Hoshun

Hoshun Village

Akamori blinked in surprise as his father leaped out of the smoke and fighting around them in front of him. Something large poked him in the back and he felt a hot, warm tingle in his midsection. He saw the tail barb embedded in his torso before he felt it. Subconsciously, he knew that meant he was in shock and likely near death. He giggled at the absurdity. He had a damned dragon tail in his gut.

Awareness slowly took root, and he realized the dragon speared him into his father. Kalenza’s expression was pained as he reached up and traced a bloody hand down the opposite cheek his mother had. Kalenza’s mouth worked as he tried to speak, but his injuries stole his breath from him. His father slumped into his shoulder, dead, and he realized he wouldn’t be long before he too suffered the same end.

There was a shifting sensation as something buried deep within him loosened. A surge of cold and power erupted all around him. His awareness of the situation slipped away as his friends rushing towards him were blown clear of him. Violent currents of aether caused a maelstrom of energy that chewed up the landscape. The ground cracked, torn asunder by the tidal forces of gravity and void magic in a war for dominance.

At the center of the storm, Akamori slowly rose in defiance of gravity’s pull. The assertion of his will. No… not his will. Someone else’s? Or something? Confusion and fear gripped him as he felt less and less in control. Something else rose from deep within him. Another awareness, like a limb that had fallen asleep and was slowly waking up. The pins and needles in a sleepy consciousness. The other half of him, the waking conscious, knew the term was Paresthesia and mused at the irony. It pulsed reassurance to him as it warded Amara and Kusinaki in protective wards.

Akamori could sense the other presence. It felt like a black well. A bottomless pit of power. Cold and strong. There was a pang of sadness too. A sense of regret. This was far sooner than it would have preferred. Perhaps they weren’t so dissimilar.

The more he touched it, the more he felt like a tiny drop in a massive ocean. A mere speck of sand in a great desert. It was vast and infinite. His only saving grace from getting lost in the abyss of the second presence was a sort of buffer between them. Like standing on opposite sides of a fence. Were it not for the buffer, he knew for certain the enormity of the other presence would have consumed him, even if accidentally.

Beyond his mind, back outside, orcs, undead, and hatchling necromancers rushed Akamori’s position. He fixed a baleful gaze on the red-scaled dragon as it fled from him. The wound it had given him already knit itself shut. An infinite well of void magic within him devoured the lingering earth magic of the poison and converted it into the raw void aether and consumed the points to heal his injury. All within a fraction of a second. Akamori knew from the other presence the feat was trivial for it, and near divine for himself. He also knew he’d just spent more AP in that one act than he had possessed completely. Akamori wasn’t sure if he wanted to cower in fear or stand in awe. So he settled for somewhere in the middle. This amused his mental partner without an identity.

Akamori flexed his hand experimentally a few times. Only it wasn’t under his command. His body responded to the other presence within him now. He was conscious but unable to move. He thrashed within his tiny mental prison until the other presence pulsed reassurance again. It didn’t intend to stay long or cause him harm. It was here to help? More than that, it was here to keep him safe.

As he looked down at the orcs and necromancers and zombies arrayed against himself, he could almost see the taint in their souls. The binding of Sauridius. Like a mark not too unlike the one he was branded with himself. Whereas the gold mark prevented his soul from alteration or aetheric corruption, theirs had been completely warped.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl. He stood within and out of its natural flow. Before him, He saw the enemies rush him, only to meet their deaths in a thousand different ways. A sea of actions and results splayed before his mind. His mental co-pilot patiently perused the possibilities, scanning for one that suited him best. There was deliberateness and patience throughout the whole process. His cranial dance partner settled on something suitably flashy and impressive. He watched himself flick his blade and hurl devastating torrents of power with ease. Power well beyond either his skill or rating. Akamori asked how. No answer provided itself.

It was almost like the other entity wanted him to watch, and learn. Akamori had no idea what it was he was meant to be learning though. He was so far out of his element he wanted to laugh at the absurdity. Who was even going to believe any of this happened?

A wordless roar of anger and loss erupted from his throat in real-time. Confusion colored his thoughts as he heard his own voice, but a second deeper and more menacing voice behind it. There was a primal danger to it, but also a very detectable human emotion. All the pain, loss, and agony manifest into his voice as he let it all out. Whoever these draconic invaders were, they didn’t intend for their people to survive the encounter. His people lay everywhere in pools of blood or broken in heaps. Even his own father had fallen.

Stolen story; please report.

