Edited by: Flubbykin
Somewhere in a land far away, in a rich-looking huge chamber by a long table, a group of magicians was sitting and chatting peacefully. They were sitting quite spread out in an extremely casual way. One was keeping his legs on the table, the other one was sitting on the chair turned backward and yet another man was simply sleeping with his head lying between two different dishes. Only one person was paying attention to the manners - a woman with a face covered by a widow’s veil.
If some bystanders would take a look at this gathering, he would think he is looking at some group of bandits or drunk villagers, not at the members of the most fearful illegal organization - the Black Lodge.
* “Why, the fuck, is it so dark in here?” one of the men groaned looking toward few torches attached to the walls of the room.
* “Daiarro was bitching about it. He said that too much light destroys the scenery and he can't focus on his art… or something like that. I didn’t really pay attention to what he said back then...”
* “Nobody pays attention to whatever he speaks…” Another hooded person said quietly causing yet another man to chuckle.
* “Fair point… Speaking about that jester, I believe he isn’t keeping up with mana gathering quota...”
* “He hasn’t been meeting it for the past year or so…”
* “And he is still alive?! Godrik didn’t keep his quota and was killed I heard…”
* “Wasn’t he killed by adventurers?”
* “Only because the master allowed that.”
* “His ability to weave the threads of fate is rather disturbing…”
At that moment, a tall - three or four meters tall golden structure shined. It was a portal made of two not-touching bows. In the empty space in the middle, a rift in the matter of reality was cracked open and another magician joined the group.
* “EFFECTIVE STAGE-ENTRANCE!” he yelled.
* “Speaking about the devil… Dai, I hope that this time you bring something back with you…”
* “Tsk-tsk-tsk! FEAR ME! WORSHIP ME, MORTALS! FOR I HAVE…”
* “Cut this crap already. Do you have it?”
* “I do…” man, as he dropped his acting, appeared to completely lose his energy.
* “So you manage to finish a dungeon harvesting?! My-my! You didn’t fuck up the most basic task! I am actually amazed!”
* “I never said I have mana from the dungeon. Well, technically, it is mana from dungeon, that’s where I found it… but it is not dung-e-o-inal mana… Is that even grammatically correct?”
* “Wait-wait-wait-wait-wait. Elaborate the topic.”
* “Adventurers. They wrecked the dungeon. But they cast rather interesting magic, so I took that.”
* “Even if they wrecked the dungeon, as you decided to call it, as long as the dungeon core is untouched you should have no problem with harvesting… wait. You didn’t put the dungeon core in that golem, didn’t you?”
* “...” Man decided not to answer.
* “Dairarro! Look at me! You didn’t go full retarded and you hid the most vital dungeon organ far from adventurers! In some secret room or simply dug it in random place, right?! RIGHT!?”
* “I… I thought it would go well with my story…”
* “A moron. A half-brain. No, wait, half-brains are peaks of intelligence compared to you. You are a quarter-brain! A none-brain at all!”
* “What is this commotion all about?”
A silent, peaceful, quite pleased tone could be heard from one of the side entrances.
* “Sup’ Lucian!” one of the men called raising his hand in greeting.
* “Show some respect toward guild master! AND DON’T CALL HIM LUCIAN! To you, it’s MASTER LUXIVERUS!”
* “I am fine with being called Lucian, though, I mean, my name sounds like some cursed artifact… Oh, and hello to you too, Max.”
The man’s name was not Max, the Lodge master merely decided to get on the same level of casualness as one of his underlings.
* “Back to the question, what was this fuss all about?” The master sat.
* “Zeverios was mean to me…” Daiarro pouted quietly.
