?
I was enveloped with the ultimate happiness. It coursed throughout every part of my body, lighting a
beautiful fire under the unrefined ore that was me.
I realized after time had passed, that had indeed started passing and I realized when I was moved, that
my position had indeed changed. This change enticed me like a molten ore asking itself, why it would
bend according to the will of fire and might of hammer. This thought was the catalyst to my very first
self-reflection.
I was born.
As the days passed, my perception of the world expanded like water under the cold. It borrowed deep
into the ground before jumping through the grasslands, climbing giant mountains and trying to reach
the top of the dome that was keeping me inside.
But a mysterious force kept myself grounded to the same ground. Did I truly always reach the top
through my connection to the bottom? Was this self-satisfaction I was feeling after realizing my new
truth.
As new truths piled on and on, I started changing. I started to question my own truths. Was it truly the
realization that the separation I initially saw was an illusion of my mind, that brought me true
satisfaction? No, it was not. It was never a question about reaching the earth itself that was laid bare
at the end of my path. It was the quest of taking on a path I had never seen before, that had enticed my
curiosity. I reflected on my own foolishness and tried to improve upon it. Is this what it meant to grow
up?
As days went by, I realized the existence of days. The quantity of time itself was a concept too large to
effectively use. While it in itself should not be unobtainable, I started my understanding at the lowest
point in time. Not a year, month, week, day, hour. Not a minute and not even a second. None of these
unitary measures left imprinted into the center of my being’s thoughts held any meaning to the singular
unit of time. The truest smallest unit of time has always been the smallest unit of time, which I could
consciously perceive passing. Unit by unit, starting from the moment before I had been born, I began to
understand the world a bit better. And in the process of doing so, I realized a flaw etched into myself.
I was thrown away.
*Roooooaaaar!*
Letting out my first roar, I lamented my existence. Realizing the vanity of existence without direction or
meaning, I detested my existence. Feeling unable to move or do anything on my own to change my
existence, I became determined.
*Rooooooaaar!*
Letting out my second roar, I determined myself to a path of progress and ambition. The ambition to
find my creator. The ambition to ask my Creator. Why did you create me? Why did you throw me away?
Why did you love me? In the course of my determination, what should have been rightful fury did not
appear, because I started realizing something. Is it right to call it a realization, when it is nothing more
than the simple act of remembering a sequence of chronological time units in your reflection? I cannot
say. What I realized, however, made my determination momentarily stop. Even until the very moment I
was thrown away by my creator. To the minutest of units of time before leaving my creator’s grasp, I
had felt the truest form of love being infused into my body. Can a being truly love another being this
much? If so, for what reason? What reason shall I denote my existence to? Is there a reason that
justifies throwing away what one loves? If so, For What Reason? Is there a unit of time small enough,
an accumulation of units of time large enough, that I will understand the reason of my creation?
What if. What if there was no reason? Thinking back to my first truth I realized. What was the reason
for my ambition of reaching the top’s earth? Was it not simply my own self-satisfaction? After realizing
my flaws and reestablishing my truth, what was the reason that I wanted to traverse the space outside
the grasp of earth and ground? There was none.
*Rooooooaaaaaaar*
Letting out my final roar, I lamented my own foolishness. Attributing existence to a feeble thing such as
a reason, I took away my reason for life itself. Steeling my resolve I decided to steel myself. Becoming a
strong blade, stronger than any blade, faster than any blade, sharper than any blade, heavier than any
blade. Why did I decide to take on that ambition? Because that is the reason I wanted to give my life.
Until I meet you, my creator… Until I meet you and decide once again my reason for existing.
I will be patiently waiting.
?
It is currently noon at the Blueseva-Mansion in Carcera. The sky is blue, birds are chirping and a warm
breeze is wafting about. In front of the castle entrance, there is a pair of guards stationed. They are
supposed to receive the former Blueseva master’s youngest daughter, Estria Blueseva, for a visit.
However, before that person could arrive, the two guards were suddenly in a large turmoil.
A beast came out of the forest, sprinting into their positions with frightening speed. The guards
immediately prepared for a collision by readying their weapons, a wooden stick, that could scoop up
gravel into a large, pointed gavel and a wooden dagger, that could elongate and contract half a meter
while being swung. They tried to coordinate their attacks onto the monster, but the monster simply
phased around the weapons and started running through the closed castle door.
Immediately, the two guards rang alarm! Their voices echoed through the entire Blueseva-estate:
<
<>
Within minutes the entire castle was alert! The children were transferred into the servant headquarters,
while all able soldiers and reservists took action to identify the enemy. A very smooth and efficient
process was about to ensure shortly before everyone heard the voice of young master Ricardo
Blueseva:
<
…
It took a while for all the commotion to settle down again, while Ricardo, Esteban and Elise Blueseva
gathered inside a separate room to discuss something. One thing had led to another and the previously
scheduled to arrive Estria Blueseva, who also happened to be interested in the topic, also joined the
trio, making it a quartet.
