We lay there on the cobbles, taking in the strange sensations that came with a human form, the feel of the cool air on our skin, and the sound of carriages and people in the surrounding city. The sight of the two humans called George and Nika standing on either side of our slumped figure, both wearing heavily oiled cloaks beneath the overcast sky, was strangely alarming and comforting at the same time. We weren't tired, and there was no disorientation, just an uninterrupted continuation of existence from one moment to the next. It felt almost wrong to us for some reason. Our mind was clear, and our obstacles were evident. In an instant, we had a plan to escape the potentially hostile individuals. We moved, intentionally drawing the attention of the one called Nika.
The woman’s liquid weapon flowed out from her cloak like water from a cup in an instant, moving at a near-blinding speed. The thing snapped solid around our neck as a ring of razor-sharp steel. We marveled at the motion of the weapon, idly wishing to wield it ourself as, at the same time, we brought our body to perfect stillness, watching the liquid metal warp and flow as if in slow motion, but not.
“Move, and you die, and none of us want that right now,” George said, crossing his thick arms across his chest. We stared at him blankly, the capacity for dialogue missing from our mind for some reason. Idly, we set aside a fragment of thought to deal with the issue as the rotund man sighed at our expression. The sound was at once both sad and disappointed. “Relax, dear. I doubt she’s got any fight left in her at this point. Looks like whatever that thing did to her scrambled her up pretty bad. If the stories are right, she’s lucky to even be alive.”
Nika looked from her partner to us and back, then withdrew the beautiful weapon from around our neck. Recalculating our odds, we realized that even if we tried to escape, we would not get away un-maimed. Resigned to futility, we settled against the wall behind us and waited. Thankfully it was not a long wait.
“Where’s Jones?” George asked as Borgen and Carlyn returned, frowning at the agondlon siblings.
“You know exactly where that idiot is,” Carlyn replied, scowling, pulling down the hood of her cloak. “And if you don’t want to end up like him, you’ll stop asking questions and do as you’re told. Let his sacrifice be a lesson to the pair of you.”
Ah, we thought, recalling the memories of the one called Mairenn. That was probably her fault. No doubt they’d put two and two together and realized Jones had unwittingly spilled the proverbial beans about the mission. It was a shame such a bright mind had to be extinguished, but no matter. He was just one less obstacle to overcome when it came time for our escape.
Carlyn’s glance fell on me, and her scowl softened slightly. “So, that thing didn’t kill you after all. Now, talk. What in the twelve hells were you thinking?”
“We were thinking we did not want to die,” we said immediately, our mind gathering itself together enough for dialogue once more, our words eliciting a frown from the other woman.
“We?” She asked, crossing her arms across her chest. “Who exactly is this ‘we?’”
“We are we,” we said, a hint of confusion in our voice. “Who else could we ever be but ourself? You ask strange questions.”
Our words only seemed to confuse the woman more. “I don’t have time for this. You know what’s about to happen here. Explain yourself or get left behind.”
We cocked our head. “Why would we want to go with you?”
Carlyn raised an eyebrow. “Why would you not want to go with us? We are your gateway to power, to achieving your dreams of becoming an adventurer. Besides, I thought we had something.” At our blank expression, her face fell somewhat. “But I guess I was wrong,” she said, looking away and giving us a sniff we couldn’t quite understand the meaning of. “No matter, you’re still a valuable asset.”
“That is not our desire,” we said, preparing ourselves, muscles growing taught, powers ready to activate as we began to see the threads of fate align for us once more.
“Fine,” Carlyn said, scowling, a look of reckless rage about her features. “Have it your way.” Instantly, she drew out her book and leveled an open palm toward us. We reacted at speed, watching the subtle mana patterns shifting in the air as she began to channel her spell. Part of us reveled in seeing a glyph spell take form through our new human eyes. The rest of us reacted in a blink.
“No, stop,” Borgen shouted, reaching out toward his sister, but it was too late. The spell left her hand and flew towards us. We, however, proved ourself too fast for the woman to match.
We rolled to our feet in what must have been a blur to the others, the spell sailing harmlessly past us as we snatched the agondlon woman’s wrist in one hand and the book in the other. Carlyn opened her mouth in surprise, then let out a cry of pain and outrage as we crushed the delicate bones in her arm with pinpoint precision and ripped her book in half. Thankfully neither task took much doing because this body’s strength stat was sadly pathetic. We should have fed her more, we lamented, but the past was the past, and the future will be ours. All around us, the others sprang into motion, drawing weapons and shape-shifting. One brief glance was all we needed to plan out the fight. Carlyn's emotional distraction was more than enough of an opportunity. Activating false rest at half strength, a thing most mortals had no concept of anymore, we moved forward, our new body’s dexterity and constitution pushing past the bounds of mortal limitations.
