It was the middle of the night, the bright moon illuminating the world with the usual blue was masked by the clouds causing the night to be dark for one.
The man walked in the muddy grass which engulfed his tall leather boots, he wore long long black coat with long sleeves obscuring his hands and with a high collar obstructing his mouth and nose, only his ruby-red eyes were visible, is pale skin vibrant in comparison to his snow-white hair which clung to his face because of how wet it was, it was short only long enough to reach past his ears.
He stood outside the entrance to the tunnel, watching as the constant stream of water from outside poured down the steps. The cold interior of the tunnel was filled with the sound of trickling water, joining together into a loud waterfall.
He didn’t have a torch in his hand or a light spell, regardless of this he still walked in the pitch darkness without a problem.
“one…two…four…ten…twelve dead…” he mumbled to himself upon seeing the corpses of the spider-like monster Adam, Uriel and I killed earlier.
From inside of his sleeve he pulled out a long butcher’s blade, it was about almost half a meter in length, with a leather-bound grip.
As he walked on the wet stone, he dragged his long blade behind him, was the stone not so wet it would have surely created sparks.
In an instant from inside of the water-filled canal going through the middle of the tunnel came a massive arm, seemingly made from writhing flesh, it swung towards the man knocking him against the wall such that it cracked.
The man fell limply to the floor for a few seconds, when suddenly his head snapped back to its proper placement, his entire back pulsed and writhed for a second before he stood back up.
“I’d appreciate if you stopped resisting… I’m borrowing this body so please be gentle,” he said with a wide toothy grin and pointed his weapon towards the beast.
He took a single step forward and just as he did the creature shot a volley of other smaller arms towards him.
Effortlessly the man sliced them off with the blade in one clean slice.
The creature within the depths of the flooded canal recoiled, “Who are you?!” it demanded in a shrill distorted voice.
“I’m disappointed you don’t recognise me.” the white-haired man laughed.
“...don’t tell me you’re a lost soul like us?!” The creature demanded.
“Bingo! And I’ll give you another tip, my name starts with A~” the man added.
“Wait!? you’re a named soul?!” the beast demanded.
“Yep, care to take a guess which one? Tell you what, if you guess I’ll make sure you get a quick death.” he offered.
“Abeyth?” the creature guessed.
“Wow, two questions right in a row, congratulations!” the white-haired man exclaimed.
“W-WAIT?! WHY WOULD YOU SLAY YOUR KIND?!” the beast cried, he pulled his arms back and pressed up his form against the back of the wall, his face looked like a dog’s, with a wide snout and black lips, no nose, long black hair covering its form, and two massive eyes glowing a pale white light, from it’s back came the tendrils.
“My kind? That’s a funny thing to say. Here I thought we were just stuck in the same shit-hole for a few hundred millennia, I find it disturbing that you hold some pride in that fact.” Abeyth said, his eyes narrowing as his tone grew more fierce.
“What of the others?!” the creature demanded.
Abeyth shrugged, “How should I know, maybe they’re still outside, maybe they’re somewhere in this tunnel, in which case they won’t be for much longer.” he said.
The creature in the tunnel began to make a run for it, it headed towards the tunnel exit before falling over suddenly, it looked back and it saw a long scaly arm holding it back, the arm was growing out of Abeyth’s small human body, it slowly pulled the creature back towards him.
“How cold of you, and not to mention rude, to run away from your superior.” Abeyth laughed as he lifted his blade.
“WAIT, if you kill me the human I’m possessing will die too!” the creature cried and without hesitation, Abeyth brought his blade down on the creature's snout cleaving it in half.
“You are such a strange bunch, you are telling me of all people to care about a human?” Abeyth scoffed.
He turned to face the deeper part of the tunnel where he saw several hundred eyes some even bigger.
“Who’s next?” He asked with a grin as he dragged his blade towards the horde of monsters.
Later that night, he left the tunnel covered in blood and chunks of mutated flash.
“Well, …that’s done…guess I should get rid of that trash while I’m at it…” Abeyth sighed as he turned back towards the tunnel, from inside crawled a small humanoid looking creature, it was clear it was caught in the crossfire between a fight since it was slashed by still alive.
“You’re too late…this nest was emptied days ago…” the creature laughed a crackly laugh.
“Whoops, I missed one.” Abeyth chuckled.
He kicked it’s frail figure back down into the dark tunnel and extended his palm, it quickly became overgrown with black tendrils and tiny scales, without saying anything a colossal stream of molten lava appeared filling the entire tunnel, a loud crack was heard in the city, the very earth must be breaking from the heat and gasses trying to escape, too bad.
As the lava was done being poured, it’s surface was still soft but it became glazed over with clear black glass-like rock until eventually, it became solid.
Abeyth walked away from the scene, heading back into the wet forest, where this time the earth wasn’t quite as wet as it has been scorched by the radiating heat and some puddles of water that still remain bubbled and boiled into a greyish-brown mess, allowing Abeyth to slip away unseen into the foggy, misty woods.
“I guess I should head back before the sun comes out…I can’t risk damaging this body permanently.” Abeyth said as he patted his shoulder.
He headed to a cave, the entrance was covered with hanging vines and something which resembled blinds made from tried grass.
He headed inside and waited for the slightest bit of light outside, when he leaned back on the rocky cave and relaxed, his eyes glazed over as his body began to snap and re-shape itself, it morphed into a more feminine shape, with hair that was much longer, and a less muscular body, the voice and eye colour changed, the eyes were now an amber-yellow colour.
“Hm? Oh, it must be morning again…Abeyth must have gone to sleep… guess I should get cleaned up.” the now feminine sounding white-haired woman said as she headed outside.
Meanwhile, back in our house near mount Neverest…
I sat up in bed, my entire body aching from the journey up the mountain, I stumbled out of bed, propping myself against the wall as I walked until I reached the door, I swung it open only to be met with a blade to my face.
“WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!” the Lieutenant General demanded holding a knife from the kitchen.
I recoiled slightly at the question, I considered moving out of the way but decided being stabbed is marginally less painful than moving right now.
“Thing is, I don’t have a name…” I replied.
“What do you mean!? Where are we?! Why am I here?!?!” the Lieutenant General demanded she moved in closer placing the back of the blade against my throat.
“If you’re gonna’ stab me go for somewhere less painful, no need to be so sadistic about it!” I demanded.
“I can go for your eyes if you prefer?!” the Lieutenant General replied, it was clear from the look in her eyes she was no longer the panicked person from before, she seemed well composed…for a person about to stab a child to death that is.
“Look, miss Lieutenant General person - we were told by some general dude to help you out. So if you could take that knife-” I was interrupted by another question,
”Is Issac alright?!” the Lieutenant General cried.
“Earrmmmm…” I clicked my tongue a few times, “Define alright…” I finally said.
The Lieutenant General fell to her knees dropping the knife to her side,
“What happened?” the Lieutenant General asked, her voice shaky.
I put a comforting hand on her shoulder, “Move I need to go to the bathroom.” I said, after not getting a response for a bit I just stepped over the Lieutenant General and headed to the bathroom.
The Lieutenant General composed herself quickly, “Something is off about that child…how can she be that cold…” she thought to herself.
