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12
Upright
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DOS’ IMMEDIATE REACTION WAS TO RUN, the soonest he saw the tall, bulky orcs trailing behind Fog-eyes lead. The only thing that froze his legs from bolting and his arms from drawing his weapon was the aura of absolute certainty that Canyon emits inside his armor. The way his old boss didn’t even bother to put his hand upon the hilt of his hook-sword, and just stood in confidence that no harm was coming to them.
Dos recalled the moment Mimic displayed great pride in having defeated twenty orcs, mere twenty orcs, while he and Viktor dealt with almost a hundred— he had thought of himself as strong. He had laid waste to men thrice his size with thrice his number, and there was nothing stopping him from bragging about it save from his inherent lack of confidence.
But now, looking face to face with remnants of the army that Mimic had to defeat, and capture, all he felt was the size of his achievement dwarfing in comparison.
These were proper orcs, as Viktor would have put it.
Proper, as in from their skin alone you could tell that mere iron would not pierce against it. Skin as thick as thrice a leather, layered with greasy, black fur that had seen more blood than his bolts. Tusks that sprang unto their eyes and snots like it could breathe and force the wind into its will, then a body that carried so much weight that the soil kneels beneath it.
The orcs that Dos defeated seemed like babies compared to these men.
Even on the armor they wore, their chests riddled with the molten metal of previous men they had killed, badges and medals seared upon their shoulder guards; gauntlets shaped from red stone and human skin, helmets from Tarizard skulls and vulture ribs. One gaze from an orc and Dos felt every bone in his body begging him to run, that it took so much effort just to keep standing.
How did Mimic even capture these men?
And now they strolled around their camp without shackles nor chains, following a skinny, feeble, version of themselves who needed glasses just to see. Even Dos would rather follow Scaramouche than trust his life with the frail Biomancer.
“Why are they following Fog-eyes?” he asked.
“I don’t have the faintest clue, lad.” Canyon answered.
“I think just one of them could body ten of us.”
“And we won’t even be able to inflict as much as a scratch.”
“I’ve never seen orcs like this back in Sunspire.”
“Same here lad. All the orcs in Pureza are impotent economists,” Canyon’s gaze met Fog-eyes. “And lanky scholars.”
“And chefs,” Dos added.
“And chefs,” Canyon agreed. “Now I wanna eat at Crab’s Locke.”
“Yeah,” Dos said, remembering the grimy, salty smell of their favorite restaurant. He would kill for a dozen milk-shark sushi. “I miss seafood.”
“Well, I don’t miss the sea at all,” Canyon said, and Dos just remembered the old gob used to be a fisherman. “Viktor’s food is nice though.”
“Very nice, very very nice.”
“The lad can cook just about anything.”
“If I die, I hope Viktor will cook me,” Dos thought about leviathan takoyaki and king crab soup. “And I want everyone to eat me, so in death I will be a part of everyone in this camp,” he continued. “And I’ll live inside all of you forever. Man, I love all of you, I’m glad I met all of these goblins. And you. And Mimic.” he went on. “Maybe Viktor would make me a soup. That’ll be nice, ri—”
“—Lad,” Canyon interrupted. “You’re not gonna die. And your line of thought is making me sick. Are you alright?”
“I… I think I am?” Dos thought about what he just said and immediately regretted saying it. “Sorry, I must have been scared of the orcs. I am so nervous I want to run.”
“Right. The pig-dogs are rightfully terrifying.”
“Right.”
“Right,” Canyon repeated. “So, anyway, I need you to shoot Viktor.”
Dos had a mini heart attack. “What?”
“Don’t sweat it lad, he’s not going to die, you know him,” Canyon assured. “But I need you to shoot him right and proper.”
“Shoot him? Why don’t I just cut off my head right now and put it on a plate? Viktor can catch bolts straight out of the air and you believe I can shoot him?” Dos whispered. “Why would I even do that? That gob’s invulnerable, how do even suppose I can shoot him?”
“We’ll tie him up to a tree, then you aim for his head, and then you shoot him.”
“I thought you liked him!” Dos silently shouted. “Seriously?”
“What? No, lad. It was his idea,” Canyon clarified. “He’s the one who roped me into doing this.”
Dos called for one of his men, who were busy trying to nibble on their half-rations. “You! Crobropp! Call for Scaramouche!”
“What for?” Canyon asked.
“To ask that clown what he told Viktor to get such mad ideas.”
“No, boy, Viktor is worse than Scaramouche,” his old boss deadpanned. Dos couldn’t process it and waited for more information, but Canyon didn’t expand. Dos stared at him, and finally, Canyon got what he was trying to say and expounded more. “Scaramouche has a grip on what’s real and not. Viktor is downright delusional.”
“Canyon, I am not as quick-witted as you, that makes no sense in my perspective.”
“I thought you have the sharpest eyes.”
“Well my eyes can’t see thoughts can they?”
“But they can aim and shoot Viktor in the face.”
