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CULTivator
Chapter 9: Communication

Chapter 9: Communication

As the scholarly man enters the old building, he could immediately tell that, compared to every other ruin he visited, this one is different. There is a presence here, listening, watching his every step, some kind of tension in the air, emanating from the holy object sitting on the altar at the other end of the ruin. He immediately feels drawn to it, ignoring every other detail around him.

He didn't even notice how the girl in front of him steps aside, trying to get away from him, or how his legs lead him to the altar and make him kneel down in front of the presence, yet somehow he catches himself. It was not outside control that brought him here, rather it was pure instinct that led him into this position. And right now it is pure instinct that tells him that something powerful is listening to him, that he feels compelled to ask his question.

On his knees, with his hands folded in front of him, he prays and begs loudly. "Oh great and ancient God that still resides in this place, please give me the answers that I have been looking for all my life. Please grant me the knowledge I seek, satiate my curiosity, and tell me what you wish in return."

After an awkward bout of silence, of nothing happening, he looks up because something catches his eye. The girl he followed inside is standing a distance away, but shyly staring at him, as if unsure on how to proceed. Something is up with this girl, he knows that, Which makes him listen up when she speaks to him.

Her voice is soft, barely reaching him from where she stands, yet they are perfectly understandable, as if being carried by more than just a gust of wind. "you don't talk... using words..." she utters, her face blushing as her anxiety kicks in. She spent quite a while thinking about how to explain to this stranger what she feels she should tell him, about how to speak to this being, yet what came out are just a few cryptic words that are easily misunderstood, just how it always happens with her. It's one of the reasons she doesn't like talking, and why she feels more comfortable talking to her protector. Raw concepts just can't be misunderstood.

Yet for some reason, this scholarly man has a decent idea of what this girls is talking about. He found ancient texts, scripture which needed to be translated first, as they were in a language completely unknown to him, or anything else for that matter. Yet this girl somehow has a connection to the presence he is currently seeking an audience with, and it is extremely unlikely that she knows the language of the ancients, therefore she must have some other means of communicating with it. Her telling him to not use words just made it clear.

After all, he is a man of knowledge for a reason.

So instead of talking, he just closes his eyes and focuses on the presence, which in turn focuses more on him. He can feel it prodding him, wanting to enter his thoughts, and he let it, pushing his desires through the link aswell. Curiosity, knowledge, the desire to understand stuff and the feeling of not knowing anything, of understanding your own lack of information. The feeling he has of not knowing the history or purpose of the ancient ruins he is infatuated with ever since he was a small boy.

And the being understands, and it complies. Withhin moments pure information floods the man's brain, information that is already excessive for someone from the world this being came from, yet is extremely esoteric and nonsensical for someone from a feudal age. In the span of just a few seconds the scholar's brain is being flooded with absurd amount of knowledge, more than he can comprehend, and the information desperately tries to find every nook and cranny it can, to fill itself into it.

Be it either due to the speed the information is pouring in, to the inexperience of the being's understanding of his own abilities, or to the fact that the human brain is simply not built to receive such a large amount of information, no one and nothing can say for sure, but what does happen is that information mingles with things it should not mingle with, aspects get corrupted and overwritten, and this brain builds connections it never should have built in the first place.

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For all that is happening inside this man's skull, the resulting physical reaction is rather tame, as he simply falls unconscious and impacts the ground with a soft thud, luckily landing on the matress of moss and leaves that is still lying there, leaving a scared girl and a slightly confused presence behind, a presence that quickly turns it's attention elsewhere, due to the fight that is happening outside of the church.

"I respect your enthusiasm", the burly bandit says, gripping his weapons tighter while circling around Oltes. He wields a sturdy, round wooden shield and an even sturdier broadsword, and the knowledge and experience of how to effectively use them. "You must really like that girl, to put your life on the line like that."

"It's not about that girl", Oltes responds, sending a few testing jabs across the gap between them. "But it's not like you would understand it even if I were to tell you."

"Ha! Not like I'd listen, but it's nice to see you not peeing your pants for one! It's like you're an entirely new person! I like it!" He sends a few strong swings towards his opponents, using his bulging muscle and huge body mass to make sure that even trying to parry them would at least fracture some bones.

Unlucky for him, his opponent is currently being fueled by an unknown power, strengthening his muscles and reflexes and granting him knowledge and ideas not from this world. Therefore, instead if outright parrying the attack using brute strength to try to direct the blade away, Oltes instead drops himself down, landing on one knee, and angling his sword sideways with incredible speed, providing a ramp for the brute's sideway swing to throw that broadsword strike upward.

Oltes understands some physics on a deeper level, using instincts granted to him by the being tied to his soul. He understands that energy is made of movement in a specific direction, and that trying to stop a moving object is much harder than changing it's course. So if he instead just provides a little rail for the blade to run along, he can easily let the blow fly away somewhere else, preferably away from him, if he himself is also able to direct himself away from the blow.

In addition to that, forcing the blade slightly upwards also forces himself slightly downwards, and with the force that blade is being directed, he would need a lot of strength to resist being pushed down. So instead of resisting, he goes with the blow, further sending his body down to the ground, continuing this movement in a roll forward and using that rolling motion to drag his blade behind and into the leg of his opponent.

Now Oltes finds himself upright again behind his enemy, who has lost his balance due to being unable to stop his own strong swing because the leg he put forward just received a deep cut, and he falls face first onto the grass. "You're right", he states to the man who now lies at his feet, as Oltes puts a foot on the bandit's back. "I am a new person."

At the same moment as a scared and confused girl walks out of the church, a sword parts the flesh of a man, extinguishing another life and confusing the girl even more. "What...", she stammers, trying to start a sentence and failing miserably, but her companion understands her regardless as he feels her confusion through the link they share.

"Don't worry about it," he calmly says as he pulls his sword out of his opponent's back, "Just cleaning up a little. He was dangerous to us. More important is why you're here alone, without that scholar." He slides his sword back into his scabbard and calmly walks towards the girl, reading her face and expressions. It is obvious that she is kind of overwhelmed by this entire situation. "Something happened, right?"

"Yes..." she speaks slowly, trying to fumble some words together in her mind. If she could only talk to him like she could do to the being. "He is... asleep... and...", for some reason, the almost expressionless gaze that this man sends her makes her especially uneasy, and she wants to simply disappear. A thick layer of reassurance lays over her, emanating from the being, and she calms down a little.

Shifting his focus from the girl to the inside of the church, Oltes makes his way inside, with Sana following right behind him, and he quickly reaches the altar, where the researcher is laying in a seemingly uncomfortable position, so he shifts the unconcious body around so that the stranger at least somehow comfortably lies on the makeshift plant matress.

"Don't worry, I'll keep watch", he says to Sana, more matter-of-factly than trying to be reassuring. "Seems like he'll be one of us when he wakes up."