A Man Unseen

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Ur’Ruk – The Emerald Font

  Eidos steps into the decaying shell of a once proud structure. Gray light from the cloudless Wasteland sky filters through gaping holes in the scant remains of a high-vaulted ceiling. These meager rays illuminate motes of dust as they float through the air at glacial speeds.

  It looks as though this place may once have mirrored the Hall of Vanargand, as it is similarly festooned with alcoves for statues. However, the statues within are completely unrecognizable, having been rendered into nothing but misshapen stumps of rock.

  What is that, I wonder?

  Prominent among the drab surroundings, a shimmering, emerald-green fountain stretches several stories high. Its sheen suggests a metallic construction, but its resilience and lack of corrosion defy this conclusion. Rather, it looks to be cut from dimly luminescent jade and sculpted into the shape of some leafy, unfolding plant, caught between the worlds of nature and artifice. A small stream of coppery water trickles from its blossoms, staining the fountain’s surface.

  Her eyes follow this sullied flow down to a wide yet shallow pool where its journey ends. To her surprise, this visual excursion likewise brings her to the elderly man sitting at the fountain’s edge, not too distant from the coppery flow. In this room of fossilized inanimation, he seems almost an intruder, soon to be swept aside by the tide of oblivion—or if not, then assimilated into it.

  Just a hunch, but I imagine my body is going to go towards the old man…

  As Eidos approaches the elderly man, he continues to stare off absently into space; yet he is clearly aware of her, as he bends his ear in her direction.

  …so that it can sit down and rest.

  She plops down on the fountain’s cold, stone rim, eager to relax.

  “Who’s there, then? Speak up!” never facing her, the old man makes his demands. He has clearly been robbed of the light—and for quite some time at that, given the naturalness with which he has replaced sight with sound. “No plans to speak, foreigner? Just here to stare, are you?”

  “You’re blind, aren’t you?” she bluntly offers. “How’d you know I was a foreigner?”

  He chuckles weakly. “Who but a foreigner would sit next to the pariah among pariah? People here don’t speak to me, let alone get close to me.”

  She scoots away ever so slightly, “You don’t have some gross disease or something, do you?”

  His chuckle now hearty, he replies, “Ho! No, not at all, dear! Blindness isn’t contagious.” A slight pause allows him to finish his fit of mirth. “My name is Radan, of Dazir. What brings you to Ur’Ruk, young lady?”

  “It’s where I happened to end up.”

  Not entirely, but pretty much.

  “By happenstance, you say?” He muses momentarily. “Might just be fate—our chance encounter here, that is.”

  “Yeah?” she says, attention starting to drift.

  “Such is my hope. You see, I wish to be heard but none will listen. And thus, my tale remains untold—and I fear it will be consigned to oblivion along with its protagonist.”

  “You don’t say,” Eidos offers, starting to close her eyes.

  Oh no you don’t!

  Feeling the illusory weight of an open palm slapping her across the face, Eidos’ eyes spring open.

  Huh… wonder if I can have other physical effects on my body…

  “This is much to ask,” he continues, unaware of Eidos’ internal conflict, “but would you hear my story so that, when I die, I can live on in your memory?”

  Go for it, old man.

  “I guess,” she says.

  Overwhelmed with the prospect of finally being heard, his silent tears mirror the copper flow behind him. “Thank you. None wish to be forgotten—not even us sinners.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “I’ll keep it as short as thoroughness permits…”

  That means it’ll be long…

  “Then you’ll be long-winded, I guess.”

  Dammit. Will have to turn that thought-to-action effect off.

  Somewhat taken aback by the comment, he meekly offers, “Well, I’ll try to avoid wasting too much of your time, foreigner.”

  “No worries. I’ve got nowhere else to go.”

  “Thank you. Then I shall begin.” He clears his throat. “I am Radan, of Dazir, keeper of the flames of Biracul and Ark, may they eternally guide our way.

  “I, opponent to the usurpers Khaa and Pakahron, supporter of the Archmage Kambesh, swear to you that what I’m about to reveal is truth—not absolute, but rather truth with the clarity that only time and blindness can afford.

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  “Branded Unseen and expelled from our birthplace, we braved the journey through the Salt Forest with the aid of our Tacribian allies. The scant few who survived crawled their way here to Ur’Ruk.

  “Here we sought to establish a microcosm of the Biraculian system used since times immemorial and to establish a civilized society as best we could.

  “But none of this could’ve been accomplished without the aid of the man who’d turn out to be not only our greatest benefactor, but also our fiercest malefactor: Ormenos of Jer.”

  No, can’t be the same Ormenos as the one I abosorbed… right?

  He continues unabated, “When we arrived, he had already taken residence in the Red Tower—a vile den, one I alone saw the inside of and live to tell.

  “Ormenos had become obsessed with immortality and had been experimenting on draugnir prior to our arrival—though, only Biracul knows how he managed to secure so many ‘fresh’ ones to perform his questionable experiments on.”

  He hesitates, and licking his lips, he says, “Now, I should mention that he took me on as an apprentice when he realized I had an inquisitive mind and a skillful hand.