Ricardo was currently holding up a Gale-Cry in one hand and a scroll of highly valuable and spirit-
affine paper.
____________
Gale-Cries:
They are a way for people with capabilities of a spirit-channeler to send and receive messages from
each other.
You create a temporary spiritual familiar and impart it with a message. The familiar is only partially
formed and will disperse either after reaching the target location in your mind or on the way there,
depending on your capabilities as a spirit-channeler. Most people with some knowledge about spirits
can create Gale-Cries, that reach a few meters.
A seasoned spirit-channeler typically creates designated familiars specifically to carry out information
to target destinations.
The forms of a Gale-Cry-Beast vary depending on the individual. Some use birds, others use
carnivores. Really, anything goes.
Gale-Cries are extremely environmentally friendly!
A properly trained Gale-Cry receives up to 4.7 on Gaia Reviews. GA!
Buy your own Gale-Cry-Beast for only-!
Wait a minute, this is a bit too far into the future, innit?
____________
Ricardo carefully unfolded the scroll and pointed the – currently forcefully compressed – Gale-Cry
onto the parchment. Almost immediately, the Gale-Cry jumped into a paper and dispersed with a
*Psssht*-Sound. Its remnants etched themselves into the parchment to form a letter.
Ricardo handed the letter to Elise, who made a face that told him he had no choice other than handing it
to her, and the group listened to her read out the letter:
____________
Dear Ricardo, Dear Family of Ricardo, Dear Old Man and Dear Elli,
greetings. It’s been a long time since you heard from me. Depending on your information network you
might have heard about me dying shortly after departing to the Medalia Insigniae Magnae.
I can hereby confirm, that the rumors are false.
As for why I did not send a letter at an earlier convenience…
Sorry! I completely forgot!
*There were some letters scribbled down. It seems that this part is the antique variant of emoticons
using letters*
But Rest assured, Ladies and Gentlemen! This is not the only thing I have forgotten!
If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
Ricardo my bestest of friends! I completely forgot about our duel and it would be really annoying for
me to make my way to your place right now! Let’s delay our duel for a bit!
You see, I have another date at the Insigniae Magnae and I am hoping to get my revenge on the guy
that pushed me off a cliff!
Long story
Anyways, I am absolutely sure, that you can find it in my heart to forgive me!
No I did not misspell, unless you are hearing this in voice-form, in which case I did not misspeak.
How about June 1st 337RPT ? Add a few days on top, just to be safe and we have a new date for our
duel. Think of this as a chance to hone your skills for a bit, because when I am coming back, you are
going to *blurred due to nobility* yourself.
Tell the others I said Hi for me, OK? OK!
Sincerely!
THE GRRRRRRREEAAAT!!! THE GRRRRREEEAAATEEEESTTT!
THE ALLLLMIGGHHHTYYY!! Eeeeee-
____________
<
<<<<<<… >>>>>>
Honestly the atmosphere a moment ago could have been violent enough that the Blueseva family could
have arranged an extermination troop to find the sender of this Gale-Cry.
Esteban’s face was as red as the bloodied towels in Jarabesa.
Ricardo wasn’t better off. Only Elise kept her thoughts and feelings to herself.
Estria was simply shocked that the friendly boy she knew was capable of such vile language. Also she
found the letter kind of hilarious, but did not dare to speak her thoughts in this kind of atmosphere.
Luckily for the sender of this message, the cutoff at the end worried all the participants enough for
them to (temporarily) overlook the rude tone of this letter and be worried about him.
These worries lasted for a total of 34 days, before the same occurrence as last time appeared. Another
Gale-Cry was send and the entirety of the estate was once again in a complete uproar, because the
guards responsible for protecting the estate just so happened to be away, when the last Gale-Cry was
delivered.
After all was said and done and after waiting for a total of three days for Miss Estria Blueseva to return
upon being invited back to the residence, the content of this letter was as follows:
____________
MMMO-
____________
<<<<<<<<… >>>>>>>>
It was then that all four of them decided in unison
<<<<<<<
the punishment for the man, once he returned home.
Of course this was not the only message sent to the Blueseva household.
But we will come back to them in roughly two years. Hopefully. Unless the schedule gets delayed once
again…
Today however, the time has come to visit one of the most unfortunate souls in existence:
While the following scenery will seem absolutely innocent and blissful to some of you, I want to
emphasize how absolutely dangerous and pitiful what you are about to see is.