* “That moron failed dungeon harvesting! He barely contributes to the organization at all! Just like Godrik… And I hope he would suffer similar punishment…”
* “Calm down, everyone…” such a warm, calming tone as for someone who rules the greatest madmen on the continent “... Godrik was rather special, he was so focused on his studies, that he didn’t care for our little brotherhood at all, he actually asked to formally leave our structure… I have merely granted his wish. Unfortunately, he knew too much, so there was only one way of letting him go. On the other hand, Daiarro really tries very hard to help us out, he is just too occupied paying attention to the details, that sometimes he loses a grasp of a bigger picture. His lack of results doesn’t come from ill-will. Now, Daiarro, mind telling us what exactly happened? Especially that I smell rather power magic coming from your direction, am I wrong?”
Man quickly shook his head.
* “Quite strong adventurers were in the dungeon, at least the mage, he summoned the avatar of Dark Harvest to deal with the ancient one. This is the mana that you feel.”
* “My-my? The Tree of All-night? That’s even better than pure power of dungeon. Its nature will be more compatible with the portal… But, you said that only one person managed to cast this spell? If I am not mistaken, the last time it was used it required the whole Circle of Druids to maintain the spell, yet it still broke free and swallowed them all. That someone could prove to be interesting ally… or formidable foe. Who was that?”
* “Some weird kid, completely not fit to be an actor at all - because of his appearance - white hair, eyes with different colors… no-no, the actor has to quickly changes roles and thus his appearance someone that exotic could never act well.”
* “White hair and heterochromia, you say? Wasn’t that the kid that killed Godrik? Daralon’s friend?”
* “It seems so. What a coincidence… No, coincidences don't exist. I must have messed the fate-merging spell…” Luxiverus massaged his chin with his fingers clearly lost in thoughts “... or the nature of that skill somewhat resist my magic. In that case, casting this spell on him could cause more bad than good.
He leaned forward in his chair, letting the light of the torches fall on his face which up until now was covered in shadow.
He was young. Very young. With pale-white skin, gentle contours of the face and narrow lips. Almost girly in appearance though he was clearly a man. He had long, silky black hair falling freely to his belt level.
An elf? Looks like it, yet a weird one. High elves had their hair white or blonde, wood elves had their hair brown or bit reddish. Very rarely green.
Only dark elves could have both silver or dark hair, yet his skin proved he was not a member of “outcasted”.
* “Call Daralon. We will have to talk about this friend of his. We need to be sure he would not interfere with our plans. And after our last two encounters, he could be somewhat hostile toward us.”
* “Couldn’t we just keep him on-distance?”
* “No, our threads of fate are already merged. Sooner or later we would meet, I would rather have him as an ally, in the end we already have just enough foes.”
Man once again straightened his posture sitting back in his chair. The darkness once again covered his face.
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Blanka stormed through the door of the guild dragging unconscious man over her shoulder. She was exhausted and covered in blood and sweat. Somehow she managed to walk toward the reception desk, despite the long line (or actually a crowd) of adventurers that gathered in front of it wishing to take a quest, report it back, or merely just to flirt with attractive staff members.
Few people, not seeing her at first, would growl or yell cursing loudly for someone cutting the line, but once they saw who and in what condition was marching they silently would move to the sides making a way for a living legend of a guild.
* “Ambulatory! Fast!” Blanka hissed once she managed to catch guild workers attention, which - as it was already mentioned by her appearance - was not a very tasking job.
* “Blanka, we did tell you to go and pick up some boyfriend, but that’s not what we meant…” one of the adventurers, the
Nobody laughed though, even more, one hateful gaze of a warrior was enough to make the man have second thoughts about his sense of humor.
* “This man has risked his life carrying on his duty as an adventurer and as a comrade saving my life. By making fun of his condition right now you are bringing shame upon yourself and institution you represent.”
Two men came out from the backroom and took Zariel off warrioress’s shoulder, proceeding to carry him into the special room located at the eastern wing of the building.
* “You also should visit the medic, Blanka.” girl from reception suggested with the tone that didn’t quite take
* “Yes, I think I overdid it today… I could use a break…” saying so she took a step back, and another one, and yet another till she finally hit the wall with her back.