After I left the bathroom I stepped over the Lieutenant General again and headed back into my room to retrieve my revolver, you never know when they’ll come in handy.
“...wait…answer my question…who are you?” she asked again.
“I told you, I don’t have a name. I’m just some dude that lives up in the mountains here…” I explained.
“…what happened to Issac?!” the Lieutenant General demanded.
“Alright, I’m going to need you to just trust me when I say this, okay,” I said looking over at the Lieutenant General.
She nodded.
“So we were in the tunnel…” I said slowly.
She nodded.
“And Issac was told to defend the tunnel of you’d die or something.” I continued.
The Lieutenant General didn’t react but kept listening.
“But I think he heard that I can come up with spells on the spot, so he wanted me to pull some ghost…soul…demon thing out of you.” I explained.
“W-wait, so you got the demon out of me?” the Lieutenant General asked looking at her palms.
“Yeah, but it cost me a hell of a lot of mana, so you better feel special, anyway so your friend just…” I did the circular hand motion you do when you’re looking for the right word to use.
The Lieutenant General kept looking at me as if I was about to say the punchline to a joke.
“Impaled himself on a weapon.” I finished.
“...”
“...”
“...”
“So Issac died by accident?” The Lieutenant General asked.
“Well, it’s more like he ran directly into my friend’s claw weapon,” I explained.
The Lieutenant General didn’t say anything for a long while.
“Look, it’s early, why not have a nap?” I suggested.
“...” the Lieutenant General didn’t reply, she just kept looking down.
“...how about I make us some breakfast? I’ll get Adam to tell you about how he kill- never mind…” I felt awkward so I just clime over her again and went into the kitchen.
“Wait…he can’t be dead!” The Lieutenant General cried,
“Look, I’m no good with all this feelings stuff, I saw him die,” I replied.
I felt a smack on the back of my head,
I turned around and saw that it was Uriel, “Watch it, cat!” I warned.
He pulled me aside “You’re being a prick!” Uriel said in a loud whisper.
I raised my hands in defeat and backed off.
Uriel made his way next to the Lieutenant General, “Miss, are you feeling alright?” he asked.
The Lieutenant General looked at Uriel with eyes devoid of anything resembling emotions, a nihilism I’d be jealous of.
Uriel extended his hand, “Let’s go get some fresh air and you can tell me what trouble you, miss.” He said extending his hand toward her.
The Lieutenant General slowly reached out to Uriel’s open palm and they walked out to the garden.
I decided that as little as I cared about smooth-talking, anything I could use fuel to make fun of Uriel with later on was worth listening to his cringe-worthy conversation.
I followed them discretely, sitting behind the wooden door outside.
The Lieutenant General sat on the patio next to Uriel.
“I understand that you’re still in shock over what happened, so I won’t ask you to talk, I will do my best to speak for the both of us, but feel free to speak up at any moment, miss,” Uriel said.
I was gritting my teeth a little at this point, could he be any worse?! I guess he could be referring to her as “m’ lady” but he’s close to that level.
“I understand someone dear to you has passed away recently,” Uriel said, to anyone not paying close attention to he, you’d think he was just looking around the garden, in reality, he was inspecting the Lieutenant General’s facial expression out of the corner of his eye.
Uriel considered the circumstances, their hair colour was different, same with the eyes, that’s only a fifty per cent chance of being related, judging by the age difference she could be his daughter or maybe stepdaughter…Uriel decided to go for the broad relationship.
“I’m sure he was something a great parental figure to you,” Uriel said, her eyes widened and softened slightly letting Uriel know she took the bait, now he had to make her open up.
“of course, I would have no way of truly knowing your relationship, but he really cared for you. Even in his final moment he specifically asked us to help you out.” that line was a risk, if the Lieutenant General switched her attention back to the fact that Issac was dead, Uriel would be back to square zero.
“Mhmm…he was my a friend, I think he knew my father…” The Lieutenant General responded, her eyes closed slightly and a tear began forming as she spoke of her father.
In this situation, Uriel was at risk of evoking the wrong kind of memories, she got sad at the mention of her father…so she either loved him, and he died or he was a terrible parent… She responded to Uriel’s parental figure comment… either way, it’s safe to assume the father is out of her life at the moment.
It was time for Uriel to use his special ability, the ‘ultimate topic swap’ it allows Uriel to branch off of the uncomfortable topic without changing the core subject.
“I see… so what was Issac like?” Uriel asked - he heard the name Issac brought up earlier.
“...he used to walk around bored…he never smiled…but always seemed cheerful and made jokes…even though we pleaded for him to speak like a normal person, he’d always use weird slang and we’d laugh about it when he’d leave.” the Lieutenant General spoke in a nostalgic tone.
Alright, step one is complete, Uriel cracked her shell and now it was time for her to open up of her own free will.
Uriel put one a more cheerful tone, “Yeah, I know what it’s like to have an old man who seems disconnected with reality.” this was the mine, the happy tone and casual statement should trigger some anger within the Lieutenant General, if this failed then Uriel might have just alienated her, but he used her previous stunt with the knife as basis for her bold personality.
“It’s not like that!” the Lieutenant General replied her tone irritated.
“You wouldn’t understand!” she exploded.
And the mine has been triggered, now Uriel just waited silently as what the Lieutenant General just said sunk in, as a high ranking member of the army, it was fair to say that the Lieutenant General would have some sense of justice leading to the guilt she should soon feel.
“...I’m…sorry…” the Lieutenant General said.
“No…I’m sorry…I shouldn’t have compared the two situations it was really rude of me, I think I should leave.” Uriel said standing up slowly.
“Wait, no…” the Lieutenant General stood up and placed an arm on Uriel’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to be so rude after you went out of your way to cheer me up.” the Lieutenant General said in an apologetic tone.
Uriel turned around, “No, it’s alright, let’s go inside and have some breakfast, Hmm?” Uriel asked extending his hand.
“Sure…” the Lieutenant General said taking the hand gain and following Uriel indoors.
As I heard them come closer I scurried away from the door and rushed to the couch.
The two entered the house.
“Oh, hello there Miss Lieutenant General and cat.” I said trying to look casual while laying on the couch, I decided to copy Uriel and refer to the Lieutenant General as ‘miss Lieutenant General’.
She shot me something similar to a mix between a disgusted and a pitiful look.
“Why, hello there nameless child,” Uriel said walking to the kitchen.
Damn, this Lieutenant General person isn’t too fond of me…it’s not like I actually did anything to her…
Uriel gestured to the three barstools next to the counter in the kitchen.
I watched him from the couch.
“Do you feel in the mood for any specific dish?” Uriel asked.
The Lieutenant General thought to herself for a second, “N-no…I don’t mind, I guess I’d like some fish…” she sounded unsure.
“Some fish you say? No problem, miss Lieutenant General ” Uriel said taking some materials out of the fridge and cupboards.
“Please, call me Catherine…” the Lieutenant General said in a friendly tone, Uriel actually managed to get through to her, but how?!
“In that case, please call me Uriel,” Uriel replied with a slight polite bow.
“HOW THE HELL IS HE ACTING SO SMOOTH, THAT BASTARD!” I thought to myself digging my nails into the couch.
“Hey, pipsqueak!” Uriel called out.
