On erudition – Excerpt from a sermon

...faith, together with learned men and women have cast a bright light on many known thorough the years. The things that we do not know however are to be the most feared for they are incomprehensible, unsightable, and unsurvivable.

It is folly to seek what we do not know, pray instead that they do not seek us...

End of the year / Bleak week 782 ADM – Eternal Empire – Modon mountains – Promenade’s entrance

Ulysse woke up early if his bleary eyes were any indications. Hard to tell the time in the ever-present darkness. He grabbed his lamp and willed it to switch on to the lowest intensity. Then he shuffled out of his tent with a blanket still on his shoulders. The temperature outside wasn’t that cold yet, just a typical late Fall morning.

At least the bells had stopped ringing at some point during the night.

Robert was sitting next to the tent and opened an eye at the sound of Ulysse’s shuffling.

Eventually Alice too joined them outside.

Robert showed them a channeling trick with Eternium weapons, turns out you could do some basic cooking on the blade’s flat if you channeled a bit a Fire in it. They did have to fully clean the blade afterwards though, so it wasn’t the most practical.

Ulysse remembered priest Xavier telling them that using channeling for common things was an act of heresy, not that he cared.

After breakfast the twins disassembled their tent, they did so much quicker and violently than when they had set it up and Ulysse might have stealthily thrown away one of the fractured poles. Once everything was packed up, they begun trudging through the forest, following their uncle.

“Are we there yet?” Alice said, already bored after ten minutes.

“Not yet.” Said Robert.

Ulysse didn’t get how his sister could be so relaxed in the forest, he jumped at every noise and he hated how the shadows shifted along with his lamp as he moved.

“Are we there yet?” Alice repeated, not five minutes later.

Robert sighed before answering. “Come on Alice, I told you we had a good hour of walk to the village.”

“Why do we even need to go to this dumb village?” Said Alice.

“Because I need you two somewhere safe while I go away to find something you can fight, and I'm not herding monsters to the passage.”

It wasn’t easy for the twins to trek through the wilderness, the rocky terrain had them constantly changing routes or climbing over small obstacles which was made all the harder by the slippery layer of snow and frost. Thankfully it didn’t last the whole trip, halfway through they heard the subtle murmur of water splashing against rocks. Its source – a small stream that Robert claimed to recognize. The trio followed it downstream along the embankment, making it much easier to travel than on the mountainous terrain.

Half an hour later the stream had gotten bigger, merging with others to form a small river that wove through a scant few trees. The forest had been thicker there once, Ulysse had noticed many stumps as they advanced, a clear sign that the nearby village had some productive lumberjacks. Soon the last trees gave way to empty fields, freshly harvested before the end of Fall. They left the river to cut through the fields.

Ulysse couldn’t see the village from here, not even its silhouette, surrounded only by a circle of dirt lit by his lamp and his two companions. He almost missed the trees he had thought of as creepy earlier, they had been better than the seeming void at least.

A wall of carefully stacked stones holding up a roof entered the edge of the light.

“Ok, you two, we’ll look around for the entrance, we are lucky this place is made of stone. If it’s as sturdy as it looks, we’ll make it our campsite.” Said Robert.

They found the door on the other side of the building and Robert tried to open it. It was closed. He took out a strangely shaped black key and turned it inside the rough lock with a satisfying click. The inside was bare bones, as if most things had been removed recently, there didn’t seem to be anything, or anyone.

Ulysse asked, “Ro’, is there no one in the village?”

“There might be a few peoples hiding in their basement, a bunch more in the church’s catacombs for sure.” Robert shrugged, “Most fled to the city for safety, not everyone has a cave, or can afford to light it a week straight. Maybe they just don’t like the isolation.”

“We don’t hide in our cave at home.” Alice looked perplexed.

“You hide behind city walls, this village doesn’t have any.”

After taking a look around the place Robert went back to the door, sharing a last look with them.

“Anyways, this place looks safe. Don’t go outside, and don’t light a fire, the smoke will attract monsters. Aside from that you should barricade the door behind me and set up your tent, the temperature won’t stop lowering.”

Robert disappeared outside, closing the door behind him. Eager to warm up a bit the twins soon followed his instructions, shoving whatever furniture they could find in from of the door. They then tried once more to set up the tent, it somehow managed to look far worse than last time. At least it did its job at keeping them warm.