Then, she would slowly slide down to the floor where she fell asleep. It wasn’t just the dungeon that exhausted her - she was finishing a quest after quest with barely any sleep or rest for the past few weeks - her sense of duty made her keep up with the crazy tempo. Now, she finally reached her limit, and even then only after she made sure that her team member got the help that he needed.
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She woke up a couple of hours later in one of the ambulatory rooms covered in a few bandages.
* “Ah, miss Blanka, you should be sleeping for at least one whole day, but then again, you always rush for another adventure, it was pretty obvious that four hours is more than plenty for you… Still, you will not leave this room till I would double check you are alright.”
* “What… what happened…” she asked still a bit confused.
* “You fainted because of stress and exhaustion. Well, at least I didn’t find any injuries… pardon me - not a serious injury. Few bruises and dislocated joints. You were given nutrition potions and stamina regeneration, got your lesser wounds treated and joints back in their places. Not much work to be done around you, can’t say the same thing about your companion thought.”
* “What is his condition?!” almost instantly Blanka regained clarity of her mind.
* “Terrible mana exhaustion, blood loss, though I couldn’t locate a wound through which he could lose so much of it, almost as if something sucked it from inside, and his bones were almost turned into dust…”
* “Will he be alright?!”
* “Physically, he already is. It was incredible, once we stabilized his mana flow all we had to do was to keep sending him mana and his body just fixed on its own. I have never seen anything like that - his body removed unfunctional organs and limbs and grew new ones. No - it didn’t fix the already existing, it REPLACED them, like, if you would cut his heart of his chest it would grow a new one. On my medic studies in the capital, I was studying magical beast physiology under the eye of professor Kleir. I saw this raw regeneration potential only once before - when the professor was dissecting a still living lesser hydra. ”
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The woman in the lab coat kept talking while turning her back to the warioress, mixing yet another potion on the table.
* “If he is physically all right… it means that he is still suffering on mana or mind, isn’t he?”
* “Indeed. Even though he is like a newborn baby… literally… he still didn’t wake up. Even more, we tried forcing him to wake up, you know, for the sake of checking if he is really all right, yet we failed, one of our clerics tried to connect their minds, you know, to make him wake up from inside, a dangerous process, but still we have an obligation to do it... “
* “Aaand?”
* “And he couldn’t. He couldn’t find his mind. It was absent, as if there was only an empty vessel, as if his mind was somewhere else.”
* “Is that even possible?”
* “It is, you see, your companion is a druid. A type of witch-oriented magical class, just like shamans, witch-doctors, tribe mages and hex makers, they possess the ability to leave their body during certain rituals.”
* “Why would they do that?”
* “I am not the person you need to ask. By entering the spirit realm they could gather strength to cast even more powerful spells, sometimes they do that to avoid interrogation, sometimes… It’s pointless to count every possible reason. For now, his condition is stable. so fret not… Also, miss Blanka, I saw your quest record. You have finished eleven quests this month, not counting the last one, because you didn’t turn it in, in a month. It’s a quest every three days, which wouldn’t be strange if all of your quests weren’t estimated to last on average a week.”
* “Someone has to get the job done…” war dancress groaned getting up to sitting position.
* “Someone has to take a break. I was talking with a branch leader. You are forbidden to take missions for a week.”
* “WHAT!? YOU CAN’T...!”
* “I can and I did, also, you should be grateful to the leader, I wanted it to last a whole month.”
* “But what about the people?! Who would protect them when…”
* “And who would protect people once you would die?!”
Woman furiously turned around.
* “I am not patching you up just so you could rush to your pointless death! Have some respect for my bloody job! What do you think happens when recently injured adventurer picks another quest and dies!? They come to me and ask why didn’t I force them to stay!? The world doesn’t revolve around you and your little vengeance, girl, take a moment to stop and think about innocent bystanders on your path, will you?!”
She said the same thing that Zariel was telling her in the dungeon, though, she was straightforward about it.
