Chapter Eighteen
As I was staring down at the core laying on the ground, I began feeling a ravenous hunger building up inside of me. Stupidly I felt myself reaching out, my hand seemingly of its own volition, grabbing and scratching into the dirt I found myself grasping for it. As soon as I felt my fingers brush against the hard surface, I quickly picked the glowing core back up and upon acquiring it, the Chaos Qi in my center blazed back up into life.
As it started bouncing around faster and faster, I felt a warmth start growing in my center. I desperately grabbed for that pulsing hunger coming from the rock in my hand. I found it to be both incredibly different and yet strangely similar to the death energy that had flown up from the troll and attacked Gaian and I just scant moments before. As my rational mind started rousing itself and trying to regain control of the insanity that seemed to have taken over my body. I tried to use the connection that was forming to the rock in my hand, to try and gain some control over the Chaos Qi that I hadn't been able to rouse in my defense with the previous attack.
It seemed like my core was a runaway nuclear explosion waiting to happen as the Chaos began to vibrate even harder as it started to answer my call. Yet it still seemed to remain in the center of my core. As I started to feel an ache in the back of my heart I wanted to go to a knee as the energy in my center continued to grow even more violently in its desire to escape and consume the energy pulsing out of my hand.
As hungry as the Chaos in my center felt, it seemed like it was so eager for this new energy to make its way into my core so it could feed. Part of me felt that it would be easy meat and I would have a huge power up when it finally made its way to the center and my Chaos was finally able to devour it and grow. I could feel myself becoming more and more desperate for it to reach my center, where I could rend it from its previous source and consume the troll essence to grow even more powerful. As I felt a connection starting to form between me and the glowing rock, I heard my subconscious screaming that this was a trap.
I concentrated on the connection that I was feeling starting to form. Beyond the soothing green energy that tasted of life and renewal I could feel something waiting. As if it recognized being caught out, I felt it start to charge forth in an attack, though this time my Qi seemed up to the challenge. I felt pain, rage and a will start to push past the green energy as the evil yellow Qi that was hidden behind it began its assault.
At first I was feeling confident, whether this was from my recent fight, or my own Qi was infecting me in its desire to feed and grow stronger, I don't know. But as I could feel it creep into me, that instinct to rend, kill and consume; my cautious side grew more worried. I could feel an alien rage begin building in my mind, trying to close in and lock out every other emotion in its bid to take over. I felt the urge to shout out my challenge to the waiting universe, screaming that it was just meat waiting for me to consume.
Clamping my mouth shut and refusing to give into my instincts. I began trying to spin the pulse of the invading energy like I had once spun Chaos and Order Qi around my bloodstream, before breaking them down and using it to empower my channels and core. Feeling an echo from my time in the hell ball, the subjective life times I had spent there breaking down and empowering myself seemed to take back over as I felt regret at what my lack of self control had caused. Feeling the invading evil began to make its detour from its drive towards my core as I spun it around like a rocket around the moon, slingshotting it out to make a circuit through my channels I had formed. I felt it trying to burrow into me, but tempered as my channels were by the broken down building blocks of the very universed, they rebuffed the attacks effortlessly. Feeling more of the evil continue to stream into me, I forced my fingers to open and let the core drop once again to the ground.
Immediately I felt some relief, as the evil seemed to lose the will that was driving it on. With the remaining energy making its way around my system I felt it bunching up upon finally entering my core. It started making its way across the massive space that I had built inside of me as it continued heading toward the speck in the center. Looking closer I saw that it wasn't heading straight at my center, instead it looked like it had started forming a circuit around the Chaos like a comet streaming through the solar system. Continuing to wrap around the center it began elongating more and more until it formed a ring as thin as a thread around the bouncing Chaos ball in the center, like it was now a ring around Saturn. It seemed as if the two sources of Qi were working to form some kind of equilibrium. With the sickly yellow Qi using the ball of Chaos as a source of energy to continue its orbit whereas the Chaos Qi in turn used the compression of the ring to bounce faster and faster.
Unwilling to let the status quo continue if it meant keeping that evil inside of me like a trojan horse, I focused my mind on the Chaos. With no wish to end up mindlessly consuming like the previous holder of the core that I had foolishly picked up, and unwilling to risk letting the evil infect my core with its sickly yellow energy. My mind worked frantically on solutions I could use to fight it off. If I was going to treat it as a source of Order Qi then logically I should be able to use the Chaos to either break it apart and consume it; or churn into it empowering it, having it grow stronger and more solid. Knowing which was the only palatable option, I started working out how to try and bring my thoughts to fruition. Focusing on the Chaos, I started trying to agitate it and encouraging it to act, while another part of me concentrated on the ambient barrier that was pinning the Chaos in place above the speck trying to weaken or expand it to let the Chaos loose.