“But I don’t want to kill him!” Dos said. “Why would I kill him? He’s not my enemy, is he? And why does he want to die? Why do I have to shoot him?” Dos tossed his guitar to the old man. “You do it! You’re one of Oracay’s proud fishermen, if you can kill a Kraken, then you can kill a goblin tied to a tree!”
“Because if I shoot him, then I won’t hit him.”
“You have an axe.”
Canyon slapped his face lightly. “Dos, look at me,” his old man said. “We’re not going to kill him, or attack him, or assassinate him. This is not a rebellion. The task is to specifically shoot him. And you’re going to miss.”
The last word made Dos calm down. “You should’ve just said that from the start then,” Dos grabbed his guitar back, regretting for a moment that he handed it to Canyon just like that. Instruments are sacred for musicians, the very act was the same as cutting his right arm off and trusting somebody not to break it. “So I just gotta miss then.”
“No, you’re going to aim and shoot as if you’re going to kill him.”
“Then how am I going to miss?”
“Luck,” Canyon said as if it made sense. “A Witch had granted him luck. We’re testing that luck.”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“If he dies?”
“Then I’m your boss again.”
Dos tossed back his guitar. “You!” he pointed at one of his men. “Gorglblop, tell Crobropp to get Scaramouche quick!”
“What for?” Canyon asked.
“To ask him what he told you to make you believe that this is a good idea.”
“What idea?” Mimic interjected. Dos looked around for Fog-eyes, but the orc seemed to be busy somewhere else.
“He’s gonna shoot Viktor in the face,” Canyon said.
“UghhHH finALLY!! GOOD FOR YOU, Dos Little Man!!” Mimic punched his shoulder.
“I thought you started calling him Honeyface?” Canyon asked.
“Blegh, yuck, that was hours agoOo, his face looked so sweet in the morning, you know?” Mimic gritted her teeth. “I WANNA BITE IT AND CHEW IT AND TEAR IT OFF THEN FEED IT TO THE CROWS.” she started pinching Dos’ cheeks as if she was trying to pull it apart. “But now he looks like he wants to jump off a cliff. I can’t call him cliff-face though, doesn’t sound that good.”
“It doesn’t have much nice ring on it.” Canyon commented.
“Mimic!” Dos called in panic. “Why don’t you shoot Viktor? You’ve seen me aim, right? You can replicate it, right? You can do it too as accurately as I ca—” Dos had another heart attack as Scaramouche jolted him from behind.
“Got yah!” Scaramouche smiled. “I tied him up to a tree, the rest is up to you.”
Canyon folded Dos’ guitar into a crossbow, then handed it back. “You can do it lad,” the old man used his wise, comforting, old man voice. “Nothing bad is going to happen,” he used a calm, slow-rolling voice, like someone telling a story to children beside a campfire. “You are going to aim at Viktor, fire at Viktor, and your bolt will miss,” Canyon kept on. “And once it misses, Viktor is going to get his sanity back, and then…”
“And then...?”
“And then we’re going to Sunspine.”
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VIKTOR FELT NO NEED TO BLINK when the bolt was fired. Already he was sure of it: Erin was alive. Erin was here, somewhere. Perhaps she was looking for him too, wandering, wondering, perhaps she was even leaving hints. Trails, tracks, markings, symbols that only Viktor could have understood.
He was sure of it.
He had spent the last night revising his entire plan of going to Amanila. If Erin knew that he was a goblin, then she wouldn’t be there. If Erin didn’t know, then she wouldn’t be there either. She hated the city. She hated the people. She hated the noise. When Viktor became King, the first thing that Erin did was to become a Marcher.
And she was a Marcher thrice.
If he knew Erin, then she would probably try and become a Biomancer, if she wasn’t already. After the entire fiasco of confirmation and Dos successfully missed the shot, they would need to go to Sunspine and take a look at their library. He has to rope Fog-eyes into it, of course. And then—
A stone hit the first bolt that Dos fired, breaking its aim.
“Wow,” Fog-eyes laughed from a distance. He was sitting on one of the house’s roofs from at least half a kilometer away. “I hit the bolt mid-air, can you believe it? I didn’t even aim that, it was a floating throw! I threw it up!”
Viktor sighed his frustration. The orc was there to save him if he was ever shot, not before he was shot. “Shoot me again.”
Sunspine was a problem. It wasn’t a city one can overtake with a few hundred goblins. They would need to be smuggled in, at the very least, or sneak inside and hope no one noticed. He was told that a goblin without a master was rare in the city, and even they were always in danger of being turned into slaves should a random bandit takes an interest.
Maybe he could go alone, or drag Dos and Canyon as guides. But then there was the problem of the library—which only allowed entrance for enrolled students.
The second bolt went directly below Viktor’s ear. Dos had lost his footing and slipped on the mud as he shot. Scaramouche laughed at him.
“Again.”
Dos aimed for his head as his eyes wander around his camp.
He didn’t even recognize it. Sure, Mimic rebuilds everything at least twice a week, but there was never any semblance of it existing inside his head.
As if the camp didn’t exist. As if goblins didn’t exist.
As if he didn’t exist and this was all just a long dream while he was bleeding on the floor while the poison he made did its work. None of it felt real to him. For an entire year, everything felt fleeting, felt foreign. The days and nights passed and his eyes remained the same.
