The tunnel below was totally black, even to Brin's darkvision, and he hardly had any time to get used to breathing underwater. He really was breathing the water, and it was an intense experience. He could feel the cold liquid moving down his trachea, the way it filled his lungs making him feel heavy, how it didn't push in and out as easily as air. His body panicked; he choked and tried to cough but couldn't. He would be hyperventilating if he could, but the weight of the water forced his lungs to move slower.
He thrashed uselessly in the dark, until he felt a platform under his feet. It started to press him forwards, deeper into the water.
"Calm down, that's me. I'll carry us both along, no sweat. How are you doing there?" Hogg asked, projecting sound straight into Brin's skull. "I gave you Water Breathing because it's a lot easier to get used to than Unbreathing if it's your first time, but if you can't handle it just nod and we'll turn around and have you take the other one."
Couldn't handle it? Brin could handle anything. He forced his mind to calm, forced his arms to stop thrashing and took a deep, slow breath of a-- of water. Brin shook his head.
"Good. This tunnel is strange. There's no telling when we'll be there. Keep your eyes open."
Brin hoped he meant metaphorically, because he'd long since shut his eyes against the rushing water.
He tried to think of something that could help. There wasn't much he could do except make light, and he was hesitant to do that. Hogg must've had some way that he was scouting ahead. He probably just had better darkvision from some Achievement. He might not actually have the [Rogue] Class, but it was obvious that he had more than a passing familiarity with that kind of life.
Since there wasn't anything else he could do, he decided to prepare his arguments. He made a thread with half his brain power, and directed it to come up with the best possible words in Language for propelling the enchanted glass spear at his target. Then his main mind would prepare his arguments in the Wyrd. He'd use everything he had against Aberfa right from the start and try to kill her with his strongest attack the moment she showed her scaly face.
Time must've sped up, but it was hard to tell with no sight or sound. He only had touch left, so the only way to measure time was by the water running past his skin and the rhythm of his slow breaths in his chest. Now that he had gotten used to it, breathing water was oddly... comfortable. There always seemed to be enough oxygen, probably due to the pill, so in a way it felt more natural than breathing air. It almost felt like he was coming home.
That reminded him that he was supposed to be preparing an argument. It wasn't hard. Aberfa wasn't his mother. His real mother was in his last life, his adoptive mother was Lumina, and his birth mother had been the human that Aberfa used to be. The monster he called Aberfa was nothing to him. He had a duty to mankind to remove a threat. He had a duty to Aberthol to avenge him. He had a duty to himself to eliminate the danger to his life and sanity. He could feel it, his righteousness and anger. His body practically thrummed with the Wyrd.
The other thread returned not too long after, and he had his Language as well. Even if Aberfa won in the Wyrd, which she wouldn't, adding the Language would give him another level of power. Nothing fancy. One throw, one kill. Otherwise, Hogg would probably finish her off before he got the chance.
He was ready well before they arrived at their destination, so he fixed the solution in his mind so as not to lose any details of his argument.
Then there was nothing left to do but wait in dread and anticipation. He would be sweating nervously, except the cold water wicked all of that away. The deeper they went, the more the pressure of the water bore down on him until there was an acute pain in his ears. He wondered how much his Vitality protected him against water pressure. He'd never dived deep enough to find out.
They popped out of the water, taking him by surprise. One moment he was calmly breathing out a lungful of smooth liquid, and the next minute he was gasping and choking on the new air. Breathing water or air was fine, but the mix of both sent him choking and heaving onto the floor. He stumbled forward as the hard light platform disappeared, and blinking the water out of his eyes, he realized he was in a large stone chamber.
It stank badly of rotting fish and he immediately saw the bones and remains of several aquatic species. There were signs of exotic plant life here and there, strange mushrooms and flowery vines hung from the ceiling. More than half the floor of the room was water, which swirled and roiled strangely.
As for light, he could see, but didn't know for sure where the source of light was coming from. It was just barely bright enough for his darkvision to make out the main details.