Blanka remained silent for a minute or two more before she got up and left the room.
* “No adventuring! Only light training allowed! If I see you breaking some sweat I am running straight to guild leader asking for elongation of your break due to health problems!”
She didn’t answer, for what could she tell? Refusing was futile, agreeing pointless. Blanka quickly left the room entering the ambulatory lobby. She quickly located the room in which Zariel was lying and entered it after knocking.
* “Ah, miss Blanka…” another medic greeted her barely looking in her direction “.. I knew you would want to check on your friend…”
* “He is not exactly my friend…”
* “Yet you carried him on your shoulder for… how long? Half of a day? This action appears quite friendly to me.”
She approached the bed on which he was lying. Because of exams that were recently taken he was half naked with only his pants. She could inspect his body on her own.
* “I heard his body regenerated, yet I still see dozens of scares…”
* “Ah, indeed, that’s truly an enigma, for example, look at this.” doctor picked a sharp surgeon's knife and made a long, shallow cut across his chest, barely cutting the skin. At first, warrioress wanted to pounce at the crazy medic, yet she decided to do otherwise.
Seconds after knife passing the tiny wound started closing, sucking the blood inside the body. The wound was half-healed when the surgeon took his tool off his body.
* “This happens with everything, we can cut his finger off, and the same thing will happen. I think that his regeneration powers were not inborn. That he obtained them, therefore every wound and damage he took before obtaining these powers are bound to remain. He is like… a demigod among mortals. Look, he is magician, but his muscles are wonderfully formed!”
* “Depends on your definition of wonderful, I believe even I have better ones…” his abs were barely visible
* “Warriors…” medic roll his eyes “... it’s not about size, even though lots of my female colleagues would disagree…” did he just joke? “... it’s about structure! About efficiency! Do you know that, for example, birds have the most developed lungs among all living, breathing creatures? They can literally double breath, both during inhale and exhale, fueling their muscles on completely different levels than mammals. Why did evolution decide to reduce their potential? Because of their innefitientce. Birds are forced to eat all the time, for example, the sparrow has to consume daily more than it weighs!”
Medic took a small break
* “In terms of muscles, you are a bird. He, a mammal. You can muster much more strength that he can, but you can do this for a couple of hours before being unable to move. In the meantime, he could battle for days.”
* “Days? I think you are exaggerating…”
* “I am not. I have never seen anything like that… It's… his organs are changing.”
* “How exactly.”
* “He was lacking nutrition, so we gave him high calorie drinks, when he was digesting, his stomach, liver, and heart… got bigger, speeding up metabolism.”
* “What do you mean by
* “Actually, they can. Have you heard about snakes eating habits? they swallow their prey whole and digest it for days, after that they don’t have to eat for months. During digestion, mentioned organs in snake’s body literally got bigger, the liver can become even thrice bigger… that’s what happened to him. Now, wear this…”
Medic gave her a pair of glasses.
Blanka put them on her nose and took a glance on Magician’s body. Lots of blue vessels appeared on his body.
* “What are these?”
* “Mana veins. Do you see something weird about them?”
* “I have no idea how they are supposed to look to begin with.”
* “They are perfect. Humans can’t have mana veins like these. Neither elves, nor demons… nothing has! You see, you either are born with these or get them by hours of meditation, either way the process is chaotic, random, he is...symmetric. Perfectly symmetrical. Pick ANY vein on his left arm and find and look at the one on his right arm. Exactly the same length, thickness, and capacity.”
* “Well, humans are also symmetrical aren’t they? I mean, my left hand and my right hand and like mirror copies, so…”
* “We are telling about your inner body. How about your lungs? Your left one is smaller, because of the heart that is located in your chest. You have one liver and one stomach, in different parts of your belly. Also, look at me.”
Blanka did as the man asked. In moment medic’s body was also covered in blue veins.
True chaos.
* “Answering your question - no, I am not a freak. If you would take a stroll over the town wearing these glasses, you would see that EVERY magician looks more or less like me…”
* “So… what is he?”