“I don’t know any pipsqueaks around these parts,” I replied sarcastically.
“Stop being a smart-ass and get us some fish,” Uriel commanded.
“Hey Uriel, one thing first, mind answering me a quick question?” I asked.
“What is it?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Before I tell you to go fuck yourself, do you want me to bring you some lube?” I asked.
“Ha-ha very funny, just get on the fish already,” Uriel said.
“Well, I’ve only ever had cod so that will have to do,” I said with a shrug.
“Your sad culinary pallet is not my problem, but fine, cod will do.”
The Lieutenant General looked at Uriel and I with intrigue.
“One cod, comin’ up,” I said standing up and imagining the raw fish from before, for some godforsaken reason my parents wanted to buy sushi once because it was trendy, I tried the one with cod and one with tuna and both tasted like ass.
I imagined a dark pink chunk of meat, I had to guess the shape of the full fish so I made a 3-D sculpture of a fish with cod meat in my arms, I’ve noticed that the more I make the same kind of a thing, the less magic it uses, as if the spell got more carved into reality making it less effort to cast.
Uriel took the chunk of meat from me and moved it to the chopping board.
“Woah, that was amazing mister Uriel!” the Lieutenant General said in an excited tone.
It’s not like I want attention or anything, but of all creatures in existence why is it Uriel that’s taking the credit?!
“Just Uriel will be alright,” Uriel said cutting the fish in half revealing it was solid meat with no guts.
“Alright,” she replied.
Uriel cut the fish into slabs or fillets, he placed them in a large bowl along with some oil, vinegar, lemon juice which I had to spawn as well, salt, pepper and some green herbs he just smelled to identify.
After letting them soak he placed them in a large ceramic dish with some of the marinade and threw in some lemon slices.
He placed it in the oven and when he took it out the meat turned a pale white colour with a light bit of brown caramelisation.
“Would you like some nameless child?” Uriel asked.
“I’m good, I’ll have a sandwich,” I replied.
Uriel shrugged before handing the Lieutenant General a plate of the fish, she didn’t expect anything this fancy, she assumed Uriel would just fry some fish with a bit of salt.
“This is amazing!” she exclaimed.
“I’m glad to hear it,” Uriel replied sitting down next to her eating his portion of the food.
“Where did you learn to cook like this?” the Lieutenant General asked using the fork to take apart the tender strands of meat.
“I’m not sure, I think I just picked up some skills as I went, I guess it’s because I enjoy making food that others enjoy. There is really nothing else to it.” Uriel replied with a smile and a casual shrug.
“BeCaUsE I EnJoY MaKiNg FoOd ThAt OtHeRs EnJoY, BULLSHIT YOU’RE JUST TIRED OF EATING INSTANT NOODLES IN YOUR LONELY ASS APARTMENT!” I called out.
A silence fell over the room for a while.
“Gettin’ a bit personal there, nameless child?” Uriel asked.
“I'll never eat another cup of instant noodles again...this life or the next…” I murmured and walked back to my room.
I sat beside my window looking outside, damn…Uriel is such a prick…
I was observing the beautiful outside world… dead grass…dead trees…Lily pressed against Adam’s window.
I waved casually to Lily.
She waved back cheerfully.
I opened the window, “Adam isn’t in there you know, I think he’s asleep next to the front door” I said.
“What? Really?” Lily seemed disappointed.
She walked up to my window and clicked something on the bottom of the windowsill causing it to open like a door, I was beyond the point of feeling concerned for my life in this house so I didn’t even react.
“So, are you ready for the festival this evening?” Lily asked sitting on the side of my bed.
She wore her usual outfit, with the poncho-like cloak, light-purple scarf, long purple dress slash shirt and shorts.
“Oh, yeah. The dryads mentioned it back yesterday.” I said.
“Yeah, they’ll be going with Darthold earlier, Adam and I were meant to meet up with them later on,” Lily explained.
She began speaking more seriously, “So I assume you’ll be joining Adam and I?” she asked sounding pretty disappointed.
“I wouldn’t do that to you, I’ll head in there an hour late or so and join up with the group then,” I explained.
Lily failed to hide her excitement when her entire face turned red, “Yes…an hour alone with Adam…” Lily murmured to herself.
“...right. ” I said awkwardly, in reality, it was in my best interest not to witness whatever the hell was going to go down at that festival between those two.
“Well, I’ll be leaving now,” Lily said standing up and moving towards my door.
“See ya’” I said.
“I guess this is a good time to work on my aim with the revolver.” I sighed
I left through the window so as not to see Uriel and sat down creating a few more bullets, I had about thirty now.
I created the same fish from before since it only took half the mana creating a new item to serve as a target would, and placed it down on the dead grass against a steep hill.
I stood a good few meters away and took aim.
I had six-iron shots in my ammo spinny circle.
I fired the first one, it dug itself deep into the hill but missed horribly, damn it…
Alright, so all the bullets get dragged down by a different amount, the iron shot most of all… if I aim higher I should be able to hit the target…
I tried it and successfully shot right through the fish which exploded into pieces.
Alright, aim higher with iron shot… next fire shot…
I shot it around the target and noticed that unlike the previous shot this one flew higher up, my guess was that it heated the air causing it to become less dense and move up.
To compensate for this I shot lower, however, the wind was also a problem, I had to compensate for the wind’s effect over the flame.
After some experimenting, I got a good grasp of how to use the fire shot.
The healing shots and mana shots were easy to use so there was no need to work on those, same thing with the pain shot.
The ice shot gets dragged down like the iron shot but not quite as much.
I shot it at the annihilated pile of fish chunks that once served as my target and got a grasp of how it worked quite fast.
“I wonder what kind of things I could do with these bullets…” I think I got the perfect idea, I imagined the place where the bullet hit as a variable holding the coordinates to the location, next I’d take my coordinates at the time of the impact of the bullet as a variable, and swap them, this way I don’t have to think about complicated stuff like space-time, just swapping two variables!
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I call this bullet the transportation bullet!
I used magic to create one and surprisingly it was a lot cheaper than just to come up with them traditionally, I guess the simpler it is to imagine the less mana is needed to process it, good to know.
I created ten of these bullets, loaded six into my gun. The bullets were bright purple with the word teleport inside.
I shot one a few feet away from me and magically I appeared there in an instant.
It made me a little bit seasick but it was too fun to stop.
The experience was strange, the sound changed in an instance, and my eyes were blinded for like… a millisecond, the movement happened to impossibly fast I couldn’t even see it happen.
I shot one really far downhill.
And before I knew I was falling off some trees, I shot one down onto the floor so as not to crash into the floor too hard but I only slightly improved my situation since it seemed my momentum variable was the same.
I shot a bullet back to the house and fell down off of the wall of the house, luckily it was a small house.
This was fun…and painful, but I need to figure out how it works before I kill myself with it.
I entered the house through the window again and sat around in my bed, I took the out bag of money for before since I’d most likely need it at the festival.
My body still hurt like hell from yesterday and now it’s even worse thanks to that fall off the tree, this could have been avoided if I remembered to keep Adam’s teleportation ring on me… wait how doest it work exactly?…
I took out my dagger I had laying around on the floor, somehow magic was imbued into the ring itself, leading me to believe that in theory, I should be able to “enchant” stuff.
