PROGRESS WAS THE MOTTO—where had Swishy heard that before?
He wasn’t sure but the sentiment was what drove him as the black hole reigned above the battle party, bearing down with its force and dominance. The scarecrow detected a slight hunch to his posture, the realm’s gravity increasing from the [Chasm]. But Swishy could only progress through. Either that or die. Not just him but everybody.
Swishy remembered his desire for wings then. He wanted to fly toward that black sun and go beyond it. But rather than being stuck on the normal concept of flight, of what Bristles and the wrathravens and the znitches flaunted before him, he’d scale the skies through any means necessary.
He’d climb and jump and trick his way upward.
Ascend, ascend, ascend.
And so the [Stake] did as Swishy willed, feeding from the straw god’s mental images of scaling.
Swishy deluded himself into feeling pretty good—that’s what he told himself a leader was supposed to do anyway.
Meanwhile, Bristles took the front line, rising first as a tour guide. He flew for real, using the additional winds from the znitches’ straw heal deliveries. Somebody had to hold it down for the crew and the man-beast knew that he was the exact person to do it.
“Since your other priest is sleeping his life away, perhaps the glory is all mine!”
Swishy just nodded. Confidence was important to have—he was sure Trey wouldn’t mind too badly if it was at his expense. Though down in the guardian’s heart chamber, the scarecrow’d body of Trey radiated the mildest waves of irritation. But nothing beyond as the [Doze] spell continued to work on the sleep-stirring Clayborne.
And so, around the crown of Straw Guardian’s rising head, Bristles led the charge. As a man of war, he expressed his love through violent means. Every attack he’d landed upon the nearest wrathravens knocked feathers from their bodies, plumage that snowed on the straw giant. The established rhythm was Bristles clearing enemies from the coming patch of sky as the Straw Guardian caught the cast-off wrath feathers a few seconds later. The weaves took the feathers in, not-so-subtly arranging them into clothing, into a luxurious cape of shadowed spoils.
“Lovely, lovely, lovely!” Bristles cried out as he circled the guardian.
The colossus was adorned in battle loot—in woods, in birdcages, in wrathraven feathers, and in golden accouterments via the straw vines. Swishy was also pleased with how the giant turned into a fully clothed tribal warrior throughout the battle.
“My liege!” Bristles floated in the sky with a handful of smoke-laden guts in his hand. “Let us wasteth our enemies!”
“And then head to the real fight!” Swishy said, ignoring the innards—gaseous but innards nonetheless.
“I too would love to kill Ruby.”
“I didn’t say all that.”
“Of course, boy of gold. Tis I who hath made that proclamation.”
“I like that we have that clear.”
“And I as well. Alloweth me, your faithful charge, to serve as your butcher.”
And so the Nevermore flared, its wings engorged in shadows, and launched Bristles into the next wrathraven he saw.
The man-beast was impressive, scary, and exactly the type of ally Swishy needed at this moment.
Nevermore was a corruption the likes of which Swishy had ever seen. The scarecrow was a master of visualization, of turning the impossible into a form, of crafting dreams through straw and soul. But the avatar through which Bristles’ will manifested was a special kind of heartless. Rather than a contained beat with a set rhythm, a reliable pattern that enforced stability, Nevermore resembled the volatile ocean. Currents of blackness used Bristles as a conduit, wildly coursing through his powerhouse anatomy. There was no set direction, no stated goal. Bristles possessed a long idle darkness that now had a means of explosion.
He was a crow at heart and a Nevermore in battle, the tempestuous pressure held within now compulsively released.
Bristles liked it, he loved it, and Swishy sensed that the man-beast had never been more at home with himself—his wrathraven days included.
But the combustible darkness harmed Bristles over time.
As the man-beast flew across the sky with his six aura wings and tremendous black claw, his body suffered. Not that he cared about a trifling human body, yet the flesh flaked away as darkness took its place.
Swishy was concerned. He hadn’t quite decided that Bristles was purely of the dark. A body may be important even to a psychopath like him. He wasn’t worried that Bristles was a bad person, an evil person—he was. But he didn’t want raw evil to drive such passion. That was a recipe for disaster.
The disaster just so happened to be turned upon the wrathravens at this moment—but Swishy knew it’d be unwise to not think of the aftermath, the later portion to the madness that so far worked in his favor.
The other Timb always dropped, this he’d known, this he’d come to reasonably fear.