* “Something not created naturally...” and then the medic froze “... or maybe, quite the opposite. Something so natural, that we, corrupted by industrial magic can’t even comprehend…”
* “You aren’t making any funny experiments on him, aren’t you?”
* “Oh, I would love to, unfortunately…” with a gesture of his head he pointed at his table where few opened letters were tossed
* “What are these?”
* “Letters. From Jericho, Arthur the Grey and Archmage Polimus. The High Guild Master, King himself and chairman of Senate sent these copies to every guild’s branch leader. With few soldier’s words, they asked to leave him be as long as he is not violent.”
* “The King and the Senate agreeing on the same matter?!”
Everyone knew about the inner conflict in the Kingdom - with the Senate trying to overtake the power to rule the country and King doing everything to keep the kingdom functioning as Monarchia. That lead to lots of tensions between political sides, usually, when King said X, the Senate would say Y. Sometimes, the king would disagree with Council without even reading the matter he has disagreed with. Just because he didn’t like the idea of giving the magicians a free hand.
* “Interesting indeed. Well, my hands are tied. I will just bring him back to the fully functional state, take my money and try forgetting about mister Top-Secret eyes-only.”
* “If he is such a mystery… why did you tell me about it?!”
Man smiled widely.
* “You see, there was a little loophole in the letters. It kept using formula
Blanka bite her lip. What a mess.
Before her was lying an unconscious freak. Magician, warriors, hunter, human, beast - with political protection of King, Mages and Guild.
* “How is he?”
* “Perfectly fine. He wakes up when he wakes up, nothing more we can do about it. Do you want me to inform him that you were here…”
* “... No. It’s fine. Once he wakes tell him that we have to share the quest bounty.”
* “As you wish, young miss.”
Medic once again returned to his duties while Blanka left the room.
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I was drinking a tea looking at Aira in the realm of Evergreen. She was completely quiet. usually, she was the first one to start a conversation, always beaming with energy. This time, goddess’s mind appeared to be not present.
* “You don’t have anything to tell me?” I asked calmly.
* “About what, exactly?” her tone was cold, emotionless.
* “Care not playing dumb? You know exactly where I was and with who I was talking.”
* “The little ant that tricked us and slept for eons?...” she put her cup on the table “... Ask whatever you want.”
* “What does it mean that you want us to evolve in a specific direction?”
* “That’s not true. We want you to evolve, in whatever direction you wish to… just becoming a transcended being is a big no-no for you. That’s what ancient wanted to achieve. And that’s why they had to be stopped.”
* “Why exactly?”
* “So multi-universe wouldn’t collapse? Because of the same reason you don’t let kids play with fire? Or with nuclear weapons?”
* “What do you even want from us?!”
* “It’s beyond your understanding!”
She hit the table with her fist.
* “Just look at you!...” she hissed “... Special snowflake being afraid of being used! Trust me, you are not THAT special! And you can't handle the truth! It's beyond your understanding!”
She took a moment to take a deep breath
* “What I mean… is that you have seen merely a single piece of a puzzle made of billions of elements and you already are sure that you know what the whole picture looks like. You don’t, Zari-el, you don’t.”
She got up and started heading toward the end of a clearing, she turned back and asked me to come with her with a gesture of her head. “let’s take a walk” - the gesture said.
* “We are old, Zariel, very old. You can’t even comprehend. I existed before time did. Trust me, we want the best for you - mortals, it’s just… actions of that particular group of people threatened the existence of cycles. And without cycles, there is nothing. Literally nothing. We decided to eradicate a whole nation, to save billions of existences, on billions of planets, in billions of realms in billions of universes in that particular cycle… and billions of cycles that were yet to come. It wasn’t easy nor pleasant, trust me, we don’t really like interfering like this… They were far too young for this kind of power, the vessel that can’t contain the force forcibly put inside breaks and damages nearest objects. That potentially leads to chain reaction. Like a pebble causing an avalanche. Like a spark starting inferno.”