Wait…could I make scrolls too? Like could I do the thing that they do in games where you have a single-use spell in a scroll?!
I looked around my room for a source of paper, unable to find one I considered going outside to see if Adam had any - but I can’t do that! The cat is busy flirting with the Lieutenant General person…kind of weird how she never told us to use her name instead…
I tried to imagine the spell from before, the one where I summoned some cola - except now I’d like to summon some paper,
It worked, I gave the circle a yellowish-paper colour.
Now with the ability to summon paper on command I created a pile.
First of all, I attached what I nicknamed the ‘destruction’ circle, it’s a grey circle with a choppy rough outside - as if it was torn up, inside-outside of it I placed what I will refer to as a ‘logic’ circle, it’s white and consists of a smooth circle shape with the exception of a few jutting out bits, essentially I could attach a logic gate like ‘if’ to something, next inside of the damage circle I placed a generic red-fire spell, but the shape had hands on it - meaning you can touch the fire, lastly I placed a small white circle at the very centre of the other circles, it was just a white circle with the number ‘1’ on the outside, this was a bit of a long shot but I hope it works!
Next, I created another circle, on the opposite side, a logic circle in the ‘if’ shape followed by blue circle meaning ‘magic or to cast’ followed by a destruction circle.
Next on the bottom of the front page, under the biggest circle, I placed a big circle, it had a number ‘1’ design too, but it was dark grey and thinner.
My hope is that since the other one is thicker and brighter is will work as the stronger circle and be like the trigger, so when I trigger the ‘1’ circle, whatever is inside of the darker ‘1’ circle is executed, it resembles programming a bit, I was watching this series on TV where five people were brought in for a ten-episode show to make the best game they could - thing is one of them was a professional game developer and one didn’t know anything, they were told that there is one expert and one idiot in the room, it was kind of funny - but that aside, that show is the reason why I have some understanding of this stuff.
Inside of the ‘weaker’ number ‘1’ circle, I left a lot of free space…this isn’t the most elegant design but it will do!
I used magic to get a copy of the scroll and placed a simple light spell inside, (a bright white circle with a design with ‘sun rays’ )
I tore the scroll in half - it burst into flames which were warm but didn’t burn, and created a bright flash of light blinding me for a minute.
Now I just memorised the “blueprint” for this and called it ‘basic magic scroll’ …I seriously need to work on the names…
I made a whole pile of these scrolls since I wouldn’t be going anywhere dangerous today - I could afford to spend some mana screwing around!
If these work, I could create all sorts of magic stuff in this world… I could have all the money and power I could ever wish for!!!
In reality, I just couldn’t be bothered to act all power-hungry…That’s a lot of effort you know…
I heard a knock on the door.
“What’s up?” I asked - the door swung open to reveal it was Adam, it was evident from his posture that he did not sleep well, can’t blame him to be fair.
“You, doin’ anything?” Adam asked standing in the slightly open door, one hand on the wall for support.
“Kinda', wait I’ll show you what I’ve been working on.” I said as I transferred the fish making spell (consisting of about forty circles) into the lower part of the scroll under the weaker ‘1’ circle, it was meant to create the fish from before.
I handed Adam the paper.
“Go ahead, rip it in half,” I said.
Without any further question, Adam tore the piece of paper in two only for a 3-D fish sculpture made of cod flesh to appear in front of him as the paper flew out of his hands and began burning away into a fine dust.
“Dude…that was awesome!” Adam exclaimed.
“I know right! Think how much money we could make selling these!” I added.
“Yeah, and since they’re single-use it’s not like we’re handing people super overpowered magic or anything!” Adam continued.
“Do you think you could do this kind of stuff to things other than paper?” Adam asked.
“I think so, I was thinking about putting some magic on my dagger,” I replied.
“Man, could you enchant my claws to do something cool?” Adam asked.
“Sure.” I shrugged, it’s been forever since I was this excited last time, it’s not like I have anything to use my power towards… that said it would make for some super cool party tricks.
Adam left my room and returned with his claw weapons, I started off simply, I added a fifty per cent speed boost to the weapons, basically I took the boost spell they love so much around these parts, and set it to always be active - but to also not be as strong as a real boost spell - or it’d tear Adam’s arms off…, it’s hard to describe these things in words.
“There you go, it should make you faster,” I explained, the entire experience had me drained of mana.
“Thanks, man!” Adam exclaimed looking over the weapon before turning to me, “A-are you feeling alright?” He asked.
“Yeah, why?” I asked puzzled by the strange question.
“Your face is kind of …covered in blood?” Adam replied uncertainly.
I moved my palm up to my face, I must have been too busy making the spells to notice the whole falling-of-a-tree thing managed to cut my face up a bit.
I crushed a healing bullet in my hands causing me to feel the wounds close leaving me with nothing but a dirty face left after the injury.
Right, guess I’ll leave the rest of my scroll work for when I’m not about to run out of mana, in case of an emergency I can use the mana shots I have left, but it’s only enough for the equivalent of three or four shooty-ice spells.
Plus knowing our luck something stupid will happen at the festival, I just know it.
“I just fell off some tree.” I shrugged,
Adam laughed it off and headed to the kitchen.
And so I sat around all day in my room avoiding Uriel and the Lieutenant General because my day was shit enough as it was, meanwhile during my time of inaction Uriel and the Lieutenant General talked for most of the day, Uriel explained in minor detail that I’m a dude and that Adam may have kind of maybe…killed Issac, although it’s not quite like that since Issac just threw himself on the blades but they were in a fight to the death so Adam would have obviously tried to kill him anyway.
Later that night, after Adam was dragged out by Lily, and Uriel left with the Lieutenant General, I was left alone in the house, I waited the hour I promised to Lily and made my way down the mountain, the was a village east of the mountain, basically you go left instead of right on the road leaving the mountain, don’t ask why we have a road to the mountain or who paid to have it built.
I passed the monster hunter camp where there was barely any people, just a few older people keeping watch I waved to them out of politeness and they waved me over, I had to endure a decent half an hour of stories from this one guy who looked like he was at least over a hundred years old, I really never asked to know what the festival was like fifty years ago, of sixty, or forty, in fact, it’s safe to say I don’t give a shit about anything he told me.
Now you may think I stayed and listened out of politeness, but he was just too deaf to hear me say “I DON’T GIVE TWO FUCKS ABOUT THE TYPE OF SNACK THEY HAD AT THE FESTIVAL TWENTY YEARS AGO!”
He was holding onto my arm too, so unless I decided to break it I didn’t have a way to escape, at last, I resorted to my teleportation bullet and made a run for it.
When I reached the village I was surprised to see that it was completely different than the one I got my ass whooped at a while back.
The was a long road going in a straight line through the town, wait…I should have paid more attention in geography… wait….it was “linear settlement,” I think. It’s weird how we never came here - I mean it’s so close to us, there were tons of multi-story houses and a lot of people next to food stalls and other kinds of stands.
There were a ton of red flag hanging off houses and long lines of red flags handing on ropes between houses.
There were street musicians and from the looks of it a lot of wealthy people.
