Chapter XCVIII (98) - The Ooze Harbinger
Kizu sat on his bed. Not the hammock he slept in most nights. Instead, he rested in the dorm he’d barely visited in the last couple months. Mounds of clothes covered everything as far as the eye could see. In fact, he had needed to push a stack off his bed to make room for himself. His bed had recently been converted into a makeshift closet.
It was nostalgic being back in the heavily perfumed room full of unfinished clothing. He spotted Mort’s old nest in the rafters above. That was the only remaining sign of his time in the room. Everything else had been packed up and brought out to Owl’s Respite. Or been forgotten and absorbed by Basil’s ever-growing clutter.
He didn’t have anything specific to do, so he read from his library book about the mechanics of the gate spell. In his next meeting with Roba he planned to finally put the theoretical knowledge into practice. It had been a long time coming and he was almost as nervous about that meeting as the one he currently sat waiting for. Almost.
Finally, around 2 am, the door swung open, revealing Basil. The changeling blinked in surprise and smiled.
“Kizu! To what do I owe this surprise? Don’t tell me Anata kicked you off your boat?”
“You’re the Ooze Harbinger.”
Basil’s smile froze. Then it started drooping slightly as his control over his form slipped.
“Back when Otochi mentioned Harbingers, I didn’t know what he was talking about. But now that I know what they are, it makes sense. That’s why you left us in the World Dungeon, to go talk to Otochi. Because he’s your uncle. You released the oozes on Ilosin-Don. You killed everyone on the continent.”
The final piece had been when Kumiho mentioned meeting the Ooze Harbinger with the previous week’s batch of students. It seemed extremely obvious in hindsight. He had seen Basil’s gelatinous form when he slept. He was a species of ooze. Or, at least, half-ooze. Basil had told him before that his mother had been human. Just like Anata’s mother and Kumiho’s father.
Basil finally regained control over his motor abilities and he quietly closed the door behind him. Kizu wondered if he needed to be fearful of the ooze, but he found himself not caring much. If it came to it, he could fight now.
“I was six years old,” Basil said softly. “I didn’t know what I was doing. What six-year-old wants to commit genocide? They told me my mother was a researcher on the overworld and gave me directions.”
“They?”
“My fathers. My family. They showed me how to take the form of a gnome. I was exactly the right height at the time, so they decided not to wait.”
“And you found your mother?”
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“Of course not.” Basil’s eyes flashed. “I found the seal. They told me breaking it would reveal her. But, more than that, I was drawn to it. It was beautiful. The most gorgeous shade of verdant green. It consumed my thoughts until I finally corrupted and shattered it. Then the nightmare began. There was…so much death. I tried to stop them, but I was too weak. And they didn’t need me anymore.”
“You told me you grew up in Tross. You escaped Ilosin-Don?”
“Headmaster Ballarfulur found me starving to death in an abandoned gnome village.” Basil shuddered at the memory. “Food…was scarce. I ate what I could find. And I could barely even halfway hold a physical form together. At first they thought I was a gnome infected by a magical disease. But even after he discovered what I was, he still helped me. He rescued me and arranged for a friend of his in Tross to take me in until I could come here. In exchange, I told him everything. About my family, the Harbingers, Sekai. Everything. Officially, I’m now his ward. His protege, discovered on one of his mysterious journeys.”
So the headmaster knew about the Harbingers. That was important information Kizu filed away. Along with the knowledge that he hadn’t killed Basil for his role in the disaster.
“You know what Anata is?”
“The Blood Harbinger. I knew it the moment I saw you two together. I should have told you. I’m sorry.”
“If your family cut ties with you, what exactly were you doing with the bloodspawn? Why leave us down there?”
“I intended to come back for you,” Basil muttered. “I can read Primordial. If you look closely, there are species listed in the atlas. Since you were the only humans in this area of the dungeon, I thought I could doubleback after a day or two.”
Kizu blinked. Was that true? He didn’t actually know what ‘human’ looked like in the language. But there was a lot written in the margins that he didn’t understand. He would check it later, just to be certain.
“I wanted to meet my cousin,” Basil continued. “But Otochi refused. He insisted she was under special surveillance. Then he wanted to keep me down there and withtract any information on the seal. I just…wanted to meet family. To make sure she didn’t make the same mistake as me.”
“And now you’ve met her.”
Basil smiled and looked up. “Yeah. She’s great. For a while I worried that everyone in our bloodline was a monster. I thought it was part of our curse.”
“You’re not a monster, Basil.”
“Am I not? I caused a mass genocide. I ran away. Now I spend my time partying and sleeping around while my victims lay decaying in the dirt of a destroyed nation. And when I think about it, I feel numb. Are those not the actions of the most ignoble, despicable person imaginable? A monster.”
Something stirred within Kizu. The parasitic soul from the aurora wrestled him for control. He coughed, and tried to hold it back. Then it spoke with his voice, from his mouth. But the words weren’t his own.
“The fact you feel that way about yourself proves your humanity. Your worth goes beyond the role of the Ooze Harbinger. You care about your cousin. You care about your friends. Your parentage does not dictate those whom you choose to love. Too often we let our pasts consume us and rule over our lives. You have been living in the present as a means of distracting you from the past, instead I implore you - look to the future.”
With those words, the entity within Kizu withdrew again. While Kizu found himself agreeing with the words said, he couldn’t help a chill at the thought of losing control so suddenly. It eerily reminded him of Sojan controlling his body.
Basil collapsed on the floor and wept. He gripped a fallen strip of cloth and shook as tears poured down his face. His body softened as he struggled to hold form. No more words were spoken.
Not knowing what else to do, Kizu simply sat there beside his friend while he cried. They stayed there together until the sun came up, bringing a new day.