My physical energy had been completely expended and I had not the strength to move a single finger. Inaaya, simply looked me over with a look of pride and gratification before going inside the cottage and coming back out with a deep maroon bottle in hand.
Tipping it up against my nearly still lips, she aided me in opening my mouth in order to get the first swallow in.
I had never experienced a healing or rejuvenating potion of such potency! Even Victoria with all the treatment she had given me during and after the elemental trials, none of those potions had achieved the strength of this elixir.
Tendrils of energy rushed through my body and mind, healing both exterior and invisible interior injuries. I still felt a notable weakness, but I was at least able to move somewhat after finishing up the remainder of the potion. I must have been far closer to death than I realized!
“Thankyou!” I gasped out in gratitude at her aid. My mind was awhirl with what I had just experienced and my psyche felt sore and hammered. My soul felt burdened by the many lives I had just taken while feeling what they felt in their last moments. It helped that their emotions were carnal and mostly filled with the desire of my demise, or else I wasn’t sure I could bear the pain of ending their miserable lives.
It was one thing to see and kill a faceless or unknown assailant, especially in the preservation of your life and love. But when you were faced with the clear reality of your victim’s existence in the form of heart felt and human like emotions crashing into you, your ability to divest yourself of the situation and commit wholesale slaughter was almost certain to be impacted, one way or another.
I had heard of a few terrible organizations amid the war half a century ago which had broken down and built back up military groups capable of countless atrocities, as that sense of empathy had been torn out of them for the sake of efficiency. . .
Only after peering at me for a moment in silence did Inaaya finally speak. “You have learned the initial steps necessary to get control over your emotions and to filter out the emotions of those around you.” Casting her gaze across the field of mayhem she then continued. “Your original intent of secluding away and protecting yourself from exposure to that which caused you pain and confusion would only make you weaker and more susceptible to the challenges you would face in the future.”
Peering deep into my eyes as if to instill her wisdom more intently, she added. “You must never shirk from confrontation when the alternative is weakness from which you will not easily, if ever recover from.”
I could feel the profoundness of her statement in my soul. My core stirred as I felt her remove a small portion of her mental shield in which to allow me to feel the seriousness of her words amidst her leaking emotions. A sense of ancient ethereality seeped from her, tasting of forgotten pasts and remembered futures. I felt my head nod on its own accord as I took to heart her wisdom. I knew so little about her, yet she, an incomprehensibly powerful being had done me a great service.
She appeared to read a bit into my thoughts and intent as I was considering how to repay her. With a laugh she again spoke. “You need not seek to repay me for this favor, at least not at this time. Your skills will be in great need as time passes and you become more capable.”
A hint of grandmotherly doting came over her as she lightly gripped my chin with her spindly fingers. “There is far more to you and your potential than you could ever imagine.”
She became silent after that and simply allowed her husband to take care of me from then on. He guided me to a lone bed inside the cottage to rest my weary body.
Amidst their quiet doddering, I quickly fell fast asleep sprawled among the many furs lining the netted hammock-like base. The cozy warmth which it exuded seemed to cleanse the invading chill I had taken from having reaped many lives only moments before.
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“Will he really be alright if we leave him here?” The voice came from the old vulpine Frank.
Nestled within a fold of space, he had already stripped the battlefield bare of the siege weapons and surviving spike traps. Their cozy home was no longer visible to the causal traveler as it too was brought out of phase from the rest of the world.
Together, the elderly couple watched on as invisible observers while the lone figure of Andrew slept on the bed.
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“He will be safe.” Inaaya reassured her husband. “All of the goblins have perished and I additionally left a touch of my will to the surroundings which will ward away anything that would consider snacking on him before he wakes.”
He cast a side glance at her in askance. “What . . .” He began hesitatingly, “. . . was the likelihood of outcomes from before?”
His wife’s eyes crinkled in amusement. “I thought you didn’t like to get overly involved in the affairs of mortals?” She teased him. Before he could offer a rebuttal of more than a grumble, her eyes turned white as she cast her vision into the past.
It didn’t take long before the color of her eyes returned to a more present neutral tone. A pleased smile graced her lips before speaking. “He actually had pretty good chances. There was about a 30 percent chance that he perished in the clash, and a 52 percent chance that he survived with severe wounds. Based on his survival and only minor wounds, I’d say that he found one of the most optimal paths.”
Concern clouded over her as she considered. “It is worrisome that he chose to adopt some of the battle fury his enemies came at him with. I had not intended him to take on any of the traits of a berserker, no matter how short lived. As for how this may affect his actions in the future, I cannot say as not all is revealed to me.”
Casting her eyes down upon the near comatose form of the young man or more so boy as he lay within the furs, she felt a shiver of worry for him. “Being willing and able to adopt some of the traits of friends and foes alike in times of need may not be such a bad thing, but I worry that he may lose too much of himself if he cannot build a sturdy foundation with which to rely upon.”