“Hey there little girl, would you like some festival buns?” A man at a stall asked, at first I assumed he was talking to someone else but I remembered how I look so I sighed and turned to the stall.
“Sure, how much are they?” I asked I was surprised to see that it was the man from the city from before, the one who sold me the cheese bread.
“Wait, cheese-bread man?!” I asked in shock.
“Wait, mute child?” he asked, we shared a short silence.
“Wait I thought you can’t speak!” the man exclaimed.
“Well, actually it’s that I didn’t know the language.” I shrugged.
“Damn, what brings you so far from Equoria?” he asked.
“Actually I live round’ here. By the way, I’m a man.” I explained.
“Seriously? You look like a girl!” he laughed.
“Yeah, I get that a lot, also I don’t have a name,” I added.
“What?!” He asked he was clearly shocked.
“Yeah, I just never decided on one… most people just refer to me as ‘guy slash girl’ or ‘nameless child’ ” I explained.
“You’re by far the weirdest customer I’ve ever had, Lil’ man.” the cheese-bread man exclaimed.
I shrugged “So, about these festival buns…” I continued.
“Right, they’re filled with sweet, creamy cheese and sprinkled with some sea salt, they’re five copper each,” he explained.
“Usually they’d be cheaper but the price of flour increased because there are rumours that next years wheat crop will die.” The cheese-bread-man explained.
“I’ll have four…” I said.
“Four?! Where are you going to fit all those?” the man laughed.
“I have sorrows to eat away,” I replied.
“Woah, you alright there kid?” The man asked, his laugh turning to a concerned voice.
“I’m just joking, I stopped feeling anything a long time ago,” I replied with a lazy wave, I slid the man a large copper coin, I learned one large copper coin is equal to ten small ones.
The cheese-bread man took the two large coins and gave me the four buns, each one a pinkish red with some of the yellow-white cheese filling seeping out.
I walked through the densely populated area looking for an area to eat my buns quietly.
I noticed a seemingly abandoned bench in an open area between two houses, a bit of an alley.
It was completely empty so I decided to go there and eat my buns in peace.
As I sat down listening to the distant noise I opened the bag and took out a bun.
I bit into it, the soft, layered crust of the bun was flaky and slightly buttery, when I reached the soft cheese filling I was shocked by an explosion of flavour, it was sweet with a hint of sour and a flavour very similar to vanilla, the little bit of salt sprinkled on top was also pretty refreshing because the filling was so sweet.
“Hey there…” a familiar voice said, I looked back only to see Abe sitting in the corner of the alley, I sun around to see who it was.
“Abe? What the hell are you doing here?!“ I asked confused.
He seemingly shivered a bit before speaking in a disgusted tone, “They dragged me out here, but this place is horrible! There are so many people I don’t know and it’s noisy and it’s just horrible!” Abe complained, despite the bold claims he seemed more tired than angry.
“Heh, guess you’re not really into the big public occasions?” I asked.
“Nah, I’m planning to go home as soon as the crowd dies down,” Abe explained.
Beside Abe sat several cats and kittens, they dig their claws into him as they climbed up and down his body.
“You seem to get along well with animals,” I commented seeing the cats.
“You think so? It’s only cat’s that understand me… we like to sleep… we like to eat… we don’t like loud noises or massive crowds, we don’t seek total isolation we just want to stay out of the spotlight.” Abe almost fell asleep as he spoke.
“Don’t sleep here you’ll get robbed!” I warned him.
“Sorry, I used too much mana today…” Abe explained.
“What are you using the mana for anyway?!” I asked remembering how Abe is always asleep or on his way to be.
“It’s a long story…” Abe groaned, as he rolled over to his side, I stood up and dragged him to the bend and off the trash, he was surprisingly light even for me.
“Here have a bun,” I said handing him one of the still warm festival buns.
Abe blinked a few times and rubbed his eyes before taking the bun, “Thanks, friend…” Abe cracked the bun in half letting the warm cheesy mixture pour out onto the floor.
“Dude! You just wasted the best part!” I complained.
“It’s fine, I like the bun itself, it’s plain and tasteless…my favourite,” Abe said as he began chewing on the bun, the cats from before crawled over to the poured out cheese and began licking it.
“Oh, I see you left it for the cats,” I exclaimed.
“Yeah…they should get something out of all that noise caused by us humans,” Abe replied.
I shrugged.
“So, you still didn’t explain how you used up all that mana,” I said eating the second half of my bun.
Abe spoke in his usual exhausted voice, “you see…ever since I was a child, I was extremely sickly…by age ten I was completely immobilized.” Abe explained.
“I can relate, back home I couldn’t get off the couch either,” I said, not fully seriously.
“I see, then you should know what it’s like to have life pass you by while you’re stuck in one place…” Abe said.
“Sure…” I said, I just realised my joke caused me some trouble and I’d have to just go along with it.
“Well…I don’t…I didn’t care…is standing in the sun or being in a lake really something so amazing that I should feel bad over not being able to take part in it?” Abe asked.
“I just sat at home and read books when I was able and when I couldn’t I’d just try to sleep and read books in my dreams,” Abe explained.
“Wait…wait so you had dreams…about reading books…you could do anything and you decided to read books?!” I asked.
“It’s because I could to anything I decided to read books, what joy would I get from climbing a mountain? Swimming across the sea? Fighting dragons?… I was fully satisfied with reading my books.” Abe explained.
“Damn…you must have been pretty lonely,” I said.
“Not really…my parents and sibling wouldn’t come close to me because of the disease, but they were always in the house, I’d hear them walking past my room sometimes, and I couldn’t make friends without first going out, besides I was a night owl so I would always stay up in the night reading in the moonlight or if I could muster the strength to light one, by candlelight.” Abe explained.
“I did have one friend though, an old sickly cat,” Abe explained.
“It was an old white cat, blind in one eye and half deaf, covered in scratches and fleas, It looked ancient like it was older than me.” Abe laughed a bit at the description.
“I always called him gramps…because his fur near his face looked like a beard, his face always looked like he was grumpy about something..” Abe said.
“He visited me every night since I was ten, up until I was sixteen, my disease got worse and I the ability to feel anything with my hands, I saw gramps walk in through the wooden windows like he usually did, I saw it in his eyes, the look that said, ‘go on, die you bastard so I can die’ ”
“It seems humans live longer than cats, even diseased humans and I outlived gramps… he walked over to me, leaning in to do his usual head-butt against my hand, I couldn’t feel it anymore but I saw it, the tired eyes of a veteran cat.”
“He slept next to me that night, and eventually got off and stumbled away into the night, I never saw him again…I knew he died.”
“...did he like…bring you mice to eat or something?” I asked.
“No, gramps never ate in my room… he just sat there, sometimes on me sometimes next to me and he’d leave by sunrise.” Abe replied.
“I guess that’s why you’re so fond of cats,” I said taking out a second festival bun.
“Wait, you still didn’t answer my question! You just talked about a cat for the last ten minutes!” I exclaimed.
“Oh, that’s right…after gramps didn’t come back I wanted to go look for him, for the first time in my life I had nightmares about gramps being sick laying on the cold wet ground dying of disease for days while I lay around at home. From the books, I learned about magic and with my limited understanding of magic I created a spell to make myself able to move.” Abe explained.