Pio was there. The [Beast Master] stood facing one group of the flowery vines. He shot a hand out at Brin and Hogg when he saw them arrive to warn them back. "Wait! I'm almost finished and then all will be clear!"
Brin wasn't in any condition to speak, as he was still hacking the water out of his lungs, but if he could he would've told Pio that things were already pretty clear. He hoped he was wrong about what Pio was doing, but he was pretty sure he wasn't.
"Please. Please! Now is the time. I have done all that was required. Now submit to me. Your power is mine to command. You are mine!"
Brin wanted to sigh. Instead he struggled to his feet and hefted his spear. In a coughing, shaky voice he muttered. "So Grendle said to Eli. You have done all I asked and so from this day forward I am yours. I am your Master."
Hogg didn't speak, but nodded to show he also remembered the [Puppeteer’s] story.
"No. NO!" Pio took a step back, then fell backwards as denial changed to despair. "No..."
Brin [Inspected] him, and the notification flickered as if it were unsure.
Name Pio Melo Age 34 Level 45 Class Beast Master
Brin tried again. The notification responded more slowly this time.
Beast Master
He canceled the Skill and then activated it one last time. The popup appeared immediately.
Beast Slave
Hogg threw a bolt of hard light at Pio, and an ear-piercing shriek blasted it to pieces. A black curtain of hard light filled the space between the two of them and the rest of the cavern, cutting off Brin's view of what was happening. Another scream came, crumbling the edges of the wall, breaking it down bit by bit.
Hogg chanted, "
All sound ceased. Brin felt Hogg’s sound magic create a powerful wall, rebuffing all sound-based attacks. It was layered; the outside opposed all sound while the inside reproduced a vacuum where sound couldn't pass. He must've chanted it out loud for Brin's benefit. Brin immediately started a directed thread on reproducing that spell to protect himself.
Everything was silent, but that didn't mean nothing was happening. Hogg’s black wall crumbled and then broke apart, and Brin could feel the sound barrier giving way as well, all under the power of a violent, unceasing scream.
Hogg sent a volley of spears to strike at Pio, then a giant hammer, then a thousand little bullets. All of them were dashed to nothingness before they reached him.
Pio clearly wasn't the source of the scream, but Hogg must've been focusing on him due to his Class. As a [Beast Master], he had Skills to directly empower the monsters under his control. Brin would be willing to bet that a [Beast Slave] empowered the monster controlling him.
He didn't need to look for her long; she'd been there the entire time. The flowery vines detached themselves from the walls, and a huge ugly mass of limbs climbed down from the ceiling. Those weren't flowers at all, but growths like sea anemones that dotted the tentacles in place of suckers.
To be honest, he'd expected a mermaid-like creature, but this wasn't humanoid at all. Beautiful, in its way, but also strange and somewhat tragic. There was no face. If she had eyes, he couldn't see them. No ears, but a loud voice to yell orders and a hundred limbs to put a finger in every pie.
Monster Matriarch (50) This is the matriarch of the race "Aberfan Siren". She hunts using shockwaves that stun or kill fish in the water. Additionally, any creature that hears her scream is subject to her invasion of their dreams, allowing her to hunt land animals by luring them to the water.
Her scream was unceasing, seeming to not need to take a breath, and getting louder by the second. The terrible sound scoured the stone and dashed Hogg's constructs into nothingness. He kept summoning missiles to send against her, but they broke apart before they could get close.
He packed glass magic into his spear, and it drank freely, seeming to be able to take in endless amounts of mana. This is what he had made it for, but it still shocked him how greedy it could be. In the moment it took him to chant his spell, it drained half of his mana pool. "
The spear shivered in anticipation. Brin took one last moment to firm up his argument, reinforcing his hatred now that he could add Pio to the list of victims.
He hated the fear, the never knowing what would happen when he fell asleep. He hated the late nights, the early mornings, and working with half his brain because of the exhaustion. He hated the torture. He hated what she'd done to Cadwy and Aberthol. He hated how small she made him feel. He hated her.