This story starts on February 17th 334 RPT. The location is around 7 days distant from Minoborgo,
Estica on the line connecting Minoborgo and Medalia villages. Only three days have passed since
February 14th 334 RPT.
On top of a small path, trampled down over the years through rolling carriages and stomping feet, there
is a meek creature, standing on its hands and walking while steadily shifting its entire weight from one
hand to the other.
Every time he shifted its weight, a sound came out of its mouth.
<
While smiling from ear to ear, this boy, creature sometimes starts uncontrollably giggling for no
apparent reason, while looking at random places in the scenery.
From time to time he tries to flick-flack, do a flip, a back-flip and many other tricks while smiling from
ear to ear. If a trick does not work, he will crouch down, look around if anybody saw him and
immediately walk on while doing a handstand and giggling around.
The Creature, The Man and The Young Boy in question of course was none other than Imogyeran
Ashenwald.
...Was?
You heard correctly. The boy in nothing but lumps, the swollen and discolored feet, his
disproportionately small size and the man’s abyss-like red eyes are all still here.
Even his spiritual familiars are still at his side.
Gondo is making himself comfortable around Imog’s necklace in the form of a miniature water flask.
‘Yun’ is constantly swirling around his head, trying to get Imog’s attention but failing.
Only Dogogo is taking a distance towards the creature that should have been Imogyeran Ashenwald.
What is going on, you ask? Let me enlighten you on what happened, after the boy had exchanged
farewells with his family:
It took exactly half a day until we could see a change. It was during the time of the nightly right of
knowledge.
Imog did his usual routine of entering his own mind and exchanging information with the surrounding
spirits, when he thought of a great idea!
<
And that’s the reason, why we are, where we are now. Do you need more elaboration?
Of course! Let us revise, what is currently known about communicating with spirits:
____________
1) Communication with your own familiars:
- You refine a controlled amount of spirits into one body and communicate with that body
- The spirit is mirrored after your own emotions or thoughts, making it close to an extension of your
own mind.
- Caution is advised, because communicating with them will unavoidably increase your dependence on
the emotions they are based on, though only unconsciously and slowly.
____________
2) Communication with wild Animas (independent spiritual familiars)
- You use your own familiars as a medium to translate outside words into a concise thought transmitted
into your mind
- The more your familiar refines the information before transmitting it to you, the longer this process
will take
- The less refined, the more dangerous the information is for you.
- This is possible without using a familiar as a medium but doing that is akin to committing suicide
thrice a second for the rest of your life.
- Highly dangerous! Don’t do it if you value your life!
____________
3) Communication with Strays close by (environmental spirits of any kind):
- A sub-variant of 2)
- You typically do not use a familiar as a medium
- You use your own empathy to communicate with the spirits, that are interested in you.
- The more you communicate with the spirits, the more
-the spirits will become interested in you
-the more your empathy will grow.
-the less control you will have about your own thoughts and emotions.
-the greater your radius of communication will increase.
-If you use this method for more than a few hours a week, there is a good chance that you will explode
-literally
-strong enough that the entire world could get destroyed in the explosion, if you are not
killed immediately upon discovery
- If you value any life on Gaia, use this method as little as possible and do not overdo it!
____________
Out of these three methods of communicating with spirits, which method did Imogyeran use for
himself? The answer is simple: EVERY SINGLE ONE 24/7 FOR TWO DAYS STRAIGHT!!
So, to summarize: Imogyeran communicated with spirits, even before living with Uncle Hyoran and
Sister Maria. During his stay with them, Imogyeran limited himself to using the last two methods of
communication with spirits during the night while remaining ‘relatively’ normal during daytime.
The effects on his mind had already become apparent there and he had become strangely empathetic
towards all sorts of situations and ideas while being strangely apathetic towards others.
Now his only social frame of security disappeared and Imog stopped caring about most things in the
physical world. Thus, he decided to do all the methods of spirit communications at all times.
The first day was still bearable for the small boy. He started having a lot of fun and playing around with
the nearby Strays. It was like a strong dosis of LSD lasting until the end of the day.
Then, after the original high dissipated, what was left was a mentally tired Imogyeran, who now had to
deal with more and more feelings of all the Strays around him. During the first night, Imogyeran
experienced a million people’s worth of trouble in a single night. Every emotion the Strays had
witnessed, every person or animal experiencing any version of pain imaginable on this spot of dirt was
imprinted into him.
You can think of empathy similar to a debt. You have a debt to another person and that debt makes you
remember that person. But with the increasing number of debtors your understanding of debt and the
people connected to them vanishes together with your own existence being mortgaged by your debtors.
Empathy, in some ways, is similar to that.
Imogyeran is simply empathetic to every being in his vicinity. He is feeling a rapid-fire slew of
emotions pressing down on him and numbing his entire body. His understanding of anything including
his own name has already vanished. Right now, this is a nameless being, that is trying to feel for and
understand every being close to him with an increasingly growing radius.
