“You’re a real pain in the ass, ya know that?”
“I am the one who is the pain?” Fogwen answered as if insulted by the very notion of it. “You cannot even move on your own! Your very existence is a thorn in the side of any who should be your caretaker!”
I mean, she was right. Of course she was right. But she had also been muttering under her breath for the entire walk toward the spire at the south end of the castle. Complaints about having to lug me around, about her father being too soft on Fogwarth, about her not being utilized enough. Since I was basically just an immobile blueberry - well, literally I guess - I was forced to endure her internal bickering the entire time.
The castle was large and beautiful, inside and out, but did it have to be this big?
We had been walking for nearly twenty minutes by my guess and it felt like we passed through the same hallway at least three times. It was hard to tell since most of the tapestry and guards looked the same, but I was almost positive we were going nowhere fast.
“I was dealt a shit hand by an even shittier dealer,” I answered with a sour tongue. “Didn’t ask to be a fucking berry. What’s your excuse?”
She paused her steps and raised me high just to glare at me eye to eye. She was a bit terrifying with the red eyes, but her face turned in a sour knot that reminded me of a fling I had a few years back. She used to make that face when I’d drink too much or make a crude joke. I really loved that face, but I was too much of a fuck up to realize when I had pushed one too many buttons. She had vanished on me quick enough, leaving me alone once again.
Fogwen’s expression almost held that same bitter note, but I buried it deep and hardened my berry resolve.
“I am heir to the throne of Mothric. Blood of the high lord Fog Mothric himself, and chosen for a mythical evolutionary path! I am the Sacred Lancer of the Kingdom! The spear that carved the sky!” She shouted in my face, rage hellbent on ripping her apart. “And I became all of those on my own, by my own merit! You say you were dealt this shitty hand that you speak of? Then do something about it, you sniveling horrible little weakling!”
I won’t lie, it stung a bit. Of course I wouldn’t let her know that, but it definitely did.
Instead of giving her the satisfaction of my own anger, I just passed along a grin and softened my tone.
“I know this is one of those Will-They-Won’t-They scenarios, but you don’t have to hide your affection,” I said in a silken voice. The kind only found in bad romance flicks and old creepy talk show hosts. “I get it. I really do. After all, I’m a calypso blueberry. From what I hear my juice is quite the treat.”
“Ugh,” she ughed, rolling her eyes and lowering me back to her side. “You disgust me, which is rare for one of our orchards’ berries. Consider that the highest praise you will ever receive from me.”
I snickered as we continued walking for a bit, passing a candlestick that I was nearly positive we already passed. I began to ask if she knew where we were going when I was immediately cut off.
“Enough. Quite enough. You can stop now, children,” a creaky, ancient voice came from somewhere around us.
“About time, old timer,” Fogwen answered and spun around to face the speaker.
Oh. My. God. It was another one of those damn bees! Only this one was the color of bone with pale blue eyes and human hands, similar to Fogwen. He hunched over like an old hermit, a black robe etched in glowing gold and red runes draped over him and a walking stick clutched in one hand. The walking stick was more of a staff, taller than he was with a wooden shaft carved with intricate patterns along with some strange, pitted dark stone at the top. The stone seemed to bend air around it, like the edges of a hot stove with refracting heat waves.
It was a cool staff, but I’d be happy just to have hands at this point let alone some kind of magical weapon thing.
“Hush, rude child,” he creaked again, mouth mandibles moving with his words. “These are my quarters. You know the risks we face, the enemies that knock on our doors in the silence of the night.”
Fogwen seemed to roll her eyes.
“You have been here before my birth, Oracle. Still you conceive of such nonsense? Paranoia must grow with age indeed.”
The bee cackled at that. A gross, choppy cackle like a dying weed whacker.