"
Time seemed to slow down as the spear hurtled towards Aberfa. He saw Hogg try to clear the path with a quick black shield that hit the shockwave in front of the spear before breaking apart. He saw Pio try to stand and shield Aberfa with his body, only some part of him was resisting and his jerky movements were too slow. He saw Aberfa recoil, trying to move, too late.
He saw his spear, gliding forward, cutting through the sound, glistening in the faint light.
He saw his spear crack... and break.
For a millisecond outside of time everyone froze in shock, but Aberfa recovered first and yelled with a wave of sound that flung the broken pieces of the spear in every direction.
She pinned the full force of her power on Hogg, pushing him against the wall and dragging him up and down in a furious attempt to end him. He bled from his eyes and ears but didn't falter in bringing his magic against her in a vain attempt to push her back. With terrible effort he brought one hand to his back where he pulled out one of his black shortswords.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Swiping downward, he somehow cut through Aberfa's magic, and then in a flash there were three Hoggs. One real one, and two Mirror Images made of hard light. Brin knew which was the correct one right away, but Aberfa didn't.
She focused the full force of her scream into the one in the middle, destroying it instantly, but she'd chosen wrong.
The real Hogg was running to the right, flinging bottles and firing wands, burning through his consumables.
Still stunned by the failure of his spear, Brin forced himself to start thinking again. Hogg was fighting to the right, which meant that Brin had a clear path to Pio on the left. The thread that Brin had created with instructions to copy Hogg's sound shield returned with clear instructions on how to reproduce it. That gave Brin an idea.
He sent out another directed thread to make the shield, but telling it to make a bubble around him and Pio, then he ran towards the still-prone [Beast Slave].
As he ran towards Pio, he summoned a small glass dagger in his hand.
When he arrived next to him, the sight of Brin with the dagger seemed to shock Pio out of his stupor.
"Ha. You really think you could?"
Brin shrugged. "Not really. I've seen you fight. But I have to try, don't I?"
Their voices were oddly muted as any sound that hit Brin's bubble was instantly snuffed out. Only the wail of Aberfa could be heard, at almost bearable levels. But Brin could hear well enough.
"Doesn't matter. I can help you. The problem is levels, yes? Then let me help." Pio took a deep breath, hesitating, then let it out. "Kukubaru, kukubaru, kukubaru."
Brin knew it had worked when he saw the pain in Pio's eyes. That was a very particular type of pain, and you couldn't understand it unless it had happened to you.
He used [Inspect].
Name Pio Melo Age 34 Level 0 Class Forced Class selection in progress.
"Give her one from me, yes?" Pio wheezed.
"I will. Thank you."
The effect on Aberfa was immediate. The overpowering shout dwindled in power now that her [Beast Slave] wasn't funneling his power into her anymore. Hogg's sound shield now held against her, and some of his weapons of hard light took nicks out of her flesh. She twisted and fought, lashing out at him with her twisted limbs, but melee combat was Hogg's specialty and he punished every attempt.
She began to withdraw, fighting backwards towards the water at the back of the cavern.
Brin honestly wasn't sure if she'd make it or not. Hogg was gaining a lot of ground, giving her wounds and trying to cut her off, but she was still a level 50 Monster Matriarch. She might escape, and if she did, he was certain he'd never get another chance at this.
Why had his spear failed? Nothing else he tried would work unless he knew why he'd failed. If his spear broke it should've exploded, releasing all the pent-up energy. Why had it just... fallen down?
He knew the answer in the Wyrd. Because that was his mother over there. Not his real mother, maybe. Not his only mother, definitely. But he'd used that word with her and he'd meant it, and that undermined every other argument.
A man like Brin could not kill his mother with hatred in his heart.
Seeing his hesitation, Pio picked something off the ground, and handed it to Brin. It was a piece of his spear, two feet of haft with a jagged, broken end. All his power was still in there, waiting to be released.
Brin took the spear with a grateful nod.
He dismissed his threads; he needed his full mind for this argument if he was going to pull it off.