A wrathraven charged Bristles, attempting to catch him off guard—but the Nevermore was the proverbial eyes in the back of his head, and the claw stretched around grabbed the enemy’s face. Within its siphoning grip, the wrathraven’s head dissolved into smoke.
A smattering of feathers drifted from where the creature’s face once was.
Once released, the now-headless wrathraven proceeded with unbalanced flight.
A second beast tried a sneak attack as well but the Nevermore launched a claw into its stomach. Its protection of Bristles was akin to the Straw Guardian’s [Trust] link, an instinctive and ruthless counter-response.
The animal’s body doubled over, panting, losing breath and spirit. Naturally, the hole in its stomach was the contributing factor. Bristles had clawed its stabilizing nebula out. The victim’s wings and talons were attached to the scarce tatters of itself.
When Swishy gazed far off, he saw other beasts with staggered flight and missing chunks from their shoulders, chests, and wings. They charged up [Black Blasts], seeking to attack Bristles and the Straw Guardian from afar. It all made sense now, their ranged tactics, both smarts and cowardice converging into one strategy.
Even the headless one turned its neck toward Trey’s znitches. Now that they were injured, the flock sought the easy way out, they sought prey they could siphon and bully. The headless wrathraven blindly progressed, its remaining entities begging for additional curse membership.
Join us! Please come! We’re friendly here! We only need a head! Give us a head, give us direction.
The wrathraven’s signature spell made a return, starting with the beheaded one.
An [Ultimatum] spell became visible within the maimed beasts’ chest. The word’s aura released vaporous tendrils that spread toward any living being, both thick pockets of shadow and the Znitches.
But the blue birds went into hiding, burrowing into nests within the straw giant. They’d even crafted them-sized holes into the colossus, making it a true home base. As the [Ultimatum] aura crept toward their bodies, they closed their straw windows—crafty squared slats—for protection.
Thanks to the [Ache], Swishy’s sudden bundle of nerves, he felt the blue bird’s electrical presence through the guardian. The shocks were a needling but useful compass.
Swishy was also privy to the wrathravens, their scheming flight around the colossus’ body. Every time one flew by the Straw Guardian, Swishy could feel its presence upon his straw. His weaves lifted slightly as if a finger dug underneath and raised it.
And he felt Bristles.
Bristles, Bristles, Bristles…each of his wingbeats was like a brush with death. He was always, always en-route to a murder if his energy were to be believed.
His actions backed Swishy’s feelings up.
Bristles and [Nevermore] flew around, attacking everything that moved. But the problem was that while Bristles had suppressed a good deal of beasts, the realm only darkened. Either the wrathravens were more resilient than expected—or Bristles was reveling in and spreading the darkness himself.
The wrathravens struck back, establishing their fearlessness.
[Shank] occurred—a direct and physical confrontation. Sudden claws appeared around Bristles, shanking him over and over and over again. The conjured talons were patient and measured, aiming for the easier-to-hit but less rewarding targets, mostly his shoulders and thighs. Bristles was talented at protecting his vitals—attacks toward the head and neck and heart hackled his senses most.
A [Shank] would aim for a kill shot while the majority of the conjured attacks came chipped at his body.
Bristles refused to let out so much as a grunt as he was punctured, but he kept feeding himself the guardian straw. After the first few znitch deliveries, he’d started saving them in the folds of his wings and his pockets. Once attacked, he’d immediately pop a heal, no matter how large or small the damage was. Even he knew that he couldn’t take the chance with a wrathraven attack. They shared similar strength levels to him. His advantage was only in ambition and knowledge, of being tempered through soul exchanges and uncommon Ruby magic.
Bristles and Swishy were a lot alike. And this was why the scarecrow chose to believe in Bristles, even as the man-beast was given the fight of his life. Though a psychopath in spirit, his body could suffer too. To the wrathravens, he was no different than anyone else they aimed to break.
And so Bristles was subjected to opened wounds, healed wounds—and then fresh wounds in brand new locations, agony and salvation dancing through his body.
Which, though, would Bristles and crew receive by the end of this all?
The agony stacked up, and as the [Stake] pushed the Straw Guardian toward the black hole above, Swishy hoped for them to be saved by the end of this.
Swishy knew that his salvation wouldn’t be an accident of luck. Happenstance was a savior—but it wouldn’t be his, not with the cards stacked against him as they were.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
RESOLVE and DETERMINATION glittered through his heart, hardening, securing his spirit to his scarecrow body like a spine, like—as he hated to admit—a stake.