“Wait, you can make spells up too!?” I asked.
“It seems I had a large mana pool, but creating new spells permanently decreases the size of your mana pool, that’s what gave me the title of archmage after all…” Abe explained.
"Wait, alright. Finish your story first, then I’ll ask you my remaining questions." I said beckoning Abe to continue the story.
Abe sighed and continued.
“Long story short I never found gramps, but I figured out how to walk, granted my walk was more like a drunk puppeteer playing with his doll rather than a normal walk but it did the job.”
“Not too much later I heard that disease spread through the town and that someone was stumbling around town spreading the super rare disease only I had in the town. “
“The villagers did the only reasonable thing they could and decided I should be burned on a stake to fix the problem. Those were more primitive days of society, nowadays I’d get a quick death via guillotine”
“As I was dragged out of the house my parents were helpless to do anything, they just watched and pretended to laugh with the other villagers…I’m sure it was just so they wouldn’t get into trouble…” Abe explained.
“While I was on the stake I, the villagers started throwing torches onto the pile of wood and hay. In my panic and rage and confusion, I did the only thing I thought was right in the situation, the thing every child considers when they learn of magic…the forbidden fruit of all wizards and mages…I chose to let my body burn, but I refused to die. I became a lich.” Abe explained.
Abe paused for a bit, “I think that’s about it…”
“Wait, so you’re a zombie?!” I asked.
“No, a Lich. I’m switched from using food and air and stuff to mana as fuel for the body, I’m also using mana to stay looking young and avoid disease.” Abe explained.
“Second question, so if I was to invent a spell…I’d lose a considerable amount of my total mana pool?!” I asked.
“Yeah, let’s say the average person has ten units of mana, this means that they will passively regenerate ten unites of mana regardless of circumstances. If they choose to create a spell that nobody ever taught them, they’d lose five unites permanently, but they could teach that spell to someone and they’d lose no units…now if you later decided to make a similar spell, it might only cost you five units this time, while a more complex one might be even more…” Abe explained.
“Alright…so an average person could handle one spell…I might not be screwed just yet…” I thought.
“Granted in reality, creating one spell would cost in the thousands of mana units…that’s why only gods and talented humans can come up with spells.” Abe explained.
“Is there a way to measure mana pools?” I asked nervously.
“Yeah, I can get it checked for you if you want…” Abe offered.
“Are you sure that’s okay, you won’t run too low on mana?” I asked.
“It’s fine…that kind of spell should need little to no mana.” Abe explained extending his hand in front of him, he placed a palm on my forehead and runes began appearing in thin air.
“Right…let’s see…one…two…three…” Abe was counting something…I hope it’s not mana units…what if I only have like three left?!
“It looks like you do have an unnaturally big mana pool,” Abe said.
“How many units?!” I cried.
“Well…that was just an example…mana is measured in volume, basically an average peasant has like…a glass… a craftsman with some magic might have a bucket, a mage will have a pond’s worth, an archmage should have a lake, but in my case, it’s more of a pond.” Abe explained.
“Please tell me I’m not a puddle!” I pleaded nervously.
“You have a sea…” Abe said.
“What do you mean…like…the letter ‘C’ ?” I asked.
“No, as in you mana volume is like a sea, that said you mana composition and regeneration is complete trash,” Abe explained.
I looked at Abe in confusion.
“Basically you can make an ungodly amount of new spells, and you can keep a lot of spells active at the same time, but you’ll burn through a sea’s worth of mana in an equally ungodly amount of time, on top of that your mana is pretty thin…without getting into the magic-theory it just means you need more mana to create the same thing, but since new spells aren’t physical things you shouldn’t worry about creating too many…” Abe explained.
“Do keep in mind, your mana pool is not like a physical organ, but it does obey some laws, don’t drain it completely or it could fold in on itself and stop you from being able to cast magic altogether for a while,” he added.
I breath a sigh of relief, “Man I was worried there for a second…” I said.
“Yeah, it’d suck creating a super cool spell you can never use because your maximum mana became too low…” Abe sighed.
“So..are there many people with mana pools like mine?” I asked hoping to get some sense of scale, plus I could always use an ego boost.
“Not exactly…there were some people throughout time, mostly mages of legend, who had mana pools even bigger than yours, that said I doubt there are many people alive to match your mana pool at the moment,” Abe said finishing his bun.
I took out four of the five mana bullets I had saved up and handed them to Abe. “Here, you can break the bullets if you’ll be in need of mana,” I explained before standing up off the bench.
“I’ll be going now if I see Darthold I’ll tell him to get you home once you’re done,” I said leaving.
“Thanks…by the way…” the was super exhausted at this point, leaning his head against his hand.
“Don’t go overboard with strong magic…we mages…can…sense strong magic…” as Abe was about to finish his sentence he fell asleep and started snoring.
“Seriously…you’ll get robbed…” I sighed as I walked away, two buns left.
I left the alley, the bun bag in hand, joining the crowd and heading through the stalls and stands.
What do people do at festivals…I guess I could go drink…I doubt the medieval people have too much against me drinking…now that I think about it people just had nothing fun to do.
As I walked one stall caught my attention, the stall was filled with piles of books. Back on earth, I wasn’t one for reading but it beats having to go outside, plus I might be able to find something for Abe…
I looked through the books, I saw a few cookbooks…some mythology…some magic books…
I picked up three books, one about the mythology of the country and two about magic and how it actually works.
“I’ll take these three,” I said pointing at the books and lifting the three books slightly.
“That’ll be three silver.” the bored-looking man said,
I took three silver out of my bag and slid it towards him on the wooden stall, he seemed surprised by the fact I have that kind of money.
I took the books and continued walking down the long road of shops and people, soon enough I saw Darthold sat at a stall next to two large piles of plushies
I walked up to him, “Hey, Darthold. Aren’t you supposed to be with the dryads today?” I asked looking at the game he was playing.
“I am! Look behind you.” I turned back to the pile of stuffed toys, fair enough two dryad faces were sticking out of the pile.
“Oh, hey guys,” I saw with a wave.
“Hello!” they replied plainly, their eyes were filled with pure excitement for all the stuff they got.
“You guys want some festival buns?” I asked.
“Snacks?!” Al exclaimed excitedly.
I placed one of the cheese buns in their mouths since they were trapped in piles of toys.
They tried to say something but their mouths were full so I just came out as an “Mnmhhmm” albeit a pleased one.
I looked back to Darthold, “So what are you doing?” I asked looking at the pile of smashed glass, next to it the man who I assume is the owner crying into a plushy.
“It’s easy, you just have to hit the target, if you smash the target in one hit you get to go again for free!” Darthold exclaimed with a hearty laugh as he got ready to throw another ball.
The owner looked up only to collapse back into the stuffed bear he was crying into,
Effortlessly Darthold smashed the glass bottle targets into tiny shards.
“Hand it over…” Darthold said with an extended arm.
The owner took the bear out from under his tear covered face and handed it to Darthold.
“I-I’m afraid… w-we…ran out of…prizes…the game is closed….” the owner stuttered out, turning to leave he heard the sound of smashing glass, he looked in horror as he saw another target was smashed.