Time passed as the twins chatted and invented small games to keep themselves busy, Ulysse bitterly regretted not packing any book to pass time, a beginner's mistake. After maybe an hour or two, hard to say without daylight or clock, they had grown bored of it, silently staring at the door. It was then that they heard it. A muffled wail that seemed to come outside.

“Ul’, Ul’, did you hear that.” Alice exclaimed, jumping to her feet.

Ulysse nodded, “I think I did yeah. What was that?”

Alice crossed her arms, taking on a thoughtful expression, “I don’t know, it sounded pained or something.”

“Do you think it’s uncle?”

“No, I think it was a...”

She stopped talking as they heard another wail, coming from the same direction. Its anguish was clear now that they were paying attention.

“...a woman’s voice.” She finished her sentence.

“Yeah, it doesn’t sound like Ro’.” He acquiesced.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Alice put a hand on the barricade, “We should go out to see what’s happening, maybe they need help.”

Ulysse shook his head frenetically, “Are you crazy, if a grown-up needs aid, then there is something super dangerous out there!”

“Ul’, think about it. It’s likely just a peasant girl, you can’t compare them to grown-ups in the family. I have my sword and you have... a crossbow. Listen if you don’t come, I'll go by myself. Coward.”

Ulysse was about to retort when she uttered the last word, “Coward? I'm not a coward, don’t you care about what Ro’ said, he said...”

She cut him off, “Said you were a coward!”

“Ugh, fine. This is stupid, if there is a monster I'll push you inside its mouth.”

“Ho, cool. That way I can kill it from the inside like in the stories.” Alice said before pulling of their barricade piece by piece.

Another wail rang out while they did so, looking almost like a cry.

“Come on, hurry.” Alice said while pulling the door open.

Ulysse followed after her, fumbling to hang the magic lamp around his neck with one hand while the other pulled the door closed.

Once done he took the crossbow in both hands, ready to fire at the first monster to cross their way.

“If you die here Al’, I'm having ‘died because she was not a coward’ engraved on your tombstone.”

“And I'll write ‘should have stayed one’ on yours.”

“Whatever, where should we go anyways, there are too many small houses here.” Ulysse said.

“Shush, we need to hear the screams.”

The two of them looked around, paying close attention to their hearing. Ulysse saw something move at the edge of his light.

“Alice.” He whispered.

She shushed him.

“No, Alice, seriously, there is something out here.” He aimed his crossbow in the thing’s general direction.

She turned around to look and for the briefest of moments, a pair a shining eye could be seen. The next instant the crossbow bucked in Ulysse’s hands as he pressed the trigger. The bolt hit a step away from the creature in a loud thump, scattering dirt, and making it dart back to the shadows.

“Ul’, reload, quick!”

“I’m trying.” Ulysse said, a foot already in stirrup.

His heart was beating faster than ever as he pulled on the cord with all his might, putting his back into it. The sound of light footsteps rose around them, more worryingly clicking sounds accompanied them, like clawed paws hitting stones. The rope slowly inched towards the latch, too slowly. Three pair of eyes entered the light, the creatures’ triangular heads were tipped with long whiskers and shaggy fur, their small rounded ears were full of bite marks.

Big as farm dogs the giant rats took careful steps forwards, closing in on the children. Ulysse was still trying to reload the crossbow, the rope was taught but his shaking hands fumbled with the bolt. Alice started glowing a dull red, then violet a wisps of blue entered the fray. Ice covered her from head to toes while her sword burst in flames.

She ran towards the rats, waving her sword menacingly while shouting a juvenile war cry. Ulysse watched in awe as his winter clad sister made the skittish rats flee in panic, this time he heard the panicked footsteps disappear far into the night.

A wordless scream startled him, it hadn’t come from far.

Alice ran back to him, the elements dissipating from her, “Ul’, let’s go it’s the same voice.”

The same scream came back, several times, sounding almost frantic in its interval, like a call for help would be.

There was no time for arguing, Alice was already running towards the screams, and Ulysse took off after her before she left the light. The screams led them to what he supposed was the village’s square, it had paved ground and the silhouette of a church could barely be seen further away.

At the center, high from the ground shone a dot of light, the first he had seen since coming outside. It glowed pure white, unlike the orange-tinted light of candles, and that meant one thing, the light was of divine origins.

The screams were coming from that light.

Alice shouted over the screams, “Please stop screaming miss, you’ll gather all the monsters here.”

