming, an undercurrent of impossible movements shuffling from under the petrified rock until, like tectonic seizures, it cracked apart. A piece of stone fell off, tumbling to the ground and revealing the enemy''s colourful body underneath. The chicken watched the pink exposure rapidly resolidify back to stone before breaking apart again, each repetition slowly revealing more pink. It had never seen something fight against its ocular oppression. The creature shut its eyes and turned for its food. If this enemy could somehow break free from its petrifying gaze, then the chicken''s only option would be to get to the food and eat it before the enemy could.
A loud snap echoed from the petrified statue. The enemy underneath must have freed itself; the chicken had little time remaining; it had to find the meal first. Its eyes were firmly shut, its ears only barely listening for its opponent; it was wholly focused on following the trailing scent of its decadent dish. It opened its beak, ready to take a euphorious gulp, that strong aroma deeply caressing its nostrils. It threw its beak down only to unexpectedly tap on to some soft, rubbery flesh.
The annoyed chicken irritably opened its eyes to see the grey hand of that wretched creature using its thin grey sheet to cover the chicken''s rightful meal. It was so close, it could practically taste the succulent dinner already.
The chicken darted its head upwards to petrify its opponent, but the vile rival acted just as quickly, blocking the chicken''s vision with its hand and, with a jolt, slapped it away. The poor avian crashed painfully into a sturdy tree, wings and limbs folding atop one another, its boneless body slowly sliding down grating bark and collapsing into the mucky forest dirt. Its head span in concussed disorientation. Having kept its eyes shut the entire time, it became horrendously lost. Its head hurt. Its beak ached. Worst of all, it was denied dinner.
The chicken threw its eyes open, unleashing its wrathful destruction, the unsuppressed fury so overbearing that the very air itself commenced petrifying, raining small pebbles to the ground. Fueled purely by the relentless rage of vengeance, it searched for its prey.
The enemy was not idle; the second the chicken caught a peek, they''d zoom out of sight. Every minute glimpse would petrify a piece of its opponent''s outstretched deflecting hand. As soon as it zipped back out of sight, that irritable crack would beckon its shucking. The chicken darted its eyes back and forth, twisting its body on a dime in feeble attempts to catch that ever-escaping pink blur.
The chicken''s terrifying gaze was so powerful at this point that the petrified stone began to petrify, an expanding feedback loop which caused stone victims to bloat into monstrous tumours. The entire forest calcified into a single stony mass as rocky trees merged, blades of grass grew into sharp swords, and petrified statues fattened into indecipherable blobs. The tranquil forest was gone, replaced by a constricting labyrinth of refuse and stone.
The battlefield was rapidly shrinking, choking itself, forcing the pink enemy to leap up the constricting forest. The once calming Eden of nature turned to a violent beast of congealed slag. The pink creature barely managed to sortie out of the rocky canopy before the entire woods unified into a single massive block of petrified rock.
The pink foreigner caught its breath, floating above the alien sight. A synthetic cube cutting a pestilent swathe out of the otherwise verdant ecosystem. Irritation overcame the being, and it gave in to its frustration. That flat, empty divot on the pink creature''s face opened, revealing a single gargantuan eye, a blinding orb shining like a blazing star blanketing the world in overbearing brilliance. It was an unfathomable light of blinding brilliance. The eye scanned across the horizon, and as it did so, it disintegrated all inorganic matter that befell its ocular assault.
Not even a minute ago, this place was a beautiful, lush forest; within a matter of moments, it had transformed into a homogenous blob of fossilized life and then, just moments after that, transformed again into a devastatingly flat expanse. Nothing had survived the climactic collision of wills, no homes, no trees, no statues, not even a lone bug. The angry chicken, alone in an empty wasteland, had an apprehensive sniff. The ultimate price had been paid.
Dinner was dead.
The chicken glared with death in its eyes. A single radiant eye stared back wholly unperturbed, not a single speck of stone gracing the entity''s pristine pink skin.
That monstrous pink creature slowly descended from the sky. The pink enemy landed next to a glowing parchment looking oddly similar to that dull grey one it held back when they initially met, back when they were in a forest. It certainly wasn''t the same parchment, given the clear luminous differences. For some reason, the parchment could not be petrified either anymore.
The pink enemy positioned its hand directly above the parchment and placed down a small heap of seeds. The brilliant glow of the parchment enveloped the seeds, and even when being stared at, the food remained unpetrified. The chicken was immediately taken by the prospect of reclaiming its precious dinner, there was still hope.
The pink enemy moved off to the side, leaving dinner to the chicken. The two kept their eyes locked, the chicken refusing to even squint a little against the painful brilliance of its opponent.
The pink thing held its arm outstretched toward nothing. It was as if the pink enemy was relinquishing its claim on the food.
The chicken was surprised by the enemy''s sudden kind gesture, but it would not look a gift horse in the mouth. They stared firm a little longer, and then, in an unprecedented moment of trust, the chicken slowly shut its eye before a living being. It faced the decadent smell of fatty deliciousness and waddled over to the seeds. Without preamble, it happily munched down on the delicious, non-petrified snack. The explosion of magical flavour, the slight resistance of a real genuine fibre shell, the glorious near, overwhelming assault of savoury oils.
The chicken shed a single tear; this had made all the death and destruction worth it. The deliciously fattening and mildly salty taste practically melted in its little beak.
Once the seeds had all been consumed, the chicken was filled with an immediate sense of longing. The sort of sadness that settled in after a delicious meal where one realized that they had just finished said meal and so could no longer eat said meal.
The chicken liked said meal.
Maybe the chicken had judged the pink entity too quickly. It was not an enemy at all. If it were an enemy, then why did it give the seeds away. The chicken felt around the area with its feet, trying to find any leftovers. Tragically, all the seeds were gone; the only thing it felt as it searched was the constant ruffling of that glowing parchment shifting underfoot.
The chicken tried pecking at the parchment in case it was edible. It swallowed a couple mouthfuls, but it did not taste particularly good. The chicken suddenly had a divine thought. "Should I consider that as you accepting the invitation?"
The chicken had never thought in such advanced terms before. The only way the chicken could think of coping with the sudden influx of information in its mind was to cluck.
"Good. Can you get to the arena of Utnapishtim on your own?" Once again, overwhelmed by an impossible flood of thoughts and ideas too vast for the small mind of the chicken to comprehend, it could do nothing but cluck.
The chicken then had a divine thought so bizarrely alien and dysmorphic that it shivered in discomfort. The thought was the odd expulsion of air in irritated dismay. Then, it had another thought.
"Fine, I''ll take you there myself. You have accepted your invitation to ''The tournament.'' You are the Cockatrice."