As time passed on and the impasse ensued, I grew worried that I had invited something inside of me that was going to sit and wait to take me over. Unwilling to become a puppet, I grew more and more determined that I was going to remove the ring of yellow before it could set up shop permanently in my core. As I grew more certain in my determination a pulse shot out of the black speck in the center and dragged two of the bits of Chaos with it. Shooting past the invisible barrier, it dragged the Chaos into the ring of yellow.
As the two Chaos motes hit the yellow ring, it did as it was wont to do and started to infect it in turn randomly. Some bigger parts turning to energy and some smaller seeming to turn solid with no rhyme or reason that I could discern. As the ring broke apart and started shooting randomly around the cavern that was my core the pulse gathered back up the original two motes of chaos and several of the new other motes as well, returning them back to the center before retreating further itself, back down to the speck that I was starting to consider to be my soul.
All cohesion gone, the remaining energy continued bouncing its way across the cavernous core that held it until it started streaming its way back into my channels. This time as it made its way around I focused on opening up the hole I had carved into the wrist of my right hand, expelling the energy back out into the troll. Which upon hitting it, sprouted back out in a fresh explosion of blood and organ bits, rebathing me in offal.
Looking down, at the second small explosion that had gone off in the center of the troll's abdomen in only a couple of minutes. I was fortunate that it didn't seem to have the force to shatter the bones or I would no doubt be dead instead of just disgusted as the bone fragments would have torn into me like shrapnel from a grenade.
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Rib cage sticking up jaggedly out of the chest cavity, I saw a glint of metal in the middle. Kneeling down, I quickly reached into the cavity to gingerly pick up the blade before my repulsion fully set in. Being careful not to cut myself on it, as I had no desire to increase my chances of catching somekind of magical cross species disease. Already I was thinking I was sure to catch something out of this and with antibiotics now a thing of the past for me. I was only going to be able to rely on my immune system, which was sure to be unpleasant.
Setting my knife on the ground I took several stumbling paces in search of clean grass, finding some I dove into it and proceeded to rub first my face into it and then wriggling my body around like a worm making a snow angel. Hands semi clean, I grabbed handfuls of clean new grass and ripping it out I began to desperately scrub my face as my lungs felt ready to burst, as I had been unwilling to open my mouth and receive another taste that would no doubt set off a second round of violent dry heaving. With my lungs near to bursting, I still thought I could feel some troll viscera on my face and not willing to risk it, I grabbed more fresh grass and continued scrubbing my face until I didn't feel anything wet. Finally willing to take a chance, I let loose a giant exhale, which was immediately followed by heaving gasps. As if I had surfaced from a dive that went just a little too long.
Looking down at my hands that were no longer dripping red, I sprinted over to my sled and carefully leaned over to grab some of the still damp seaweed. Making sure not to drip anything onto my future food, I carefully backed away and began using the seaweed like a washcloth. Scrubbing at my face and beard desperate to remove every last bit of the troll. Opening my mouth I risked a somewhat more normal breath, and when nothing dripped in, I started scrubbing my arms with the sea weed, until I was sure all of the red and green bits had finally disappeared.
No longer frantic and now breathing easier, I looked over to the bear who with his surprisingly human amount of intelligence returned, was doing his best to look anywhere but at me. Either at embarrassment at his previous lack of control or more likely in an effort to hold back the laughter that would only hurt his stomach worse.
Calling over to him I said, “It's fine, yak it up big boy, you still got the worst of the encounter. Although if any more of that beast had made it into my mouth, I might be willing to trade places with you.”
With my acknowledgment of his situation, he looked back over at me before laying his head back down and snuffling at the bit of fish left in front of him. Walking over to my pack I reached into the pouch that had my fishing tackle box and grabbed from underneath it to the small wallet size emergency kit. Ignoring the foil space blanket, I instead pulled out the signal mirror and looked into it to see if I had missed any troll bits, or worse had any cuts that might have gotten troll into them that my adrenaline was keeping me from feeling.
Looking into the mirror, I started at the top, there was a little bit of blood in my curly black hair that surrounded my bald pate. Quickly dabbing it out with a fresh bit of seaweed, I checked my ears next and they were cleaner than I had thought they would be with just a little bit of blood in some of the crevices of my right ear. Thick, without being bushy, eyebrows were cleared next, with the hooked nose my italian ancestors had given me being equally clean as well from all of the previous scrubbing.
