Chapter 103: Seeking Companionship

Erin was silent as seconds stretched on, a rubber band tight before its breaking point. All the people in the meeting room had turned to watch her, the full force of Shanshi. She debated internally for a long while: should she continue the deception, or come clean? The evidence was circumstantial, but Erin did not have the fanatic devotion that was required to prevent the truth drugs of the Adventure Society from forcing her to spill every last secret like she was some sappy, talkative drunk with her best friend.

“I was never satisfied with the way things were with this world,” Erin Nisei said, letting the truth slip from her crimson lips with a sigh. “I am assigned to be the regional head of the Nisei, in charge of overseeing and maintaining the underworld. Why?”

“Why what?” Zinnia snapped, not particularly interested in her life’s story.

“Why is the underworld necessary at all? Why do we ignore it, and why do we let it persist? Before I oversaw Shanyin, it was destitute. The poor, the forgotten, the shunned, and the criminal scrounging for scraps in the shadows of the light. And the way the Arlang treat the ‘barbarians’ of the north, slaughtering them every time they travel in search of food.”

“They pillage,” Sen pointed out, coming to his family’s defense. “They rape and pillage the villages in their way. It’s our duty to drive them back and protect the people.”

“But we don’t care,” Erin stressed. “None of us have ever really cared. Why do they the northern tribes attack their southern neighbors?”

“You’re saying we should provide for them, so they do not resort to pillaging,” Sen said. “We have heard this before, and we have offered the opportunity. Some leave their tribes to join the cities of Arlang and other territories of the north.”

“Is that good enough? To just offer them the opportunity? It’s a superficial consolation,” Erin countered. “Families are born and raised into their culture. Their men think that raping and pillaging is a sign of masculinity and manhood, their Coming of Age. Raised that way their entire life, and they are expected to know any better, to jump at an ‘opportunity’? Is it fair we kill them for the mistakes of their ancestors, never corrected?”

“That’s why you betrayed this world? To correct its failures?”

“The world needs an external force to guide its path: The Advent is that external force. Their methods may be abhorrent but no more abhorrent than the suffering we regularly turn a blind eye to or inflict on our own people. I’m sure you’ve all resented those core-eating self-centered politicians that siphon away resources from those in need to line their own pocket. What if we just killed them?”

“We do, sometimes,” Zinnia pointed out. “If they’re annoying enough and criminal enough.”

“And they’ll appear again and again and again. Our nature is flawed, and so, our society is flawed. Most of us are average, ordinary people that follow the teachings of generations. There are some of us, essence users and adventurers, that take on additional responsibilities, yet still perpetuate the same cycle. And others, that do the opposite, parasitizing the work of the good-natured. The Advent offers a solution to thoroughly eliminate this issue from multiple fronts. With abundant resources, the greedy have nothing to gain nor to take. With their strict organization, their mission, their purpose cannot be corrupted. It is absolute. There are individual differences, but their dedication to their goal of cosmic harmony is uniform…I see them as the way forward.”

Erin stared up at the ceiling, eyes distantly searching for the ideal future she sought.

“How long do you think it will take us to reach that point? If we ever do? If there is a quicker option where less people die, is it not the only moral option?”

Erin Nisei cared for the people of the world. All of them. It started small: a young woman in an unfortunate position managing the unwanted of the world. She saw their strife, their effort, the bottomless pit they struggled to drag themselves out of, or gave up on struggling entirely, settling in the bottom like sludge, discouraged and in despair.

As her rank increased, she saw the top of society. Silver rankers were qualified to associate with kings. In Sanshi, silver rankers were the top of society. The parties, the balls, the extravagance, and the waste.

The irreconcilable scarcity of essences.

“The Advent has the ability to extend the lifespan without essences,” Erin said. “Not just us essence users. All can live a few hundred years. With The Advent, a few may suffer now for the happiness of many later. Many suffer now regardless. What is the difference?”