Up-up-up they went—even as Bristles, now embroiled in a competitive battle, stopped rising. The psychopath was stuck around the same altitude, surrounded by [Shank] attacks and by wrathravens continuously flanking him, pressing inward and drifting out, keeping him on his toes. The creatures kept Bristles in a fluctuating cage, a coffin, their movements unified and seamless, so in tune that they’d created a name for their technique, their latest spell of solitary and team hunting:
IRON MAIDEN, the wrathravens declared, a prominent feature of which was the multitudes of [Shank] talons that cycled around Bristles, never suddenly upon him, but always close enough to make the prospect of pivoting uncomfortable. Outright finishing him wasn’t their strategy. They sought to limit and subdue him. They placed their bet on his body and Nevermore having a limit.
Meanwhile, the Znitches could no longer get close. Whenever they tried to deliver a straw heal, the [Ultimatum] aura of other wrathravens chased them away. And now there were even two obvious security guards, wrathravens whose sole purpose was to watch the znitch-nests in the guardian.
Isolating Bristles was their first step.
Surprisingly, they pegged him for a threatening link but a manageable—perhaps even weak enough one to handle.
But it was Swishy whose freedom hadn’t been limited yet. They allowed him and the [Straw Guardian] to rise toward the [Chasm]. The stake progressed—with a fair amount of health at that—since the measures taken to limit Bristles were significant. Bristles was indeed effective at drawing away the [Black Blasts] from the guardian’s chest and stake, protecting the Swishy, the birds, and—to the man-beast’s great annoyance—Trey.
“Keep going, my liege!” Bristles called from below. He no longer soared in time with the guardian’s head. He’d battled near the face, then the neck, then upon the shoulders. Within seconds, he was mired in confrontation at the chest—since the wrathravens decided to concentrate their [Black Blasts] toward the sleeping Trey.
Again, it was all a distraction. They only aimed for the dangerous zones to divert Bristles’ attention.
The boy used the [Trust] link and the straw guardian gave Bristles a thumbs-up, especially as the man-beast defended it with such passion.
And then the [Stake] rose through a thicket of golden clouds—which then led into a well-constructed shadow lair, a new ecosystem trick of the wrathravens.
“Okay, buddy,” Swishy rubbed the guardian’s head. “We can do this.”
Within the new lair, a series of bladed red eyes cut through presiding shadows, murderous at first—before they assumed arrogant gazes, laughing ones.
(…)
As the [CHASM] grew, taking in the wrathravens gloom and rage, the beasts began to calm down.
Their eyes even closed—Swishy realized that he hadn’t seen them ever with closed eyes, and was shocked that there were even eyelids for their demonic reds.
But their eyes were shut, their breaths were even, and the black aura condensed tightly around their bodies. Zen was achieved with the beasts, something that frightened the znitches—and rightfully so.
Swishy would’ve been impressed by the creatures if he wasn’t so terrified by their composure as well.
When the strong were composed, that meant they were careful. But this flock was not like the snitchtalons of old, they weren’t like the E-squad or the other citizens. Swishy and Bristles weren’t going to be underestimated in the slightest. No close-quarters combat. They eyed the Straw Guardian’s hands, Bristles’ Nevermore claw, and Swishy’s gold-tipped rake. The more negativity they gathered into that swirling ball, the calmer they became.
The wrathravens were confident in their insurance policy. Several at a time were flying toward the heart of the chasm, depositing their hexed feelings into it. They’d planned for the end stages of the fight, knowing that the battle of attrition would wear on, so they were storing their malice bomb now while they still had the energy for it.
“Smart…” Swishy said as he synthesized the situation.
Way too smart, Zone-Zeuce-Zhird chimed in. Will we make survive?
“Funny question for those who’d died before.”
That makes it make all the more sense.
“Right. Then yes, we’ll make it.”
You’re just saying that.
“If I don’t, that’s as good as giving up.”
Yeah…
Swishy was patient with the znitches. He knew it’d be a process to teach them FAITH. The word multiplied in champagne bubbles within Swishy’s gourd. He’d always kept a foam of faith at the ready. That was just how he was. That was just how Trey taught him to be. And it surprised him that the snitchtalons were lacking in optimism even though they seemed so strongly to follow Ruby and enforce her tenets.