That seemed to do the trick, the screaming stopped and soon soft cries and unintelligible mumblings took its stead.

“Al’, she is obviously not some peasant girl, there is a divine glow up here and I don’t like it.” Ulysse whispered.

“Yeah, ok, maybe she isn’t. We still made it all the way here, shouldn’t we at least get a look? Please.” She whispered back.

Ulysse knew it was a bad idea, that didn’t stop him from wanting to see the source of the screams. They sounded so sad anyways, surely it couldn’t be more dangerous than the rats. On the other hand, there was a divine glow. What if an inquisitor was lurking around and he didn’t like them, or worse.

“A quick look then.” He agreed.

Taking a few steps forwards his light reached the center of the village’s square. There was an ornate stone circle engraved with the cardinal directions in the middle of which a large wooden pole stood tall. The light seemed to be almost at the very top, on the east side.

At his side Alice looked horrified, she had seen something he hadn’t noticed.

“Ulysse, is that blood?”

He followed her gaze, a bit higher than where he had been looking. Rivulets of red were slowly sliding down the pole, a lot of it had already dried.

Ulysse took more steps forward, equally horrified and intrigued. His lamp’s light reached further up the pole revealing a mutilated person chained to the pole, with her eyes gouged out and a glowing white sun-cross hanging from her neck. She was crying softly, whimpering in despair.

Ho, the zealots had made a Sunsight ritual.

He was about to call out to her when he noticed something. Aside from her missing eyes, she had not been mutilated. Not by the Church at least. Strange limbs seemed to slither under her tunic, protuberances of flesh adorned her cranium, her ears were mishappen while her fingers looked almost as long as her forearms. The rivulets of blood had come from sections of her skin that transitioned to rust colored scales.

Books had names for these things, Heretics, Mutants, Mages, Witches.

Words rang in his mind, <>

He took more steps forward, somehow fascinated by the repulsive sight. The woman had stopped crying, her head was looking straight at Ulysse even though she had no eyes.

“Ul’ what are you doing, what did she say?”, He felt his sister put a hand on his shoulder but brushed it off.

The mutant opened her mouth to speak, no words came out but he still heard a voice.

<>

Spoken through his mind by the mutant, the words of power felt clear, translated, he didn’t know all of them but he understood nonetheless, he had to Obey.

Ulysse answered in a trance “Link, <>”

He felt a part of him lurch forward until it came in contact with something else. It felt impure, stank of death, of the wild. It was chaos incarnate. The shock of mentally touching upon such a vile thing made him regain his spirits, breaking out of the trance.

As soon as the link was whole Ulysse felt a stream of raw emotions coursing through him, pain, despair in the face of an inevitable death, hope about the children, amusement.

Did she also feel his curiosity, dread, and hate?

Something primal flooded his mind, not a mere feeling this time but will, Mind incarnate.

A foreign thought slammed into his mind as his body started trembling.

I FEEL ALL OF YOU

From the deepest part of him a well-known thought rose in kind, furious at the intrusion.

Wrongness

The witch’s mind bombarded him with more thoughts.

WANT BODY

He dreaded the war that would be waged inside him, it was just the same as when he channeled, the foreign thoughts and the inner Wrongness.

Yet the pain never came, neither did he lose consciousness. All he had to show for it were slightly trembling hands. The witch was furiously prying at his mind. But somehow her will felt impure, weak, wild. The most furious assaults she made against him had nothing on the backhanded retribution the Gods always gave him for channeling, and he had dozens of experiences with the latter.

Ulysse gathered his will and echoed the inner thought of Wrongness. His mind conjured the word of power for it.

<>

He felt something come out of himself, infusing the word of power, then with fury his will surged, overpowering the witch in an instant. Ulysse chased her out of his mind through the very same link she had used to enter. Then with a final effort of will, he considered the link as wrong. It broke.

Ulysse stumbled backward out of the link, bumping into his sister. He turned to face her.

“Al’, how long was I out.”

“Out? What do you mean ‘out’, you were just staring at miss Creepy-face for...”

Alice was cut off by the sudden sound of rattling chains. The witch was twitching violently, arms, legs, and strange tentacular limbs flailing around, unable to get out of her chains. She started coughing, then gurgling and chocking.

Ulysse muttered, “Shit, I caused that.”

“What?” Alice’s mouth stayed open.

“Later. For now, let’s go back to the house.”