“Let us bury such banter for another day’s resurrection,” he said, then arched his body to look down at me. He began to speak in a way that was both as uncomfortable as it was clearly scripted. “And so it was written that in the hour of dying Gods we shall receive a hero unlike that which has been witnessed in the deep pools of untouched history. Witness now he who may grow as the vessel of the world.”
An odd moment passed where the bee just stared at me as I awkwardly tried to stare at something else.
“Uh, yeah,” was the best I managed. “I’m Barry. With an A, but also I am a berry. It’s confusing and I really don’t want to do the back and forth for a third time today.”
“Clak clik clak,” he laughed again. “They said you would be a humorous one, Barry. Yes, I know your true name. You need not worry of my confusion, but I thank you for the concern.”
“Huh,” I answered, a blueberry brow raised. “And just how did you know my name, Oracle guy?”
The bee seemed to shrug.
“Easily. I’m an Oracle. I see many things, I know much more. Beyond that, the name of any who pass in my quarters are known to me, along with information such as level, class, and race. It is a skill, you see. An ability of mine.”
Another awkward moment passed as I stared at the ground and grunted, “Coulda just said that to begin with, ass.”
The Oracle turned his back to us, and as he did so everything began to warp and shift. Suddenly we were not in the same hall as we had been for easily a half hour, and were now at the foot of a dark stone staircase that spiraled like a coiled snake high up into the distant shadows. I tried not to lose my berry juice all over the floor in an intense wave of nausea at the sudden transition followed by the pulverizing vertigo.
To my surprise, the Oracle walked just a few steps up then stopped. From the back I could clearly see he had no wings, unlike the other bee I witnessed earlier, but he began to hover just a bit from the ground. Dust and dirt seemed to kick up in gently circles below him as he slowly rose up higher, negating the need for stairs at all. He kept going until I nearly lost sight of him in the darkness, with only more stained glass windows providing light in a haphazard pattern along the spire’s length.
“Show off,” I said.
Here I was, legless and armless, while nearly everyone else could just fly and zip around at will. This place is bullshit.
“Oh, if you believe that is showing off then you will truly despise this,” Fogwen said in a bitter tone, a smile clearly spread over her face.
She stepped in four or five steps up, looked skyward, and then she took off like a fucking jet plane.
My mouth was agape, noiselessly screaming as I felt the air and gravity work against me, forcing me downward the higher she climbed. In only a handful of seconds we were ahead of the slow rising elder. Fogwen’s wings beat the air like a schoolyard bully snatching lunch money, each flap echoing off of the cylindrical walls of the spire like snaps of whips. It was so loud I could barely hear the bee call out some insult towards Fogwen, though I did hear her maniacal laugh the entire climb upward.
Stolen story; please report.
Finally we reached the top of the stairs and she slowed, bringing us to a shallow walkway with a well lit archway of stone. Beyond it I could see a room hidden amongst the piles of books, glowing rocks, bubbling goo in an assortment of vials, and an assortment of weaponry. We walked in, me panting heavily and looking around to ensure I wouldn’t fall and go splat, and Fogwen made herself at home on a large chair that had clearly been soft decades before.
Several long moments later the Oracle finally reached the top and entered the room as well.
“You play for a race, Princess,” the Oracle said, not looking our way as he headed toward an absolutely covered desk. “Yet it is not speed that wins the race, it is a steady pace and a wide mind.”
“I mean…” I began. “I’d say speed wins plenty of races. If we were racing here I’d say we won because of speed.”
“I agree with my dinner,” Fogwen said, and we shared a scowl towards one another. She turned back to the Oracle. “Aspenoc, my father and brother wish to glean information on this thing's evolutionary paths. Have you the means to acquire such information?”
“Yes, yes. Of course I do, child,” Aspenoc replied. He cleared off his desk just before rummaging through the overflowing drawers beside it and placing random item assortments over the surface.