*****

For two days, Nara suffered alone in her room. Temporary physical pain from fighting monsters was one thing, but the constant torment of regrowing and reburning flesh within her wrists was another. She wanted to pass out from the pain, but the life energy the shackles provided kept her awake. She could only naturally fall asleep. The stabbing and burning pain that sent shooting sparks of pain every time she so much as shifted her arms prevented that. At some point, the compulsion of her mind to sleep would overwhelm the ability of the cuffs to keep her awake, but she hadn’t reached that threshold yet.

Nara didn’t think her pain tolerance was particularly high. The torture that she suffered as a soul was more subconscious than conscious, a non-physical pain. The pain she suffered in combat had the promise of relief, a means to an end.

She tried to claw at her arms, scratching at shackles she desperately tried to remove. As her fingers drew bloody raw marks against her skin, they healed. Her only accomplishment was crimson and dark maroon smears of blood that stained the bed she curled herself upon.

Next, she banged her head on the wall attempting to knock herself out. She may not have a brain, but it was not entirely impossible; the head was still a vulnerability, just not as much as others. Her reward was a red splat of modern art on white sandstone, as if an artist had randomly thrown red paint on the wall. The walls repaired themselves, and the blood disappeared into stone.

Nara’s sense of time was already weak then further exacerbated by her missing Guide, lack of access to her inventory, and her incessant torment.

On the second day of her feverish torment, she was visited by another unwelcome guest.

“The pain can end at any time,” Raina Bow said. She sat in the chair at the desk, as if she was the true owner of the room. “If you assent, I can bring you through the arch myself.”

Nara didn’t have the energy to respond, huddling tighter in the corner of the room, but managing a pitiful glare. She felt proud of herself for managing that much.

“I need some sort of response. Do you want me to bring you outside in this state?”

“…No.”

“Is that your answer?”

She did her best to nod.

“Know that only worse forms of persuasion await you. This is your final chance before that begins.”

Nara didn’t respond.

“I’ll assume that your answer is still a no. How unfortunate. For this, even I pity you.”

Rain held a small glass bottle out in her hand for Nara to see. It was small, around 2 inches tall and 1 inch in diameter. Within it were small, glowing specks of light.

“In one of the worlds that joined our harmony, Ataraxia, there is a naturally occurring magic beast of forests very saturated with magic known as the dream beetle. The dream beetle will infest an unfortunate traveler, very slowly eating their flesh and releasing a toxin that dampens pain and induces pleasant hallucinations. Eventually, the host will die as they fail to upkeep their basic life functions or recover from the damage caused by the beetle.”

She shook the bottle gently, sending the small, dust-like specks scattering within the bottle, pinging against the glass. They were much like fireflies, except smaller and glowing with a soft purple light.

“The life shackles provide the life and magic energy necessary to keep an iron ranker like you alive through the silver rank infestation. Anything extreme enough and your body won’t be able to take in enough healing energy before you die. Why we don’t use it in combat, well…”

Raina shot forward and grabbed Nara’s hand, causing her to yell out from the sudden, dizzying, pain.

“It’s painful, it’s inefficient, and the healing energy a body can absorb in a short period of time is limited. Abilities produce far more efficient healing energy, but external devices aren’t so able. For our purposes, it will do.”

Raina held out the bottle in front of Nara’s eyes, forcing her to stare at those small, glowing specks.

“This is not a dream beetle. Most of the Advent is remiss to physically torture others. Those like Ceram even willing to harass others is a rarity, even if you do not believe my words. We are taught our entire lives to be kind and understanding towards others. Those of us who walk the path of combat can counteract our upbringing but…torture by my own hand is difficult, as it is for all our people. It is my role, as their elder, to do what tasks they cannot. Know that your pain hurts me just as much as it hurts you. I sincerely wish, for your own well-being, that this suffering will not be for long. That it may be but a small blemish on the enduring relationship The Advent will build with you.”

