Gone
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Liam Rocco
The intense heat from the surrounding flames forced our procession to a halt. The newts thrashed about, standing on their hind legs and bellowing indecipherable screeches as if to protest against going any further.
Although the creatures couldn’t exactly voice their opinion on the matter, their primal instincts were in fact correct.
Even from our position near the Brimwell—a fair distance from the heart of the chaos—the plumes of ash and smoke rising from our intended destination were hard to ignore.
Needless to say, the waves of heat currently drenching our surroundings were almost unbearable. The atmosphere shimmered around us, rippling in hazy waves as if the very air itself had caught fire.
Before I’d even realized it, beads of sweat had already begun gliding down my forehead.
The source of the flames was apparently raining down from above—a series of small, glowing blue rocks that burst into flames upon impact.
From the amount of smoke and ash that was being churned up on the other side of the Brimwell, it wouldn’t be entirely out of the question to assume that some kind of volcanic eruption had happened over there.
Through the thick clouds of drifting smoke emerged a few raiders sprinting by with horrid looks of terror on their faces. Ignoring our meager attempts at getting answers, they all dashed in the opposite direction at a breakneck pace.
“D-Don’t go over there you’ll get yourself killed!” yelled an injured man sprinting down the road.
I couldn’t tell if their fear had been caused by the irregular or something else.
There was definitely an otherworldly creature somewhere on the other side but its oppressive presence from earlier had diminished considerably.
“I-Is that Julia?” said Myra aloud, inviting me to scan the oncoming scores of retreating bystanders alongside her.
In the distance I could clearly see someone that looked like my mother coming towards us but even though she seemed familiar, her presence felt completely different at the same time.
That also went for her appearance as well.
For some reason her hair had been dyed in a light wheat color and she had elk-looking horns sprouting from either side of her head.
The pattern on her forehead had changed considerably too, taking on a more intricate shape that spanned a larger area.
Was that what the signum was for?
I thought to myself, examining the woman with obsessive interest as she came closer into reach. Surprisingly, she was carrying the bodies of both Flynn and Allen under her arms whilst maintaining that impressive sprinting speed.
I don’t remember her ever being that strong so something was definitely off here.
“Oh, there you are! Thank goodness!” She exclaimed, her voice trembling with relief seconds before she forced her body to a not-so-gentle halt.
“Julia we need your help, it’s Jytte she’s losing blood!” Myra declared, practically forcing those words out in a grief-stricken tone.
Abandoning the need for details, she quickly hopped into the wagon bed before setting down the two unconscious bodies. They had visible wounds but nothing to the extent where their lives were in danger—well at least not yet anyway.
“I suppose we can save the details for later Myra.” She stated calmly, examining the state of her wincing patient.
She gave Myra a series of instructions regarding how to thaw the ice from the severed arm, then she aligned the point of severance with Jytte’s dismembered shoulder joint before finally melding the two together with her healing magic.
The bloody stump seemed to pulse with an unnatural energy as the magic flowed through it, the raw flesh knitting together with an eerie precision. The blood, once pooling around the severed arm, began to congeal and recede, as if the body itself was reclaiming what had been lost.
My mother's expression started to pale as the process went on, her breathing grew heavy and her shoulders seemed to be drooping rhythmically with blatant exhaustion.
Finally, as the last section of the deep cut on Jytte’s arm began to mend itself, the antlers on her head suddenly cracked, falling to the ground and shattering like brittle bone.
Her natural hair color returned in small blotches, with the light green hue overpowering its wheat counterpart as if it were banishing an old foe.
“Mother...?”
“I’m fine Liam. Don’t worry it just means I’m a little tired that's all.”
Her answer—given mid operation—was far from being assuring in any way but from the focused look on her face I knew she had no intention of stopping until she was finished.
“It’s done. She should...be fine now.” My mother stated laboriously, still holding a somewhat satisfied expression.
“By the way, about Oliver...” Myra began, sounding as if she didn’t quite know how to word the question.
“He’s holding the irregular off; by himself.”
The sounds around us were completely drowned out by that one sentence.
The silence felt crushing, like it was mounting by the second more and more as the wind up to some tragic climax. Myra pressed further, exchanging a few details with Julia here and there but the specifics of their conversation eluded me.