Her worries continued to gnaw on her as together they watched the small figure sleep
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I don’t know how long I slept for, as the sun appeared to have reached late afternoon when I opened my eyes, but I was unsure as it was obscured by the foliage. “Wait a moment. . .” I muttered to myself. I had fallen asleep on this bed ‘inside’ the cottage, but now the cozy structure was nowhere to be found. Here I was laying on a lone bed, unprotected amidst the open wild and on the outskirts of a decimated goblin army. Nearby me to my left was the rushing sound and sight of the creek which I had seen beside the cottage from my earlier arrival.
To my right, lay upturned earth and the scattered remains of hundreds of torn goblin bodies. Enough time had passed that blood no longer fell from their wounds, but all the sounds of nature in the surroundings remained still and silent, as if their wholesale slaughter had scared the surrounding wildlife into quiet passivity.
The odor of iron floated heavily upon the air and I lurched a little to hang over the edge of the bed to heave my guts out as my stomach rebelled.
*Huugh!!*
Only after I had finished puking did I begin to panic. Where was my staff and where did the couple go?!
My left hand pushed down against the firm netting of the bed to allow me to rise more fully, but at the same time I felt the familiar cold metal of my staff which I discovered lay right beside me. Relief flooded into me at its confirmed presence.
Feeling more at peace with the comforting presence of my weapon, I swung my legs upright from the bed in order to gazed around more fully at my immediate surroundings. As I peered about, I noticed that the bed wasn’t the only thing left from the cottage. A single table with glass of water and a plate holding three tarts lay there undisturbed. Additionally, there was a note held in place under the weight of the glass.
Taking the time to wash my throat clean of the dregs of vomit, I hesitantly began nibbling on the tarts as I perused the note. The air still carried the scent of recent battle and death, but the offered food appeared to have a settling effect and allowed me to better focus on the current moment.
The note was written in a flowing and somewhat spidery script. *Dearest Andrew, we apologize that we could not be here to see you when you awoke. Deities are not meant to overly involve themselves in the lives of mortals, nor are we to use our powers to overly affect the flow of life on the mortal plane lest we unbalance the fragile state of nature. *
My eyes widened at the admission, yet it didn’t seem to hit as hard as I thought it would. I even paused in the reading as I considered all that had happened during the battle. The use of siege weapons, explosions, and surprise spiked pits did appear in afterthought as what someone might expect on an ancient earthen battlefield. Maybe that is a way to get around the rules somewhat? I then continued reading. *The abilities you used to resist the chaotic and violent emotions of your attackers while still defeating them will be of utmost value to you as you continue forward on your path to self-mastery. Do not shun from the emotions of others, but also do not overly adopt them into yourself as you seek to navigate this new path of self-discovery. *
Again, I took a break from the note as I took a moment to recall the emotions I felt amidst the chaos of the battle and my hard-won victory. Even now I could feel intense flashbacks of angry and bloodied green monsters throwing themselves at me with abandon as I intimately experienced their hatred and rage bleeding into me. I had redirected that hatred and rage into the swinging and wielding of the staff in desperate survival. The bounding lust felt from those who had been flashed by Inaaya had been automatically filtered by my mind as unhelpful to my task and was pushed to the wayside.
I hadn’t thought such an intense and adrenaline-fueled battle was all that I needed to learn the basics of protecting my mind. But it appeared to work.
Peering at the last line of the note it said. *May your journey be filled with excitement and fulfilling interactions, as someday we will likely meet again. * It was signed goddess of time Inaaya and god of space Francisi.
I chuckled even as my eyes widened in bemused disbelief at the grandiose titles those two nitpicking elderlies gave themselves. Perhaps they really were deities, but to me they felt more like a pair of old grandparents living out their retirement with little amusements.
Casting one last glance over the field of mayhem, I briefly considered exploring it more fully, but I decided that I’d rather return to the shop and work to familiarize myself with the latest development of my powers.
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From their vantage point within folded space, Inaaya and Francisi observed as Andrew surveyed his surroundings. Their little cottage had been shifted out of sync with the world around it and together they discussed the aftermath of the battle even as her husband was reorganizing his stockpiled arsenal for future endeavors. Ever since they had ascended to become deities, entertainment that scratched their itch for adventure had been in short supply. They had come upon the idea of using mundane weapons and war-craft inspired from ancient warfare from Inaaya’s origin plane.
Her husband, like many other deities knew of her origins from another reality and time-line. She was the goddess of time while he was the god of space. Together they made for quite the powerful divine couple among the pantheon. They had had many children and subsequent grandchildren who did not know their identity.
After spending time with the promising Traveler Andrew, Inaaya was having a hankering for spending some good old grandmotherly time with her descendants. And so, as they watched Andrew depart to return to the city from their hidden vantage point in space, they lay together in each other’s embrace while planning where to go next.