Nara stared at the bottle as Raina uncorked it and plucked out a single bug from the bottle. She used her bare fingers; the bug could not puncture her gold rank skin. It was too small for Nara to see the bug squirm, but the rapid pulsating of light told her as much as the beetle struggled against her pinch-grip.

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“We developed other methods for those that necessitate it. Ones that don’t require our physical input. Thus, we developed the nightmare beetle from the dream beetle. Instead of dampening pain, this bug with release toxins that produce unique pain. When you get used to a pain, it will sense it and produce another. Additionally, it will induce a hallucinogenic that will show you what you most want to see.”

She held the bug right next to Nara’s right eye.

“This is your last chance.”

Nara closed her eyes, resigned of what was to come. She was not religious, but she sent prayers to whatever gods could hear—

“Why won’t you just kill me? You’ve killed others.”

“Nara,” she said, bringing her other hand to touch her face with a caress that made Nara flinch, “We are remiss to kill. We are,” She insisted. “If there are no other options, then that may be our ultimate conclusion. Until then, you will have plenty of time to think.”

Raina’s finger touched Nara’s skin, and the nightmare beetle crawled into her eye.

*****

Nara never wanted to experience that classic video game horror of having something inserted through her eye. It was an unwilling achievement she earned that day. The birds during the survival trial destroying her eye with their beak was at least a quick and temporary horror. The bug crawled around her eyeball, chewing on whatever flesh it passed, tunneling like a termite through wood. As it passed, the healing energy of the shackles restored her flesh. Sage was there too to heal her if needed. Her subsumed effect still worked, although it was unnecessary. Her presence was some comfort, even if she could not hear her dry teasing and ever-even voice.

Nara didn’t feel any different at first. The same, ever persistent burning pain continued in her wrists. She couldn’t feel the beetle inside her either; it was just too small. Even if she couldn’t feel it, it chewed away on her flesh and blood, slowly multiplying.

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Some creative writing on inflicting pain on my protagonist, not particularly graphic, but skippable.

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It was the first sign of a new pain that told Nara the beetle had multiplied enough to be effective. The first was a piercing migraine; a pain that shouldn’t be possible for Nara to feel anymore. She felt it deep within her skull, like a woodpecker was trapped within her skull furiously hammering out to escape. She was nauseous, either from the pain itself or a sensation the nightmare beetle generated as well. Next, was a classic: her fingernails felt as if wood splinters were inserted between their soft flesh and the nail. She blearily checked her fingernails, but no wood was there.

In the next moment the pain transformed; she was doused with gasoline, then lit on fire, like a non-twilight vampire suffering the sin of his existence as sentenced by the sun.

Nara wondered how she was supposed to move to the arch if she couldn’t move from the pain, but during the night, the pain abated, and the hallucinations began.

The first was a sound. It was as if she had developed tinnitus. A high, droning pitch ever present that she could not shake from her head. Then she heard dogs barking, and birds chirping. It was the sort that kept you awake at night, chirps when birds should have been asleep, right night to your window at 2 am. Every time there was a pause and you thought you had release, the noises began again, pulling you from tiredness into frustration. Then, the engine roar of car owned by a man with an inferiority complex. Sound by sound, they were layered on top in a one-thousand-layer sound crepe cake.

She heard the roar of the sun if the vacuum of space did not block it for her. The sound of a nuclear impact, tearing past her skin in an incinerating roar. The piercing pounding of a jackhammer, the incessant wailing of a baby on a crowded airplane, a train whistle that never ended. Each new sound added to the cacophonous orchestra, each equally distinct, and each crowding her mind for attention.

The sounds would not stop. They overwhelmed her. She felt small against a mega tsunami of noise, drowning, and battered within it. With her hands she dug into her ears, ripping away the flesh and tearing at her semicircular canals to make it stop. The wounds healed, and her hands dropped futilely back to the bed, blood caking beneath her fingernails as the sounds escalated.

It would not stop.

They were a hallucinated noise, a product of twisted magical poison that did not require brains nor chemicals to work.