“B-but sir! We’re out of prizes!” the owner cried,
Darthold just looked at him for a while, “That’s a nice hat you have there…” he said.
“Right, well I’ll be leaving now, remember to collect Abe from the alley near the festival bun stand,” I said waving a lazy goodbye.
“See ya later!” the dryads called back.
It’s weird how they speak in unison sometimes.
I headed through the crowd to some other game, this one was spectated by a tonne of people, I squeezed through the crowd to see what was going it, it was some archery game…played by Lily…they let her use the crossbow…
I heard the sobbing of the owner already, I made my way up towards Lily who never took her eyes off the game.
“So, watcha’ doing?” I asked.
”Oh, nameless child.” Lily breathe a sigh.
“Just…getting rid of some pent up aggression” She explained, I looked over to the game to see that every single target was shot with at least a dozen crossbow bolts, the splintered wood covering the floor, on one side of the range lay a part-timer - I’m fairly sure she was alive but there was no way to know from the opposite side (the one leading to the storage room) crawled another part-timer clutching a table as a shield presumably to protect himself from the arrows in order to rescue the other part-timer, granted it looks like the table was seen as a moving target and was also filled with bolts at which point the part-timer passed out, while the owners sobbed in the storage room.
“So...did your plan not work out?” I asked.
Lily took aim at the table again, “It’s not that it didn’t work out, it’s just that Adam would prefer to get drunk instead of play games with me!” Lily complained.
I slowly lowered her crossbow, “Please, spare the part-times.” I said as the man from behind the table rushed out to get the girl and sprinted back into the storage room where the owners congratulated him on the heroic task.
“Why not go drink with him?” I asked.
“...” Lily didn’t reply.
“SHIT!” Lily exclaimed.
“I was so preoccupied being pissed off, Adam might be getting hit on by other girls at the pub!” Lily added.
I was going to correct her since that’s not what I meant…but I just went with it.
“Thanks, nameless child! Feel free to take the reward I saved up in the game.” Lily said as he ran off past the crowd to the pub where Adam hid from Lily.
I walked up to the storage room, with the owners.
“So, she said I could take the prize for her, so feel free to keep it,” I said.
The owners returned to their sobbing as the two part-timers walked up to me.
“Hey, little girl. We’re sorry, this game is closed for the time being.” The girl said patting my head, you should go back to your parents.
For some reason, the image of Uriel as a parent appeared in my mind, such disturbing imagery…
I took out the revolver, loaded a pain bullet and pointed the revolver at her.
“Alright, no problem, could you just smile for the camera for a second, miss?” I asked pressing the revolver against her head.
Blissfully unaware of her situation the girl nodded, most likely not knowing what a camera actually is.
She was pushed out of the way by the part-timer who hid behind the table, he was a scrawny looking guy in his mid to late teens, he was pale, with light blond hair. He wore a white blouse and brown trousers, same as the other part-timer and owners.
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING POINTING A GUN AT RANDOM PEOPLE?!” the man demanded.
“Wait, you guys know what a gun is?” I asked.
The man covered his mouth, he looked around for a second realising that nobody paid attention to him.
“Look, little kids like you shouldn’t be walking around with guns!” the man said in a hushed voice, with my blank expression I shot the man in the foot with the pain bullet.
“AHH!” the man cried, rolling around on the floor crying.
“Stop being such a baby, it’s a magic bullet it won’t actually hurt you,” I explained.
“LIKE HELL IT WON’T!” the man cried.
“Anyway…” I pointed the gun towards his guts, “Are you from Earth by any chance?” I asked, my finger on the trigger.
“Yes, indeed child…I was chosen by the gods to be born into this world to spread love and peace!” the man exclaimed.
“Don’t feel too special, including myself and excluding you, I know like…three and a half people from earth and one inter-dimensional cat thing.” I explained.
“wait…you mean you’re from earth too?!” the man cried.
The man crawled towards me clutching to my boots, “If you don’t get the fuck off right now I’ll shoot you right now.” I warned him aiming my gun to his head.
“Come on, this is the first time in sixteen years I’ve seen someone from Earth!” the blond man cried.
I shot him a few more times but he wouldn’t let go so I just dragged him behind me.
I walked through the festival, it looked like I was getting close to the end of the crowd, I was dragging the blond man attached to my left leg over the rocks and dirt of the road in hope of getting him off, he was surprisingly heavy, I heard a scream as I saw dozens of people flee in the opposite direction, I made my way past the crowd making sure to let a few of the people trample the blond guy.
In the distance, I saw a pile of corpses…or more likely passed out people, granted seeing people black-out-drunk at festivals should be expected if my sources (TV and Internet) are to be trusted, but not like this…women, children, some still clung to life as they tried to crawl away
“And for my next song…” the voice said before it began to sing.
That was when I heard the horrific sound, it was like a drunk walrus trying to sing, I looked to the source of the gut-twisting noise only to see that it was Uriel on a makeshift stage, around him an unconscious crowd, except for one.
It was a battle of god-like proportions which I had to fight on the inside, on one hand, I wanted to go tell him how awful his singing was, but on the other hand, I wanted to get as far as I possibly could from his banshee-like voice.
I picked up a rock off the floor and took careful aim, I tossed the rock in his vague direction, as it flew closer to the source of the evil it began flying in a different direction, the vibrations from his unholy voice…they must have thrown the stone off its course…
“WHAT IS THAT NOISE?!” the man attached to my leg cried.
“It’s Uriel! I mean the cat!… I have to stop him from singing…” I replied.
“What?! No, we have to flee!” the man around my leg cried.
I took a deep breath, “I can’t let the entire world end like this…it’s just too cruel…even for me.” I explained.
I took a step towards the stage, I felt the air grow thicker as the vibrations became stronger, despite the fact I only walked a few feet it felt like miles, the man around my leg was clutching onto my leg harder than before.
“Let go damn it! It’s dangerous!” I cried getting even closer, I saw the particles of dirt and soil take on a ripple-like effect as I drew closer to the stage.
“Never! You might be the asshole who tried to shoot us earlier…but I can’t let a child die like this!” he yelled back.
“We might both die!” I said - I moved my hand up to wipe the thick red stream of blood that began flowing from my right nostril. (maybe a slight exaggeration)
“It’s alright…we can stop this…” the man replied, his grip loosened as he fell limply to the floor.
With a sudden sharp pain, I felt like I’ve gone deaf, what happened looked like slow-motion to me, the man fell to the ground bouncing slightly as he began slipping back further away from the source of the noise.
“Sorry…looks like this is a job for me…” I said as I valiantly kept going further, I passed the only person still looking vaguely conscious in the crowd, it was the Lieutenant General…of course, it was the Lieutenant General…
I kept moving.
At this point, the pressure from the waves of sound was too much, and I fell to my knees, was this the end of my tale…this seemed strangely anticlimactic.
My vision began to blur, as I began falling backwards ready for the cold rocky embrace of the earth to end my suffering I was surprised by the warm embrace of someone else, it was the blond man from before, blood streamed from his ears and nose, but a desperate grin clung to his face as he used the leftover strength to pick me up at this range maybe with my mass…maybe I could at least fly closer to Uriel…
He threw me over the leftover benches and directly onto the stage, I looked back only to see a spurt of blood escape the man’s mouth as he fell back, a satisfied grin on his face…
I used what little strength I had left to tackle Uriel off the stage as his “singing” stopped, I was able to hear again, “YOUR SACRIFICE WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN!” I cried looking over to the blond man from before.