With only one blow, we crushed Nika’s windpipe as she brought her weapon up in a two-handed grip, as we already knew she would do. The small woman dropped the still morphing thing in surprise, and we snatched it from the air an instant later, immediately whirling around as it formed a heavy metal truncheon. George stepped forward to intervene, but we’d seen this too. We bashed him over the head, causing his eyes to roll up in his skull before he fell limply to the ground. We spun again, bringing our new weapon up just in time to block Borgen’s descending bow shaft with a bo staff. He yelled in frustration, and we slid back several feet from the force of his strike, our boots digging into the stone road, sending a handful of broken cobbles flying away, just as predicted.
“What the fuck are you?” Borgen half growled, glowering at us with that terrifying reptilian visage as he brought his bow shaft back to bear, slamming it down with nearly twice as much force as before so that it whistled through the air. “You aren’t Mairenn.”
Even with our power-boosted body, we were no match for the sheer overwhelming strength he wielded, even in so confined a space as the alley, so we opted to dodge to the side. In a blur, he changed course, aiming to strike us over the head with a sidelong smash, but again we dodged, ducking under the shaft and bringing our new, ever-changing weapon up to bear in the form of a spear that shot forward, taking the agondlon man through the heart with a barely audible rasp of metal against cloth and ripping flesh.
He stared at us with wide eyes as we drew the weapon back impassively, blood spraying out either side of the wound. “I’m. I’m sorry,” he said, eyes wide as he slid off the end of our spear, scaled skin scraping across the brick wall behind him as he fell to the ground. Weakly, he smiled at us. Or rather, he smiled at the one now screaming inside us. “Guess I’ll just have to wait a bit longer to hear that story,” he said, eyes going glossy as his body went slack. That part that was not yet of us still lingered in the back of our mind, screaming as we watched the tragedy unfold, but it was a simple matter to turn away from it. We had the agreement and didn't need that one anymore.
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Carlyn stared at us from where she sat on the cobblestone path, white-faced, clutching at her broken arm, fear coming off her in practically palpable waves. In a blink, we had the point of my spear leveled at her throat, ready to run her through, to end the one who’d threatened us, but again that voice screamed in the back of our mind, but this time we couldn’t just turn away, not and keep to our terms.
Against our will, we lowered the weapon, allowing it to return to its natural state, a small metal sphere with a wooden core. Fascinating, we thought before putting it away in our storage. “We will forget your wrongs for now,” we said to the young agondlon, gathering up all the dimensional gemstones before we strode back toward our former body. “Just be sure that our paths never cross again. We shall not be so lenient a second time.”
All we heard as we turned the corner was a soft whimper and a thud as the woman collapsed behind us. That, at least, filled the loud voice in our mind with some small satisfaction despite its current despair. No matter. It would soon be fully part of us.
Thankfully, our dying body was not far, we’d begun to fear we might be too late to stop the eventual collapse and explosion, but it seemed, as of yet, to be holding up well despite the small number of monsters appearing regularly around its decaying form. A mortal guard attempted to step into our path as we neared, but with barely a thought, the amorphous weapon shot out from our pocket as a metal rod and took the man in the chin, leaving him a senseless mess on the stone road, but very much still alive. We quite liked this new weapon, we thought.
The other guards all gave us warry looks at that, but none dared to repeat their companion’s mistake, allowing us to approach our former form unimpeded. Even our former pets stopped as we neared, some going so far as to get on their knees as we passed. We ignored them all, single-mindedly focused on the task at hand.
With one hand, we touched the smooth black wall of our long-loved shell, exhaling, then drawing in one breath, picturing our old form flowing into our new. There was resistance at first, as was to be expected since mortal bodies were such delicate things, but the more we consumed, the easier it became.
We were aware of the onlooker’s bewildered expressions as they watched streams of black matter spooling out from the pyramid and flowing into us, but we paid them no mind. It seemed an eternity had passed once we’d reclaimed all that was ours, but only a few minutes had passed.
We began reshaping our new form in subtle ways to better suit our needs, creating enough space inside us to contain it all. We shifted from where we’d stood perfectly still the whole time, reveling in the sense of power we once again held deep within ourselves. Sadly, without further development of this new form, it was little more than potential, but a promise of eventual divinity was infinitely better than an eternal curse of false mortality.
Glancing around, we took our bearings and exhaled slowly, the air frosting before our mouths, one of many sensations we would indulge ourselves with again once we finished our end of the agreement. That voice again became unruly, urging us to hurry and complete their final tasks. We let out an indigent huff. Time to put that one to rest once and for all.