She felt the noise reverberate through her whole body, shaking and vibrating her bones and flesh, bouncing around her empty skull. She felt its enormous pressure, the weight of all the sound in the world simultaneously.

She screamed for it to stop but it would not stop. Her own screams added to the noise. It was exhausting, overwhelming, and pervasive. There was nothing she could do but lie there and suffer the noise.

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End of depictions of pain, although now its sensory deprivation. Mostly relevant because Nara doesn’t like sensory deprivation.

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When the nightmare beetle sensed she had adapted, it changed tactics, abruptly and painfully.

She heard nothing at all. It would have been a relief, if not for the complete and utter absence that no human ever truly experienced. No sound of a heart, no background hum of electronics or wind, no gulping of saliva, or the sound of skin brushing against skin or the rustling of hair. It was a stark blackness compared to the overwhelming white of incessant noise. The silence itself felt sharp, and Nara gasped from the recoil of overwhelming sound to absolute auditory deprivation.

She was within a void of pure emptiness; the only companion were her thoughts and the sensations of her soul. Faintly, she could feel the presence of Chrome, Sage, and Thanatos attempting to comfort her. It was a brief relief; the nightmare bug would not be used for torture if it was anything but.

She realized she had lost all sensation. She couldn’t feel her body, as if it had all evaporated into nothingness.

It sent her into a panic.

She was in the astral again, but there was no shifting magic, no indistinct soul form, and no goal, direction, path, or home domain. She tried to slam her hand into her wrists to elicit pain, but she couldn’t feel her body move, let alone the sensation of pain. She didn’t even know if she had succeeded in impacting her body. If her fingers had brushed past skin, she wouldn’t have felt it.

She felt so helpless.

She didn’t know where she began, and the void of pure emptiness ended. Were her eyes open or shut? What was her orientation? Where was she in the compound. She had no idea if she had moved. Had her legs propelled her to the front of the portal, desperate for release? There was nothing she could do but pray she wasn’t standing there, ready to give in to their demands to end the emptiness.

Nara had experienced this sensation of annihilation and non-existence once before, if it could even be called a sensation or an experience. When she had eroded away her own soul into fine grains of sand, scattering it about to escape the cage that housed her, slipping away like dust and sediment along streams and wind.

Would that work now, annihilation? Could she do it?

Luckily for Nara, self-annihilation was a slow process (she didn’t have the power to be quick about it), and Nara had new qualities to herself which prevented any success. By that time, the nightmare bug had already moved on, constructing its next hallucinogenic poison with slightly different effects, and she passed that trial, not from sheer force of will, but the inability to destroy herself in the allotted timeframe.

*****

“Nara, what are you doing?”

A familiar, perpetually annoyed voice pierced through pain, and Nara found herself with clearer thought and mind, a slight reprieve from her madness.

“Chrome?” she croaked.

Chrome was leaning against the wall of her room. He was the same as always: long glowing golden braid with bright glowing eyes. Within his signature look of superiority hid his deep concern.

“Nara, this is foolishness. Just go through the portal.”

“You’re a hallucination,” she said slowly. She was sure, but she was unsure. “I shouldn’t be listening to you.”

Even if he was a hallucination, Nara was glad to see him. With her abilities suppressed, she couldn’t talk to any of her familiars, although she could feel them subsumed within her. That offered comfort. This being before her could not be Chrome.

“You don’t understand. I’m not just a hallucination,” Chrome retorted. “I’m the right answer. The sensible one. They don’t know what you can do. Once you step through that portal, they will think they’ve won. What do you think they’ll do next?”

“Remove the beetles and the shackles, I guess.”

“Nara,” he said, practically hissing, “Once they do that you are gone. They may know you have teleportation abilities, but they do not know that you can cross the dimensional wall. You can astral jump back to Amara, the Adventure Society, Sen, and help them figure out where this astral space is to find Aliyah. You can share your memory with Laius or Chelsea, and they can portal here.”