* “... Yet… I hate being in the dark. I hate not knowing what is going on around me, but somehow I keep having this feeling that around some weird game is being played, a game in which I am a pawn and I have not even a bloody clue what the rules are! I don’t even know if there are any rules?!”
* “Because hundreds of games are being played on a daily basis. Cheating husband plays faithful in front of his wife, assassins are playing the role of best friends in front of their victims, princes and lords are playing politics, churches and gods are playing religion. Me, Luxia and Heira are also playing, and yes, we are… using you, if you can call it this way, for the sake of our entertainment. You see, I will tell you a secret about us, deities. We are spoiled, bored kids wishing for attention and action. We are putting obstacles and temptations in the path of mortals, but in the end, we are letting them decide. We are not rewarding them nor punishing - it comes naturally, as an outcome of their actions. If you think that the hands of god are something that will pick you up and relocate, far from danger, you are mistaken, the hands of god would let you prepare yourself for the troubles, but if you would prepare yourself, and how would you use that preparation is only your thing…”
She became quiet.
* “We are not your enemies, Zari, mostly because you can’t threaten us in any way…” she smiled shyly, as if a bit embarrassed that she addresses me so cruelly “...If you want to find some world-breaking conspiracy, don’t look into heaven nor hell looking for clues, look at the ground below you and people around you. Because when we want something, we just do it, it’s mortals that need ugly tactics and backstabbing. From our perspective, most of your actions are meaningless, even if you would destroy something, once you die and millennia pass the nature would return to its original form. From the perspective of time, your actions are simply unimportant, and the perspective of time is unimportant to us.”
She turned around and hugged me. One of her hands was gently patting me on my head.
* “You are overthinking too many things, you are far too narcissistic and self-centered. For a moment stop thinking about what people want from you, and start thinking about what people want from the world and how they can obtain this using you. At the moment you start seeing yourself not as a goal but the means to obtain it, you will be able to see through the actions of mortals more clearly… That’s my last advice for you today. Your time is running thin in this realm. Wake up, Zari. Return to your world and wake up.”
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I have opened my eyes.
It wasn’t a gentle waking up while stretching your body and yawning loudly. More like waking up from the nightmare, covered in sweat and with heart pounding like a church’s bell. Adrenaline was clouding my mind, my instincts were sharp, and above me a medic with a syringe was standing up.
* “Oh woke up already? Easy there, big boy, I am just taking a blood sample to…”
I jumped off my bed, I hit the man with a karate-like chop in his wrist making him drop the glass vessel, I caught it in mid-air and put the sharp edge of the syringe by man’s throat.
* “Where am I, who are you, what do you want from me?!”
* “In guild’s ambulatory! Calm down! Calm down! I surrender! I have no ill intentions! Really! Miss Blanka brought you here because your condition was critical!”
I calmed down a little. Indeed, the smell was similar to the guild, just mixed with healing herbs, I could hear the laughter of people in the inn section as they were singing and drinking beer.
Plus, I was not tied to the bed - which would definitely happen if I would end in the dungeon of crazy scientist…
… Wait, I am a Mad Scientist! I even have the title!
I let the man go.
My body was still exhausted and a little bit numb. I quickly checked my status, I didn’t notice the effects of any poison, instead, few effects of regenerating stamina, health, and mana potions were present.
* “Where is Blanka?”
* “She said she would be waiting for you to share money for finishing the quest…”
* “In that case, I am going to find her right away…”
* “You can’t! I still have to check if you are all right!”
No. This can’t wait. She saw me in my beast-mode. We have to talk, mostly so she wouldn’t accidentally mention it to some shady people.
* “I will come for examinations later on, I think I will take a break from adventuring for few days, so don’t be afraid of me missing or going wild in some dungeon.”
I said shutting the door behind me leaving still protesting medic in the room.
Now, where did the little vixen go?