An odd piece of glowing green glass, a shriveled mushroom cap, a dagger crusted on what I hoped was dried mud, a sandwich that he took a bite of before placing down, and a few other odds and ends. He evenly spaced each item, save for the sandwich, and then touched each with the tips of his fingers as if brushing each for dust. As he did so he began to speak to us again.
“First,” Aspenoc said, staring down at his collection. “Ask one question of me. It will be our test, if you will. It can be anything of which I am able to answer, and I assure you I can answer a great deal.”
“Anything?” I asked.
“Is that your question, Barry Ashton?”
I froze for a moment, resting on the floor beside the old chair. How did this thing know my name? My full name? My human name…
“N-No,” I answered as quickly as I could. “No, that’s not it.”
My mind was swimming at the notion that the Oracle bee would be able to pull that. For now I had to play it cool, I had to focus on evolving so I didn’t die. Then I would figure it out. At least it is another tally for the medicated coma theory! Maybe this thing is a doctor or nurse at the hospital I’m in.
“Okay,” I said after a long stretch of time. I had decided not to ask any big questions for now. It may have not been in my best judgement, but with this creature pulling information like he is I didn’t want to risk sharing too much. I stuck with an easy one. “Are there spider people in this world?”
Aspenoc stopped what he was doing and turned to face me. “That is the question you want to ask? Nothing of your purpose or your rebirth? A question of our world, perhaps?”
I pretended to think about it for a minute. Of course I wanted to ask that, but I also wasn’t about to get close to this bee thing just yet. I’ll keep it light, I’ll stick to the plan.
“Nah. I really don’t like spiders,” I answered.
He paused for another moment, just staring at me blankly, before returning to the items at his desk and audibly sighing.
“Yes, there are arachnoid races here. There are also hybrid path options that take arachnoid features, such as prince Foghurdt. I believe you had met him on your arrival.”
I thought back to the bug guy with the extra arms and legs when we had first walked in the castle. “Oh. Yes, I guess I did see him. He’s some kind of arachnid hybrid?”
Aspenoc chuckled again.
“He chose a Tier 2 evolution path that had traits of the arachnoids, but he will never be one truly. He is a [Gladiator Moth], which combat evolution path unique to the Mothric royal family. I do not have to be an Oracle to know which path that one would take, and which path he will walk next.” Under his breath he added, “The road of fate is one which cannot be detoured.”
“Right… okay. So there are spider people then? Like, born straight from the egg sack and spinning webs?”
Aspenoc sighed even harder this time. “Yes. There are spider people. Now come over here, let us begin finding your own paths. With any luck we may glean branches all the way to your third Tier!”
“I’ll take whatever stops me from dying,” I answered. I glanced over to Fogwen, but could only get a view of her kneecap in my peripheral. “Hey, Princess, mind taking me over there?”
She uncrossed her legs and huffed. “Do us both a favor and pick a path with legs, blueberry.”
“That’s also on the menu,” I answered.
She grabbed me by my now fraying ropes and loosening knots, then hoisted me up and onto a stool beside the formerly cluttered desk. I was worried my robust, spherical form would not be ideal for the stool life, but found that the rope harness seemed to stop me from easily rolling my way off. That was good.
Aspenoc slid his items around, changing their order and bringing them a bit closer to me all while mumbling under his breath. Before I knew it his hand was on my berry, which was my head, and the warmth of his palm was disturbing given that he was a bee with human hands. His other hand first rested on the shard of glass.
“By the mirror shard of Svekurn, holy of the high order, I release your path!”
Suddenly both hands began to glow. The light was almost blinding, like staring directly up at a midday sun. I felt a pressure in my core building up. It fizzled and moved, a bubbling that wanted to break free of the surface, only to suddenly pop and be nothing at all. The pressure had stopped all at once, and I was granted a notification for my troubles.
[Tier 1 Evolutionary Path Unlocked: Berry Rootling]
[Tier 1 Evolutionary Path Unlocked: Calypso Brawler]
“Hey now,” I said, taking a deep breath and then breaking into a smirk. “I can see two Tier 1 paths now!”