It was strange to discover that Ruby’s leadership style didn’t induce faith or even fear.
Results were produced and a city was raised. But the citizens lacked some important things. The doubtful znitches gave Swishy a place to start, something he’d think through later.
Meanwhile, the [Chasm] clung to the air by itself. No one had to maintain it. Whenever the wrathravens felt anything, they faced the spell and exhaled. Words such as UPSET and RUIN and SUBMIT pushed from their mouths as vapors and traveled into the abyssal ball, that gaseous and eclipsing amalgam.
It wasn’t as tight and compressed as the one Swishy had executed. But that made sense to him. His had always been cultivated inside, packed into his body in the relative shape of a heart. The wrathravens who never once needed to exercise control didn’t have the ability or the know-how to create a bomb of their feelings.
The [Chasm] spread and spread, taking up space, functioning as a single swirling cloud. This was an eclipse, a cataclysm, the natural disaster to end all disasters. The sprawling force of it gave him the notion of a Straw Guardian, that this was the wrathraven’s version of an advocate, a protective construct. Within the curved gaps of darkness, the gold skies were faintly visible, but more HURT and DOMINION subsumed into the [Chasm], dimming the horizon’s luster.
The black tornado roared on with relative silence, carrying the dreadful whispers of wrathraven psyches.
Behind the [Chasm], the portal lingered.
The six-winged beasts surrounded the Straw Guardian, keeping a space of twenty meters away from the giant.
Stray bolts of black lighting shot down through the realm. One bolt singed off the wing of a wrathraven. Another strike went toward one of the blue znitches, who then dove through the guardian’s body.
When the Straw Guardian was struck by the chasm bolt, its wheat was immediately dissolved into black powder.
More bolts rained down toward the shoulders—and Swishy raised his golden rake in response. He knew it wasn’t metal, knew that electricity wouldn’t magnetize to it. However, it worked anyway. Wrathraven darkness was attracted to light. The cursed entities of their attacks sought to possess luminousness, to corrupt and pollute it.
The boy, raising his rake, accepted multiple strikes as if he were a gloom magnet.
Swishy watched as the black bolt bore into the rake, corroding the golden tips.
“Glad I tested it…” Swishy then jammed the prongs into the guardian and used it for a cleanse. The curse blacks crawled away from the edges of the rake and into the guardian, turning the affected straw into ash.
The boy needed to pay attention to the guardian, its straw health. Fine, might’ve been an overstatement. He didn’t want to underestimate the corruption.
But there was [Trust], the giant using a semblance of autonomy, and so Swishy decided to leave the guardian to defend itself.
“Ready?” Swishy said, seemingly to no one in particular. However, there were many beings available to respond.
What choice do we have? The znitches said.
We’re ready to lick that abyss! The curses said from inside Swishy’s buried blackwheat—and within the guardian as well. It’s like a delicious jawbreaker. Gorgeous!
Of course, I’m ready, Wingy said. If you need me so badly, just say be direct.
Swishy turned toward his black wing. “I need you to give me a boost. Is that good enough?”
It’ll suffice, yeah.
[Wing Jump]—Swishy leaped toward the portal, aided by his dark wing, a wind of curses streaming in his wake.
Goaltenders came out of nowhere, disguising their bodies within the chasm’s shroud. Suddenly, there were wrathraven faces and opened mouths, several [Black Blasts] at the ready. Striking a mid-air opponent was the classic technique, taking advantage of limited mobile options.
Swishy was ready—but he wasn’t, because his next strategy was a risk.
[Pile]—he dissolved into separate strands, and those strands broke down into smaller ones. His gourd and his dissipated body traveled through the [Black Blasts] and he hoped that his wheat was spared from the brunt of the attack.
The darkness slid over his straw, leaving very little remnant of its curses behind.
Meanwhile, the gourd was sturdy. Swishy found that his face would handle almost anything now that he’d been initiated in the brazen shadows for the duration of his scarecrow life. His jack-o-lantern was filled with positive intents and words he liked. BRAVERY was the one he clung to at this moment. Because it was a good thing to be brave. And that trait was what made Trey and his followers proud to know him.
The blasts kept coming but Swishy’s upward momentum continued. The propulsion of the [Wing Jump] magic hadn’t petered out yet, even several seconds after launch. Wingy and the curses it led were like a fuel thruster, spewing out its spirits, pushing against gravity.