  “By then, he had helped establish order, given us a purpose, and a system for survival. So my presence wouldn't be missed for several hours a day while I helped in his workshop.

  “Oh, the wonders he showed me! Myriad tomes transcribed by the ghostly quills he had floating and bobbing through use of some obscure Techne… And the thousandfold secrets each tome held between its leathery covers!” Radan sighs. “What blissful days those were.

  “But all festivals end.

  “Two years elapsed, and soon Ormenos stopped appearing among us. I alone bore witness to his hideous transformation into a draug—physically, that is—for by some miracle he had maintained his own will. He was convinced that he had reached the limits of his experiments with draugnir and had grown dissatisfied, seeking to explore options he had to that point ignored.

  “He decided to continue his experiments using humans instead.”

  Okay, so draugnir are somehow worth less than humans, I guess? People do seem to hate them, but they didn’t do anything to me…

  Radan takes a deep breath. “He took the first of his subjects in the deep of the night—a beautiful young girl named Arkana.

  “We awoke that morning to find her bed empty, no trace of a struggle—in fact the bed was neatly made, even. Of course, we all wondered what could’ve happened to her and immediately set out to scour the ruins. But by sunset all we knew was that she’d utterly vanished.

  “The following afternoon, after completing my duties in the greenhouse, I went to Ormenos’ workshop as usual. But it had a new addition: a porcelain-skinned cadaver with the face’s skin carefully peeled open.

  “The only thing I could tell for certain was that it wasn’t a draugnir—because of the rust-colored stains. Arkana was the first, but not the last.”

  Well that’s grim. So the guy whose power I use to hide my mind is a child murderer? I guess he’s in good company with Luin, the ‘child’ murderer…

  “Then another tell-tale sign revealed itself when the new corpses began to rot. In the two years prior, I’d never seen a draugnir corpse rot.

  “So, Ormenos asked me to dispose of them in the cess pit—the one over on there, on the other side of this very fountain. And I obliged. I did so because emotion blinded me to reason.

  “This happened on several occasions and terror gripped my siblings in exile. They could only wonder who’d be spirited away next.

  “Then, at the peak of our anxiety, we turned on each other. Blaming one another for the disappearances. Casting doubt where none belonged. We stopped performing our duties as tensions grew. Started sleeping in smaller groups with people keeping watch in shifts. I even stopped going to Ormenos’ tower.

  “This waking nightmare continued until one day, two magi and a garrison of armor-clad Neverborn arrived. By then, we would’ve even welcomed Rubied Jinn himself through the gates if he would stop the madness.

  “Yet neither the magi nor the Neverborn seemed to notice our existence at all. We desperately tried to communicate with them, but they had no ears to hear us, no eyes to see us. We were invisible, unseen.

  “I remember it quite clearly; they were both stately figures—one of them reminiscent of Biracul himself, even.”

  Probably was Biracul.

  “Whatever they were, though, they were clearly not human. Our transformation as Unseen was absolute ; we were invisible to their Truesight.

  “One other oddity was how they navigated the city as though it were their home. They headed straight for the tower, remaining inside for quite some time.

  “Upon exiting, one of the magi held in his hand a spherical, blue crystal. The other held a crystal greener than this fountain behind me. They sealed the door with some ancient Techne and we never heard from Ormenos again.”

  That confirms it, I guess. So, Ormenos and likely Luin as well. What was Luin doing here anyway? Had Ormenos stolen it? If they couldn’t see the Unseen, then how did they find Ormenos? Ugh, this makes my head hurt.

  Eidos rubs her temples, “So no more Ormenos, huh?”

  “No more Ormenos. No more disappearing brothers and sisters. The connection was obvious in hindsight, but now even the truth-blind could see it.

  “The fog of fear cleared and the healing process began. Being the only person to have seen the inside of the tower, I shared what I’d seen with the others.

  “Infuriated, they blinded me, condemning me to relive those sights in my darkness, to atone for the victims who could’ve been saved had I spoken up.

  “I don't know why I never said anything… No, I think I know exactly why. I just couldn’t believe a man that in love with knowledge could be evil.

  “But since that day, none here have had ears nor eyes for old Radan. I’m just an Unseen, even among the Unseen.

  “I just sit here near the cess pit, waiting for the day I’ve the courage to cast myself in as I did with so many of my friends.”

  Radan pauses briefly, as though finally accepting his part in the tragedy. “Well, this is my story. Please remember it, child.”

  “Not the most bored I’ve ever been,” she says between yawns.

  “Thank you… Biracul guide you, stranger.”

  She won’t remember you, but I will. For what it’s worth.

  He stands, a bittersweet smile expressing his gratitude. With the aid of a walking staff to trace the edge of the fountain, he hobbles to the other side.

  A grating sound of metal dragging on stone ends in the ringing clatter of metal falling on stone. Then wood’s high pitch squeal joins the choir as it too falls on the stone and metal. And the muffled ruffling of clothes precedes the silence that ends the impromptu piece.

  Eidos closes her eyes, weary from the constant traveling.

  All right, you can rest. Just for a bit, though.

  She yawns, preparing for a wink of dreamless sleep.