“Ah, splendid,” Aspenoc answered. “Let us continue then. We shall unlock as much as the Gods allow us, then I would journal our findings, if you do not mind, Barry.”
I shrugged, then realized that probably didn’t look like anything on his end so I just said, “Yeah, totally fine.”
“Excellent, let us continue.”
The next ten or fifteen minutes went by with very little action. He skipped by the dried mushroom cap for whatever reason, instead putting his hand on a tangled piece of red thread. Nothing was gained from that one and no pressure built. He moved on to a marble, also finding nothing, then torn page from a book that also came up empty. Eventually he tried the knife, unlocking a third Tier 1 path. He tried the sandwich, then realized what it was and ate the last bite. He finally placed his hand on the last item, which looked to be a dried tiger claw, and pulled one last Tier 1 path.
I wasn’t sure about any of this. The evolution stuff was confusing to say the least. I knew what it was from my own world, sort of, but it took tens of thousands up to millions of years. I had less than three days, and from the looks of my notifications I only unlocked four of whatever the first stages were and none of the second Tier, which is what Fogwen and Foghurdt both had.
It made me wonder about the King, and about Fogwarth.
“I believe…” Aspenoc answered, breathing heavily. “That is all we will find at this moment, Barry. Perhaps we may find more after your first evolution, or perhaps we need other trinkets in which I do not have. Whatever the case may be, you are the first of your kind, and as such there is little that is known to us.”
“At least it’s a start,” I answered, trying to remove the dejected look from Aspenoc’s bee face. “Now, how do I evolve? The quicker the better.”
“Clik clik clak!” Aspenoc laughed. “We first must find the criteria that is to be met for each one, Barry! You are a humorous one.” He slowly moved to grab an empty notebook and pen, all while still laughing which then triggered Fogwen to laugh as well. “You are Level 1, Barry Ashton. Each race has a different speed in which we evolve. Take my people as an example. We of the hive have faster evolutionary paths up until Tier 3, yet have a vast gap until the fourth. We see our first at Level 5, which is common. Our next at level 10, which is rapid, and our third at 20, which is unheard of. Yet, our fourth path is unreachable for us until level 60, a height which few but the highest of royalty can obtain in Icaraz. Even now there are but four in the entire empire.”
“Okay, I think I’m getting it,” I said, not fully getting it at all. “What about the Mothric people?”
“Ah,” Aspenoc said with interest. “The Spanworm’s path is one of the more grounded and steady of the paths. Tier 1 at 15, common as I had said, then Tier 2 at the level of 30. Their third comes at 45, which some of the King’s bloodline are will reach, and then the fourth at level 60. It is much more evenly spread than my own, allowing them a greater path earlier. As I said, it is not always speed that wins the race.”
This all was starting to make some sense. It was definitely one of those things I would have to do myself to actually grasp, but it didn’t seem that hard in concept. If it was just based on levels then it would be tough, since I couldn’t really do anything for myself, but maybe they knew of a way an immobile blueberry could get some quick experience around here.
“And what about a fifth Tier?” I asked. “Has to be a fifth Tier.”
Aspenoc stayed silent for a moment, preparing an empty page on his book and fiddling with is pen. “There is a fifth Tier, yet only seven in all of history have risen to claim it.”
“Seven people? That’s it? Geez, alright then. Guess that’s out of my reach,” I answered, sensing the cold air in the room as the subject came up. “Are these seven people still around? Is one the King?”
“Some are still around, at least for now” he answered. “They are the dying Gods, I am afraid. The fifth Tier is… a gift, as much as a curse.” Aspenoc shook his head, the Oracle seeming to break out of an uncomfortable trance. “Now then, on to joyful conversations. Shall we look at your new paths together?”
I dropped the fifth Tier conversation immediately and answered him with a wide berry grin.
“Let’s do this.”