Still holding a fraction of the false rest skill’s power, we made our way to the tavern. It was a pathetic sight, even as mortal structures were concerned. As we stepped inside, we were inundated by the intense aroma of long-forgotten spills and bile stains. Our control over our senses was still not quite honed as we would have preferred.
The place was near empty, and we watched from across the room as Síle straightened from where she was handing patrons their food and drink. She turned, caught our gaze, and froze, the empty tray in her hands wobbling before falling to the floor moments before she began to collapse herself.
The one still not quite part of us reached out for control, and, as promised, we acquiesced, fading into the background for but a moment. It was a small cost, all things considered.
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Barely aware of what I was doing or what was happening, I rushed forward and caught Síle without even thinking, helping her to a nearby booth, waving away a handful of attempts at aid from the tavern’s patrons. I sat on the other side of the table while she recovered, going over the speech I’d rehearsed as I took her in. She had a few stray lines of gray running through her pale blonde hair, and there were wrinkles around her eyes and mouth that hadn’t been there before. She didn’t look old, just tired, in a way. I still couldn’t help but think of her as beautiful.
After a few moments and a glass of water, she was less pale and staring silently at the table. “It was four years this time,” Síle finally said, the words not quite what I’d been expecting, her tone full of a resentment I’d been fearing.
“I’m sorry,” I said, hanging my head. I took a deep breath and pressed on. “I’m so fucking sorry, Síle. I was so selfish and arrogant, and I didn’t understand. I. Fuck. You were right. You’ve always-”
I cut off abruptly as a blonde-haired boy, no more than two years old, came running from the other side of the room. “Mama,” He shouted and dove headfirst into Síle’s side. I started on dumbly as I watched my wife pat her son’s hair, talking to him in soft, calming whispers as she pulled him into her lap, still not meeting my gaze.
“This is Jack,” She said, holding the boy close, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. “Jack Crowe.”
At hearing his name, my father’s name, a knot formed in my throat. “Hi, Jack,” I said hoarsely, to which he shyly waved and blubbered out something incoherent like most toddlers do.
“He’s,” I started, turning back to my wife before training away as my brain worked, my throat bobbing, then tried again. “He’s beautiful, Síle. He looks so much like his mother.”
Síle laughed a wretched thing of guilty pain and suffering that tore my heart. Jack laughed in her lap in response to the sound, and I felt the tension between us ease somewhat.
“I’m sorry too,” Síle said, still clutching Jack close, her voice a bit steadier than it had been. “Not about him, I mean. Just about how it happened.” To my mutual shock and horror, she lifted her arm, showing the wedding mark still painted across her skin. “I guess this makes us even.”
“Síle,” I started, a terrible sick feeling welling inside me, a pounding headache beginning to ring in my ears. I wasn’t sure if it was what the dungeon’s mind had warned me of or the guilt eating away at my soul. “It wasn’t you who broke it,” I said, burying my face in my hands, unable to look at her as the tears began.
Her fingers touched my hand a moment later, just as she’d done a million times before, drawing the four-fingered hand away from my face to hold between us. For the first time since I’d walked in, our eyes met. We both let out two terrible laughs and started crying, holding onto each other as if to a lifeline. Jack began to wail, and the moment was broken as Síle took back her hand and hushed the boy back to stillness again.
“So,” my wife began, handing the boy off to his grandmother, who gave me a sharp glare as she left. “What now?”
Gods, I wondered, why was this conversation so difficult? I took another deep breath. “I don’t know.” At her raised brow, I went on. “Look, something happened down there. Something bad. Because of it, I can’t stay around. But, Síle, I-”
“No,” she said, raising one hand and shaking her head as she cut me off. “I’m done waiting for you, Mai. I can’t do that again. So you go, do whatever you need to, but I’m staying here with my son.” At her words, pain rocketed up my arm. I watched, my heart shattering, as the final vow filled with red, and then the marriage band was destroyed, shattering like porcelain, the dark mark fading until it was as if it had never been there.
I bit back the tears as questions welled up inside me, but one look at her expression gave me all the answers I could ever need. It was as if a spell had lifted. She took on a hailer complexion, faint wrinkles fading as something close to ease settled about her. In that moment, I knew there was only one thing I could offer her.
“At least take these,” I said, handing her the storage gems from Carlyn’s party. “Oh, and these too.” I pulled out my father's journal and association card, pushing them across the table to her. “They’ll be of more use to you than they will be to me.”
Síle bit her lip, looking for a moment as if she would turn my gifts down, but she just sighed and nodded. “Thank you, Mai.”
“It’s the least I can do, really,” I said, forcing a smile as I got up from the table, and she followed, walking me to the door. We stood there awkwardly for a moment before I finally shook myself, plastered on the broadest grin I could manage, and dipped my head in a farewell. “I wish you and Jack the best,” I said and stepped out of the tavern just as the rain began to fall.