The thing that gave him the strongest shielding was what he carried inside. His heart gleamed against the blackness, emitting that wishwillow energy he’d been storing up.
He couldn’t see into his own heart, not with the way the blasts poured down on him. Shadows and haze frequency blinded him to both his physical vision and the soulscape. Swishy only carried on through faith that his heart was the kind that could bear the load of the successive onslaught of darkness.
It had to be working. His heart felt the impact. There were thuds. There was bluntness and pressure. Squeezing. Burning. Crinkling. The wrathravens tried to warp his heart in every way.
B-I-R-D-C…
Those five letters made a sudden appearance as they fed their glares into the heart directly.
But Swishy’s shine, his soul warmth, diminished the shadows.
Then the boy, satisfied with his ascension, reintegrated.
[Scarecrow]—his wheat joined around his heart and gourd and Timbs. Then the wing came last and fused into his back. Finally, his gold rake traveled into his hands.
He tested the solid ground. Why is this solid anyway? That’s odd…Because the ground was gaseous. It felt like a wrathraven body part, a collection of feathers that textured the ‘ground’ like cobblestone. The material integrity was shocking but useful.
You dare walk upon our bodies?
“I’m daring to hurt you, if we’re just going to come out with the truth.”
Bold words for an isolated scarecrow. You must know you don’t have what it takes to overcome us, to overcome Ruby. You are food. You already know your place—of this we are certain. Now we’ll have to set you right.
“Then come get it.” Swishy stomped his foot onto the wing-like platform.
Through the soulscape, he saw every harsh intent that flared from the body-part-filled skies. By now he was well aware of the different ways to say MURDER. He was well-versed in harm and malice, and so he stood his ground.
“I see…Bristles did this. Don’t be so in pieces about it.”
Bristles’ destruction hadn’t just rained down—it’d floated across the sky, seeking the healing darkness of the flock. Now that [Chasm] was activated, the cursed feelings of the defeated set now orbited the spell, feeding from it, merging with it, becoming a platform environment.
Now that the scarecrow saw with clarity what’d happened, he easily noticed a path of torn bodies. There was a staircase of ripped-off wings, a bridge of joined-together beaks, and other humongous free-floating feathers. Some moved side-to-side and up-to-down in fixed patterns. Some parts swayed. Others, like a floating wrathraven head, sometimes snapped their jaws shut before steadily reopening them.
It was an obstacle course, a helpful but harrowing platform park that was held together by the [Chasm]. The scarecrow needed to traverse through here to reach the portal.
Swishy saw the goal—the portal entrance was near. He was right there. He just had to scale the bodies of his enemies, both whole and dissected.
But he was close. And it felt good to be close. What came next was a great challenge, a haunting cemetery in the clouds. There were many obstructions but very little distance, just several stories up—glutted with hidden wrathravens, traps, and dark magic.
With the [Chasm] at its center, everything else became momentarily visible, then obscured. The swirling black hole created patterns of light and dark, a strobe that intermittently revealed and concealed the wrathravens. Their random body parts were emerging from the amalgamation of the globule abyss. Claws reached for him. Massive mouths bit at him. But he used the rake to not only block the attacks, but he jammed it into these sudden surfaces, using it to anchor him. As the body parts came to attack him, he javelined onto their topsides and sprung upwards.
He’d turned the obstacle course of shadow attacks into a platforming game.
The weight of his task only grew once he was face to face with the [Chasm].
A black hole, a planet of roaring nothingness. Dragon-like wrathravens flew across its roiling surface. Everything was hot. Everything felt like lead. Before the [Chasm], he couldn’t see the portal, the golden sky that he swore painted the domain nest, and even down below he couldn’t see the Straw Guardian. The boy remembered a story about a fool of wax feathers flying too high to the sun. What made Swishy think straw was much better?
He stared at the back of his hands. They began to flake into darkness.
Swishy, like the guardian, reformed his lost straw. But there was no time, no luxury of damage. Within the domain’s heights, there was no extra straw to offer service to him. Once more, his greatest strength had taken a nerf.
And the wrathravens knew it. Their tongues slipped from their mouths and licked over the topsides of their beaks.
[ULTIMATUM], they said. Vines of black smoke wriggled from the chasm’s core. The throng of authoritarian tentacles poised toward him, their evil aura infecting the air.
Swishy, alone in the skies, was exactly where the beasts had wanted him.