As Uriel opened his eyes he looked around only to see what he has done, piles of people, my face bloodies and a hero lost.
“Oh… what happened here?” Uriel asked looking around the battlefield.
“This…is all your…fault cat…” I managed to say, the difference in air pressure now that he stopped singing was so strong I felt a sharp pain in most of my organs.
I looked over to the Lieutenant General who despite her polite smile was already out cold, presumably since the start.
“Oh - it must have been my hymn spell, I guess I activated it by accident,” he replied looking around panicked.
That was when I lost consciousness.
When I opened my eyes I was greeted with the warm light from outside, I got out of bed feeling a sharp pain in my head as I stood up.
I stumbled out of my bedroom and into the living room, I swung the fridge open and took out a handful of energy-drink vials Adam stored in the bottom shelf.
“Good, you’re alive, nameless child,” Uriel said from the distance.
“Yeah, I find that fact hard to believe, too…” I replied making my way to the couch where if fall with a mug filled with energy drinks.
“What happened yesterday after your…singing…incident?” I asked saying the word singing in air-quotes.
“I carried you and Catherine back here, we ran into Lily and Adam on our way where the festival-goers insisted we leave,” Uriel explained.
“Alright, so we got kicked out…I should have seen that coming.” I sighed as I downed the entire cup of very potent energy drinks at once.
“And…eh…” Uriel was scratching the back of his head uncomfortably.
I raised an eyebrow.
“Sorry about yesterday, I guess I should hold off with my auditions to ‘fantasy world got talent’… at least for a while.” Uriel sighed with an apologetic smile.
“You don’t say…anyway, did you guys do anything after that?” I asked.
“No, but we did get something from a person at the festival to deliver to you,” Uriel said handing me a paper bag.
“I hope it’s chocolates…or money.” I mumbled as I emptied the contents of the bag onto the table, it was a few letters…
I picked one of the letters up, it read as follows…
“I am writing to you on behalf of the royal festival and holiday council, you and your friends are officially banned from taking part in, or coming within a one mile radius of any festivity taking place in this country, note that the punishment has been severely reduced by your alleged actions of heroism during the terrorist attack (presumably Uriel’s singing) and as a result you may choose to repeal this decision when next visiting the royal capital.”
I read over the letter, “Uriel, you just ruined my fucking Christmas!” I complained.
“What?! How come?” He asked taking the letter and reading over it, as he read his eyes widened before he folded the page in two and placed it back onto the pile.
He was speechless.
“Thanks a lot, cat…any way. How’s the Lieutenant General?” I asked.
“Who? Oh, she left this morning.” Uriel explained, he weakly pointed towards the front door.
“Oh, good,” I replied sifting through the other letters.
“Most of these are for Adam…oh another one labelled ‘nameless child’ ”
“Never come back, sincerely -The town of Derfal.” I read this one out loud.
I picked up another letter,
“My shop is out of business because of you, we all hate you.” I read this one out loud as well.
“I wish I could punch you in the face, you festival ruining sons of-” I was interrupted by Uriel “Okay, okay, I get it…I screwed up…” he sighed.
“Don’t worry too much, I bet most of the damage was done by Lily shooting people at various games…”
“Sorry about that!” I heard Lily shout as the carped was lifted by the opening of the trapdoor in the floor.
“Lily…you really shouldn’t…do that…” Uriel held his thumb and index finger between his eyes as he sighed in disappointment.
“Relax, it’s just couples businesses, you wouldn’t understand,” I said waving my hand dismissively at Uriel - by now I realised this is just how they liked to do things.
Lily nodded furiously, “Exactly, you wouldn’t understand.” she agreed.
“You two had a really twisted image of relationships and I won’t even bother correcting you,” Uriel said sounding more pissed off by the second.
“Wait…where is Adam?!” Lily asked panicked,
“Isn’t he in his room?” I asked before I walked over to his room despite the fact Lily already said he isn’t.
I looked outside and saw that Adam was in fact passed out on the dead grass outside.
Come to think of it, the entire landscape of the land was looking dull, the lush greens and fields of flowers were replaced with a dry brownish-grey.
I kicked Adam until he was awake.
“Dude, get up,” I repeated, adding a little force to my kicks each time.
Eventually, Adam sat up, the side of his face bruised from the kicks, “Man, why can’t you just wake me up like a normal person?!” Adam asked.
“Relax,” I pulled out the revolver and shot him with a healing his square in the forehead.
He recoiled from the pain, “Holy crap it worked…it cured my hangover!” Adam exclaimed as he stood up and walked into the house, “Yo, come over here mister nameless!” Adam called, I made my way inside and asked him “What’s up?”
Adam gestured me to his room.
“Man, this is starting to really look like a porno and I’m not interested,” I said I’m not comfortable with this kind of relationship.
“Just shut up and come inside, I need to tell you something.” he sighed.
I shrugged and walked inside, I sat on the bed and faced Adam who stood by the door, “So, what is it?” I asked.
“I got a lead on who is killing all the plants, or rather who is blocking all the souls as Uriel explained,” Adam said.
“Wait, you actually did something useful yesterday?!” I asked.
“Yeah…” Adam replied, he didn’t sound as excited as I hoped, so I prepared for the worst.
“If my sources are trustworthy…and you can’t get more honest than a drunk man at a pub…granted that’s also the most likely setting for made-up stories, anyway…” Adam took a deep breath.
“There are rumours that people are being recruited from around the entire world into some sort of cult - I’m not quite certain on the details except for the fact that they aim to literally piss god off…” Adam explained.
I went over the info in my head for a bit…”Alright, I think I got a decent idea of what’s up…” I replied.
“Well, it’s just a start but at least it is a start.” Adam sighed.
“So do you have some sort of plan yet?” I asked.
“Yeah actually, I’m thinking of going out and tracking down the cult and collecting more info on them,” Adam explained.
“Sounds like a good start, but we need a place or person to start…” I commented.
“Yeah…about that ‘we’ part, sorry about this man but with how much you stand out we’re guaranteed to be suspicious as hell,” Adam said apologetically.
“You just want to get drunk alone…” I said squinting my eyes in judgement,
“Your lack of faith hurts…” Adam sighed smiling an uncomfortable grin.
“I guess you’re right, I may stand out a little bit.” I relented letting out a sigh.
Adam moved out of the way, “Yeah, I think I’ll be leaving sometime this week, by the way.” Adam added.
I nodded, “make sure to take the teleportation ring with you, nobody’s going to be there to carry you home.” I said hesitantly.
I opened the door causing everyone standing pressed up against the door to fall inside.
“I should have expected that…” Adam sighed seeing Uriel and Lily laying on his floor.
“ADAM YOU’RE LEAVING?!” Lily asked grabbing a hold of him and shaking him violently.
“Yes - I’m - lea - ving - tomor - row!” Adam cried as he was being shaken by the hysterical Lily.
A few seconds of shaking alter Adam passed out, look like the hangover didn’t go away completely.