Half mutt and half guinea, I had a roundish face that my, for now trim beard, gave a square cast to. The beard mostly covered up the small scar that ran up my right cheek from playing around in a sword fight that my son caused when swinging just a little too enthusiastically. He had broken his plastic sword on the table behind him with a tremendous backswing and I didn’t notice the then jagged edge, until he cut across my face in a victory I let him have when he was five. Putting the mirror back now that I was sure I was clear of cuts and scrapes, I went back to clearing my torso and then pants of the blood and offal. For the first time ever, I wished I was the kind of man that wore cologne, as had I been carrying a bottle in my pack. I would have gladly doused myself in the entirety of it, in an effort to drown my brain and scrub the smell out of my memory.
Walking over to my pack, I dug into the food pocket that I had been previously planning on leaving untouched, for when times got truly desperate. As everything in that pocket was dried or shelf stable enough to last for months. But a face full of troll blood meant that plans changed, and I was just going to have to be willing to adapt. My body needed a treat, something I could call a legitimate win before I started back into my chores. Pulling out a baggy of dried papaya, I reached into it and picked out four pieces.
Tucking the baggy back away before I could overpower my willpower and stuff the remaining pieces into my mouth. I walked over to Gaian and sat down for a second. Putting the first piece of my share into my mouth I started chewing while I held out his two to him, outstretched in the palm of my left hand. Feeling his rough tongue swiping them gently out of my hand, I reached up and scratched his ears while just taking a moment to pause and lean into his bulk. Having been going nonstop, I need to take a quick five minutes to just pause and take everything in. I had been making too many quick decisions, and while I was still confident I had made the correct ones based on the information I had at the time. With the lone exception being picking that stupid core back up. Unwilling to let any mistake go, I went over in my mind how you don't touch strange shiny things, no matter how tasty they look. Speaking of tasty, I put the last bit of sweet fruit into my mouth and chewed it down, all the while slamming my impulsiveness one more time to really set the point in.
Patting his head again I told the giant mass of muscle, “Okay bud, I'm going to get a fire started and then we are fixing you up next.”
The hulking brown monstrosity gave a small dog-like whine in reply. Scratching his ears I stood back up. Walking over to where I had let the marble-sized core from the troll fall, easy to pick out from the background green grass with the sickly yellow glow that was shining through its green exterior. As I bent down and looked at it I could still feel the hunger from the yellow parts of the core reaching out to me. Making no effort to hide now that it had been found out, it was screaming out for me to pick it up and take it into me, so that we might rend and consume all that stand in our path. Growing stronger and stronger until even the mountains are stepping stones in fro… yeah that enough of that.
Shaking my head to clear the invading thoughts, I pulled the mental equivalent of a toddler sticking his fingers into his ears and humming mindlessly to ignore his parents. Placing the ruined seaweed down, I used my knife to cautiously scrape the orb onto it. Rolling the seaweed around it several times I picked it up and I was once again able to feel my own core, giving a small pulse like it was trying to send out something trying to grab it. Not being willing to go for round two or possibly round three depending on your outlook. I quickly brought it over to my pack, thinking about it carefully, I put it on the opposite side of the pocket that had the cores the goblins carried.
Those weren't glowing a second color and I didn't know why, so until I had a better idea of what was causing the differences. I had no desire to possibly empower them and then let them go off in a runaway chain reaction. After putting the trolls in its own separate pocket, I pulled out the goblins' little treasures, to make sure they were still unchanged. Groaning audibly I realized I was going to have to dig around and cut into the remaining goblins to find out if cores on this moon were something every being had inside them. Putting that off as a tomorrow task, I instead went back to the turf I had nearly finished rolling up three fights ago.
Sighing that I was too old for this crap, I picked up my shovel. I debated putting my shirt back on but in the end decided against it, it was still free of troll innards. I may as well leave it off and keep it clean for now, while I finish up the dirty part of my chores. I only had one more back up outfit in my pack and with this being my first day here, I wasn't happy to have gone through most of my clothes already. Bending back down, I continued using the blade of the shovel to pry up the turf, rolling the tough green grass into a cylinder that I could set back down when we left this campsite, in an effort to leave nature untouched by my presence. While the troll and goblin bodies would no doubt leave such a much bigger mess that made this effort seem pointless. I still kept to the habits I had learned in my youth and had passed onto my kids.