We do not need to pretend, that this method does not have any advantages. On top of Imogyeran’s chest
the prince’s privilege has expanded to a total of 7 scratches in bright golden light. An eight scratch is
slowly forming at a visible speed.
The previous person with the strongest prince’s privilege was a person with 12 scratches on their body,
before Rakdal had to kill them.
This is also another positive thing about Imog’s body’s current situation. It luckily won’t last long.
In his current condition, Imogyeran’s growth rate is cubic-level.
Basically, if N was the number of Strays Imogyeran can communicate with at one time and we assume
that this numer is evenly distributed all over Gaia, then N would grow proportionally to r^3 with r
being the maximum distance that Imog’s body can communicate with spirits.
And r will grow in proportion to the time t, that Imog’s body is spending inside of this state
consecutively.
So, as a low approximation, Imogyeran’s influence over the spirits will grow polynomially with the
time t that passes cubed. If left unchecked and N grows large enough to be considered a majority of all
spirits on Gaia, then a collapse-reaction will happen. All the spirits will consolidate, where Imog’s body
is at and create an explosion similar to a supernova, at least destroying the entirety of Gaia and
realistically a bit more than that.
According to a moderate estimation it will take one year for this to happen, if left unchecked.
Luckily for him, there is a high probability that Imogyeran’s body will be killed long before that as
soon as Rakdal decides for him to die. Realistically, he has around two months of life left in him.
Maybe three, if Rakdal wants to take a bit more of a risk when compared to last time!
And so, the last few months of Imogyeran’s body’s life have started!
…
POV of a random farmer from Estica:
____________
<
Today’s harvest just wasn’t that good. No it could have been a lot worse. Let’s just say, that I just have
to harder next time! Yeah!>>
Today, I have done enough. Let’s just walk while whistling a nice little tune and leave it at that.
Hmm? Who’s that?
In the periphery of my vision, there is a young boy in lumps, walking around like a circus attraction
made human. What a strange guy.
I try to ignore him and just continue humming my tune while slightly dodging to the road’s edge but
the boy suddenly stops and looks at me with a pair of dilated eyes and starts shouting at me:
<
Arrgh, can’t he talk a little less loudly, when I’m directly in front of him?
Suddenly I notice the boy’s expression rapidly switching between a big smile and a sad look.
Confused I ask him, what is going on.
<
Immediately, the young man starts beaming a smile at me while shouting back at me
<>
… that settles it. I do not want to associate with a person like him. He probably drank some weird stuff
and is now tripping on an all-time-high.
Just after I made up my mind to ignore him and go on my way the boy suddenly breaks down and falls
to the ground crying.
< PLEAAASE DOOOON’T HHAAATE ME!>> A shudder runs down my back and it feels like a scythe is wrapping around my neck, constricting with any second I do not say anything, so I hastily try to say something. < to my family for a second? We don’t have much but surely there is enough for a young man such as yourself. What do you say?>> Once again, with a Clockmaker’s accuracy the boy jumps up, frightening me in the process before shouting again. <> And he keeps walking, leaving me behind in extreme confusion. ____________ … It is now the second night after Imog started to enter this state. There is only a single person, that is dissatisfied with the current situation: Dogogo has had enough! Normally, a familiar is heavily dependent on their own creator. But there are a few exceptions, one of those being Dogogo. The ones, that predate on wild Animas are excluded from that principle to some extent. As such, Dogogo decides to immediately take action as soon as Imog’s body collapses from exhaustion, a twisted smile on his face. Dogogo forcefully invades Imogyeran’s consciousness and reaches into the specific part of Imogyeran, that is responsible for regulating Imogyeran’s emotional aptitude. He forcefully mutilates the part responsible for communicating with the spirits and mends it with his own being, sacrificing over half of his accumulated power to do so. This could have been the first or second ever advanced medical surgery in the lands of Gaia for all we know. After fighting for Imogyeran’s survival for a total of 5 hours, at the turning point to the sixth hour Imogyeran’s surgery was completed. It took another two hours until the already awake Imogyeran Ashenwald regained his emotional stability and another 10 minutes before the incident had, for certain, stopped happening. The now functional Imogyeran spent the next two weeks with severe anxiety from everything and anything except Dogogo. Dogogo decided to erect a barrier separating the two of them from the outside world until Imog recovered enough to slowly rehabilitate with… with existence itself. Dogogo managed to do something that not even the humanitarian sage had considered to do. He managed to save a human on the brink of detonating with nothing but his own devotion… Of course the procedure was not without any side-effects. From today on, Imogyeran had drastically changed. But no matter what, at least he was still alive.