Nara’s mind was muddled from incessant hallucinations. Her perception of time and reality had already long blurred, like watercolors spreading on wet paper. Something seemed wrong with his statement, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. She tried to note it away like Sen would but couldn’t manage to hold on to that course, thoughts flickering like a faulty light.

“Your idiotic, hardheaded resistance now is just making things worse for the rest of these people. Once you are in their world, their home base, in one of the locations you can jump to, you can even astral jump there. Run sabotage. Get revenge.”

“I don’t really think that’s a good idea,” she said, distant. Nara wasn’t even clear if she was speaking out loud or not, or if it was all a hallucination within her mind.

Chrome snorted, “Oh, you don’t think it’s a good idea! You’re not the tactician. It’s not saying much.”

He sat down on the bed next to her, causing the sheets and mattress to crinkle under his weight. He seemed so real, his weight, his aura, his presence. The light of his shimmering hair and glowing eyes. His expression, pulled into his characteristic annoyed frown. The tone of his voice, a comforting lullaby in her tired and worn mind.

“Nara. You’ve always been flexible. Why are you being so stubborn now?”

Was she? Flexible or stubborn: She seemed to vary between the two. She knew why, she knew when she was stubborn. She had good reason now.

“I don’t know what’s on the other side of that portal,” she repeated. She’d be petulant if she had the energy.

“Why does that matter? You’ve gone through portals before. Evaluate the situation on the other side and make a plan. Whatever is on the other side, it has to be better than this.”

“I…will not give up my autonomy. Ever. Whatever is on the other side of that portal could put that at risk.”

“Look how resilient you are now. You think their ‘brainwashing’ would win against that?”

“I don’t know, Chrome. I don’t think I’m winning.”

Nara didn’t know how long had passed when she got another visitor. Her door opened, revealing the lilac-haired Lina. It wasn’t a surprise that any of the Adventists could trespass her room, but she still felt the pangs of vulnerability and helplessness to have that reasserted.

“Are you a hallucination too?” Nara asked blearily, “Why would I hallucinate you?”

“I am not.”

“Aw shit,” Nara wondered out loud. “Would a hallucination tell the truth?”

Lina moved the chair from the desk and sat down across from the curled Nara. The walls and bed sheets were clean and repaired, but they had suffered the throes of Nara’s pain. Nara too, had been healed. Aside from her disheveled hair, gaunt and shaky stature, and darkened eyes, she was much the same.

“You should consider going outside and seeking companionship.”

“From you?”

“I offer it, if you seek it,” Lina said. “However, you do not seek companionship from me. I am suggesting that you seek it from your friend, Aliyah.”

Nara struggled, wrestling both against the pain and her own emotions to finally respond.

“…I don’t want her to see me like this.”

Nara was prideful in weird ways. She didn’t want to be seen in her genuinely vulnerable moments by the people he cared about. Her team was in a strange intersection for her; they were more than friends, but not so close that Nara didn’t feel awkward sharing her vulnerabilities. She didn’t want to be an emotional burden. Pride, or just a natural process of forming deep relationships, or the fear of being inadequate or strange. Nara had always struggled with forming close bonds that persisted.

The modern education system of Earth further exacerbated the issue. Every four years, she changed to a different school and found new friends. After that, it was work. In the current economy, her friends and eventually herself would change workplaces every 2 to 4 years in search of a better paying job.

The closeness that team members developed, and the final act of trust and vulnerability was a threshold Nara hesitated to cross, especially with her dual identity as a member of two worlds.

Nara couldn’t tell if Lina was being manipulative or offering genuine advice. What should she do?

“Do they know?”

“I could tell them if you’d like.”

Nara looked at Lina warily, but only saw genuine concern from the celestine. She couldn’t trust any of her senses. Other people could do nothing to help her pain. Other people with her were a vulnerability the Adventists could exploit.

Yet Nara found herself involuntarily nodding to Lina’s proposition.

Lina nodded and left her room.