Just as he’d seen, so he did. His arm casually swept the invaders’ attack aside. He felt the expense of the attack: 5AP for a single slash. His sword unleashed powerful blasts that cleaved the horde down. Trees snapped like twigs and huts slashed in two. A second slash issued and 5 more AP were spent. A third, a fourth, and more. He was reshaping the landscape as casually as a hairstylist might rework hair. Not to mention the cost of power was staggering. Frightening even. Void and Air magic worked their hellish power on the lush green farmland and tropical forests of Honshu. Chaos savaged the land, and himself at its center.

The invading armies were all dead as quickly as he’d begun. The large red dragon that killed his father had escaped through a void portal into the umbral realm. To give chase would have been foolish. The other presence knew that much, and thus casually dismissed the cowardly escape. Akamori howled wordlessly in the back of his own mind. He wanted nothing more than to tear the dragon to pieces. A reassuring pulse issued from the other presence. He would get that chance eventually, but not this day. He was far from ready for that fight.

The driver or pilot for want of a better word currently in charge of Akamori’s body seemed more immediately concerned about his body’s safety and that of his friends. The wrought carnage said as much. All around him, the terrain endured his wrath. Deep gouges that cut deep into the soil and through trees alike. Blood and gore from the invaders strewn all around like a storm of blades had settled down upon his position. With himself, Kusinaki and Amara all safely nested within the eye. Water, blood, and soil all churned around them, filling in the cuts he’d carved into the landscape.

Relief flooded Akamori, seeing the small island of safety from the chaos that he’d ridden along to create. His friends lay unconscious beneath protective barriers. The complexity of the spells was far beyond his limited scope. He wanted nothing more than to rush out to them. Whoever was controlling him, however, did one last survey of the carnage. There was a pang of regret, a sense of a cycle on repeat. The mourning of all the loss, and of innocence itself, being stripped away in a war that endured far longer than any sentient memory could recall.

While the power and presence faded, the feelings remained, like a bitter taste in his mouth. The void maelstrom he floated within abated, and he lowered to the ground. The small sheen of frost that had gathered on his skin chilled him even as it melted in the heat of Honshu’s sun, and the fires of his village burning.

Akamori’s body felt like it weighed several magnitudes more than it did. He was exhausted, both physically and emotionally. He’d lost his parents, and most of his friends and family today. In many ways, he too died here today. Maybe not physically, but a large part of his former life lay dead on the soil with the others. Both he and whatever else dwelling within him were aware of this. A fact they both mourned equally.

The instant his feet hit the sand, Akamori thought he saw a pattern burned into the ground he’d floated above. There were a bunch of symbols on it. He recognized the air symbol from old carvings into the stone around his village and the old ruins of the wyrm mother’s temple. What was it for? Consciousness slipped between his fingers, and the heavy press of exhaustion shut his eyes as his body slumped over in the sand.

Amara was the first to awaken with a start. One moment she’d seen Akamori and Kalenza speared by the dragon, then a blinding flash, and then boom. Here she was face down in the soil. She grunted in pain as she slowly pushed herself up. The landscape looked like an epic battle that had been waged by a very angry god with a very big stick.

Deep furrows cut into the landscape in every direction. Trees were sheered apart or overturned. Much of the burning huts in the village had been reduced to smoking ash. Apart from Akamori and Kusinaki, she couldn’t see any other survivors. She still remembered Priestess Imrae’s pained look as a rock bolt punched through her chest like a spear.

Amara couldn’t see anyone else alive but them, and she suspected that Akamori was the prime reason for that. All around them runes were burned into the ground forming a ritual circle made with void magic. Some kind of protective ward?

She pushed herself up from the ground and walked tentatively to the edge. If she could use her perception magic without the pain and side effects, she could see what was surrounding them. For now, she had to assume it was part of what saved them.

She didn’t take the big crimson dragon for the type to leave a job unfinished if he was certain of victory. That meant whatever happened had run him off. She limped over to Akamori falling to her knees. Her white priestess robes were soiled and had soot stains on them from the fires. She sat there by her friend numbly. Their whole lives had ended. Burned and murdered, just like that.

They’d heard rumors of war with the Sauridius for some time now. But to have it come and decimate their village like this was something else together. There was no recovery from this for the village. With no family, and no village, Akamori would leave. He’d want revenge or absolution. She sighed and whispered a soft prayer of mercy to their goddess.

They were going to need as much aid and guidance as the fates were comfortable lending them if they were going to get through this. She frowned, looking at all the damage. She didn’t want to dare think about what happened to the other worlds they visited that lacked their own mages. She knew in that moment Akamori wouldn’t stand for this.

The dragons had drawn blood. Akamori was going to want it back somehow. He’d come for his pound of flesh somehow. But they would pay.