The argument had failed because that wasn't who he was. It was stupid, he knew, but if he had ended things like that, some part of him would have regretted it for the rest of his life. It wasn’t that the argument was false; he’d agreed with every part of it with his whole heart. The problem was that it was… dark. So much hatred and revulsion. Was there no place in that argument for the fact that there were a few things about Aberfa he also liked? That was the problem. It wasn’t wrong, but it was incomplete.
He didn’t just hate Aberfa, there was more, as much as it shamed him to admit it. He’d laughed at her jokes, he’d listened to her opinions, he’d studied at her feet. He understood her, too. She’d become exactly what her society had told her was best and it had ruined her. He pitied her.
That was the key. He knew what his argument had to be.
He spoke, pushing his voice towards Aberfa with sound magic, so that their Wyrd would clash and his words would be carried to her.
"Aberfa. I understand now. One cannot complete a mission of Filial Piety without paying due respect to his parents. But now my parents are fighting, so I will take a cue from your nation and act as Mediator. Never fear, I will not weigh my father’s desires against yours. I will mediate for you alone. I will do what's best for you."
Aberfa turned her full attention on him, blasting him with her shout. Hogg could've taken the opening and finished her, but instead he moved his hard light and shields of sound to protect Brin.
Brin stepped forward.
"At first glance, I might think that the best thing I can do for you here is to aid your escape. But no one wants that. You don’t even want that. You don't want to be a monster for the rest of your life, and whatever happens here you've lost your chance to capture me. Arcaena will never forgive you. You will never be a [Witch] again."
He kept moving forward, closer. The conflicting magics rent the stones on the floor, but Brin didn't trip.
"It's true, I could turn myself in. I could let you torture me and accept your plan. You claim that you hurt me because you are doing what you think is best for me. But that's not what's best for you. I would forget everything, but you, you would remember. You would always remember that your husband never loved you back. You would always remember the things that you did to your son. Your son that you loved! You would always know what you are. You can pretend that you've separated yourself from your dark side; you haven't. You can pretend that you don't care, that it doesn't bother you; you do. It does. You are in torment."
Aberfa struggled and fought, drawing closer to the water. She was shaking herself out of Hogg’s control and nearly free. Brin walked at a slow, but inevitable pace, building the Wyrd.
"Don’t you see? I’m doing this for your own good. It wouldn’t be right for you to have to live an entire life remembering what you’ve suffered, what you’ve lost, and what you’ve done. Aberfa, I forgive you for everything and wish for you only the best. I’m giving the only thing I have to give you. I’m giving you mercy.”
Aberfa’s front limbs reached the water. She started to pull herself underneath, and the black chains of hard light that Hogg used to hold her back began to crack.
It was now or never.
Brin didn’t shout, almost regretting the words of Language he needed to say. “
He threw. The spear released from his fingers as if fired from a cannon, finally free of any kind of doubt.
One last scream from Aberfa struck him at the same time that his spear flew through her body. This one was different, instead of trying to break him down or push him into sleep, it was a messy, frenetic mashup of shapes, voices and images. He’d stored this entire fight in glass, though, so he could look at it later.
For now, the only thing he could think about was the System message in front of his eyes. It was over.
You have slain: Monster Matriarch (50)
Extra experience is rewarded for defeating a monster above your level. Experience split between party members.
An Achievement has been upgraded. Monster Hunter II -> Monster Hunter IV You have defeated more than 65 monsters and have slain the Matriarch of a monster species.
+10% growth to all attributes -> +20% growth to all attributes.
Improved resistance to sound-based attacks. Improved travel speed under water. Improved Monster Sense - You may now sense monster intentions through the Wyrd, even when no clash of magic is present.
You have earned a new Achievement! Dreamguard You have defended your dreams against a powerful monster.
Dramatically improved resistance against mental and soul manipulation while sleeping. You need less sleep for full restfulness. You can control your dreams.