As if time was brief in its breathing.
It wasn’t a productive thought, but his mind was prone to jogging useless possibilities.
It matters not anyhow. After last night, he had been more grounded. He had looked at his hand and bit his finger, and it bled and it felt real, and he felt real, and his finger felt connected to his hand, felt connected to his arms and shoulders.
This was his body. This was his world. This was real.
For the third bolt, the wind blew and a branch swung to block its path.
“Again.”
Canyon was right. He had been a tad bit too obsessive, a tad bit too compulsive. He was almost always lost in thought, almost always lost in his hyper fixations that everyone else seemed irrelevant. He hadn’t been paying attention. He had been neglectful and irresponsible, and his actions had regressed to his backward morality when he was in his twenties.
It must’ve been the place. In the Land Beyond the Walls, virtue was a privilege. Those who have morals to spare are those who have cushions on their seats.
To starve is to suffer; to lack an object to give, to lack virtue to spare. Now to give, was to imply an excess. The birth of true selflessness would happen only when one gives the self as an excess. To give food when one is hungry. To give life to others when the body spells death.
And true selflessness, inherently, was a sin against the self; against men, against the bodies of those who earned their merit. There was no such thing as true selflessness, only the guilt, laden from its idea.
Viktor cared for his friends selfishly.
His soldiers followed him and gave their lives for him selfishly.
He had bled and toiled for his country selfishly.
He was under no illusion that the actions he took were done from a selfless love for men and country.
True selflessness was a facade.
True selflessness was hypocrisy.
No.
That wasn’t him. That wasn’t him anymore. He had long outgrown that side of him now, had long forgotten it. He had long buried his wrongs the moment the crown was on his head. He shouldn’t make the mistake of repeating them. He had wrought and righted himself to fit his standards of what the kingdom deserves, of what the people needed.
It is in his self-interest that Amanila thrives, so he gave his life and his body in the service of his country. It is in his self-interest that his people lived in wisdom and in virtue, so he gave his sleep and his mind to writing books and lectures on the podium. It is in his self-interest to rule over men who was worthy of him, and to be worthy of the men he ruled.
True selflessness then, was to be selfish.
Viktor stood upright.
The fourth bolt went straight through his head, if he didn’t tilt his neck to it dodge in time. “Can’t tempt Fate the fourth time,” he said, as Canyon went to untie him. “I have reason enough to believe she’s alive.”
“Dos just lost his footing,” Canyon said. “And Dos never lose his footing.”
Viktor grabbed his white, bear-skin cloak and wore it against his back.
He felt cold.
He felt warm.
He felt born anew.
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The First God
[Entry from the Archives of the Inquisition, courtesy of the Empire of Amanila]
Known only with one name: Semos.
He was said to lead the First Men to land and was responsible for the First Empire. His infinite knowledge was best found in the architecture of the inner city of Amanila, whose structure and engineering remain fundamental and un-replicated even after a thousand years from its time. He was the first to introduce the usage of magick, including the rituals, the séance, its laws and limitations. The first books of history were written by him, and he contributed at least twenty percent to the current known encyclopedia.
And that was all before he became a God.
Semos, engineer, monk, historian, and philosopher, was told to have achieved godliness when he made the Philosopher’s Stone.
Omnipotence
Traditional magick follows the Seven Laws, it adheres to various sacrifices, a person’s karma, a person’s beliefs and wishes. Any practitioner of magick abides by this without exception. Semos, therefore, concluded, that whoever could bypass these exceptions must be God. For without the scope and limitations of these laws, one can be omnipotent.
With this logic, it is safe to assume that Semos became God.
It had been centuries of debate as to how Semos achieved “godliness,” as its results were always ever visible. Semos himself never did use much of his power, for he himself was afraid of changing the natural order of things. The few known proofs of Semos being a god was the first walls of Amanila, which looked like the Earth itself bent and rose to protect the city. A wall made of various indestructible minerals, whose material is still unidentified to this date (not even tungsten nor diamond can dent the stone wall).
The second proof was Sisyphus, a boulder (seemingly made from the same stone as the wall), floating in the middle of the air. Sisyphus never fell down, and couldn’t be budged to move from where it floated no matter how strong the force applied to it. It was as if all the laws of physics stopped existing wherein the boulder floated; according to Semos’ own notes, he made it so that no one doubts the proof of the omnipotence he achieved.
The Philosopher’s Stone
As to the “how” he became a God, Semos never really revealed. Philosophers debated the possibility that Semos managed to create an “object” that nullifies the Seven Laws. In an instance, a “stone” that serves as the “energy” needed for magic (sort of an infinite battery). But if so, how was it made? Where is it now? These philosophers argued the stones existence against its lack of existence, then its components and capabilities, then its ethical positions, its metaphysical possibilities, its nuances, etc. Semos and his theoretical stone was used in arguments, discussions, essays, books, of every scholar and philosopher known to man, almost as if its concept was a reality. This gave it the name “The Philosophers’ Stone”
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