Level up! 35 -> 36 +5 Strength +1 Dexterity, +2 Vitality, +2 Magic, +3 Mental Control, +1 Will, +2 free attributes.
Level up! 36 -> 37 +5 Strength +1 Dexterity, +2 Vitality, +2 Magic, +3 Mental Control, +1 Will, +2 free attributes.
You have 3 free General Skill points. Assign them now?
Before he could celebrate, there was something he needed to do. He fell to his knees, careful not to fall all the way to his face. He was exhausted, but he had enough left in the tank for this at least.
He began with the rote prayer that Elion the priest had given him. “Sancta Solia, Sancta Maxima Solia, you guard the river and stand at the gate. Nourisher of fields and protector of the mothers of children. Praise be to your love and praise be to your peace.
“Guide this woman, Aberfa, on her journey, great Solia. She has done many wrongs and suffered terribly for them. Let all guilt pass from her as her life passes from this world. Send her somewhere else, somewhere new. Someplace where she won’t have to be Aberfa anymore. Amen.”
He didn’t know if Solia would listen to his prayer. He had no clue what happened in the afterlife, except that some people got isekai’d. He also didn’t much care. If Solia wanted to punish Aberfa then it wouldn’t be on his account. He was done with her.
He stood, feeling a little silly, but that’s how he always felt praying when people were listening. Well, who cared what they thought? Anyone who had never killed the mother of the dead child whose body they’d been reincarnated into, couldn’t understand.
There was one more notification he was expecting. It didn’t come.
Silence descended on the cavern, though his ears were ringing. Everything was still, except for the water. That was still roiling in the odd, unnatural way.
Brin created a ball of light and hung it in the air and heard a chorus of screams. Tiny little wails, like Aberfa’s, but with none of the power behind it.
The pool behind Aberfa was full of little creatures all made of tentacles.
He [Inspected] one.
Aberfan Siren (juvenile)
“Oh, Nedramus’ Beard!” shouted Hogg, figuring it out at the same time. He cast a flurry of black spikes into the water, but it was too late, the herd of little creatures were already fleeing. Hogg could kill all the ones here, but no one could tell how many had already escaped into the ocean. No one but the gods.
Alert! Optional hidden mission failed. Mission 3.5: Prevent a new evil from entering the world by destroying your monstrous half-siblings.
That was… a little unfair, wasn’t it? Well, whatever. He wasn’t in the mood to be rebellious after his attempt at an earnest prayer, so he let this one go. In all honesty, he probably would’ve gotten the optional Mission if he’d treated this whole thing with a bit more urgency. He’d puttered along for two months, stringing Aberfa along and stretching things out, although he wasn’t quite clear on what he could’ve done differently. Something to think about another day; the messages weren’t over.
Mission Succeeded. Mission 3: Free your mother from her abominable fate. Reward granted: Filial Piety upgraded. You receive Mental Fortitude to always know what must be done. +100% Mental Control attribute growth.
He remembered the first time [Filial Piety] had given him the choice of three options. Looks like he would eventually get all three. The next one was Strength, and all he had to do was let his half-siblings know how Cadwy died. A letter would probably do, but he didn’t think it would be appropriate. He’d visit them in person.
Hogg stepped up to him. “Come on. We should head back up before your pill of Water Breathing wears out. You can read your notifications later.”
Brin remembered the horrible feeling of the water filling his lungs and shuddered. “Do I have to?”
“I guess not. You could live down here if you want.” Hogg tossed Brin the head of his broken spear, still thrumming with power. Brin wasn’t sure what to do with it, but decided to bring it back anyway.
He took one second look back, and noticed Pio. The man looked utterly defeated, and his lower stats from being level one again didn’t do much to protect him from the cold or heal his injuries. He was pale, bleeding in several places, and his lips were blue and chattering.
“What about him?”
“Take me up to prison or leave me here to die. It makes no difference,” said Pio.
“Well, come on then,” said Hogg, and pulled another Water Breathing pill from his pocket. “Better take one of these.”
Brin helped him to the water, and together the three of them made their ascent.