I couldn’t hear what they were saying not because I didn’t want to, but because of a loud, incessant sensation of danger consuming my senses. Instinctively, I whipped around, trying to locate the source in a panic as my chest tightened and blood pulsed rapidly through my veins.
Spinning and turning to no avail, I finally came to realize that the source of that unpleasant feeling was stemming from my own racing heart.
“Are you alright Liam?”
The concerned voice probed, finally grounding me back in the present.
“I-I’m fine, it's just the heat getting to me.” I replied, loosening the abhorrent grip on my own chest.
As I turned to face them—my breath heavy and skin slick with sweat— a shrill cry resounded from the space above as the large cloud of smoke and ash began to separate.
Bursting through the veil was what appeared to be a loaded wyvern carrying an oversized man on top with something else—a charred man missing an arm—latching onto its talon. The creature screeched again for the last time before whooshing away with a vigorous flap.
“There he is!” Julia cried, pointing to the sky. “The one holding on to the wyvern's talon, that’s Vidar, he’s the one that summoned the irregular.”
Vidar?
I repeated the name in my mind.
One glimpse of that strange gathering had allowed me to confirm something pivotal, but at the same time it also left me with two burning questions.
That man Julia referred to as Vidar, why was he here and why was he pretending to be a human?
It seems the answer to that question would have to wait since the gears turning in my mind abruptly ground to a harsh stop from the growing sounds of battle approaching our position.
“GRAAAH!!!” echoed a roar, and no sooner than it did had my father’s bloodstained body come tumbling out the veil of smoke, landing with a harsh thud some distance behind our wagon.
“Oliver!” his comrades screamed in a panic, though they quickly heaved a sigh of relief upon seeing the man raise a hand. He slowly rose to his feet and wiped away the beads of blood flowing down his face.
“Myra, you and the others need to retreat! This irregular, it's a porter! I can’t keep it in one place for long!” he said, furiously barking the order at us.
“I-I can help you finish it off. There’s no way you can kill it by yourself, not like that!” she protested through a scream, one that couldn’t quite hit its mark.
“Tch! Please Myra just do it. Julia’s exhausted, she won’t be able to transform like that again for a while. Get her and Liam out of here! That was what we agreed on, right? You said you’d keep my family safe.”
The faerie froze from that statement.
She lingered in the air, glancing back at Julia with a somber expression. What she wanted to do and what she should be doing—those two desires were currently anchoring her in place.
“It’s fine, Myra, we’ll go with you. I’m sure Oliver can handle himself.” affirmed my mother, she spoke those words as if she herself didn’t completely believe them.
Myra’s head swiveled between my parents one last time before she finally cemented her resolve, however -
“Get back!” she screamed, blasting us away with an aquatic sphere.
My body shot back into Julia’s chest as we both hurled into a nearby wall, slamming against the aged mortar with a dull sound. My body, shielded from the brunt of the force after being cushioned against Julia’s body quickly recovered from the impact only to see the wagon suddenly explode from a certain monster’s reckless charge.
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The wagons timber frame shattered from the force, allowing the newts to finally scatter as tiny wooden chunks rained down in the aftermath, followed by two unconscious bodies crashing into the ground a good distance off from us.
It appeared suddenly, without warning.
A large, shadowy monster assuming a humanoid form with umbra looking claws and a bright purple gleam in its eyes. Standing tall, the creature’s form seemed to sway with a little bit of litheness to its movements as if it hadn’t quite decided whether it wanted to exist or not.
Looking at it now, I finally understood where the name ‘irregular’ came from—” Irregularity” a truly unstable existence.
“*&^%$&*)^%#@*&)__#@!”
Myra finished stringing together her series of chants just in time to coordinate with Oliver. They fired off crescent shaped blasts of water, fire and wind respectively but saw little effect.
Given the amount of mana they had left, it was only natural.
My father’s flames had dwindled to little more than ember sparks at this point, while Myra, on the other hand couldn’t even use her aberrant element anymore.
When their blows connected; the creature simply mended its form through what must have seemed like sheer willpower to them.
However, that wasn’t the case.
This irregular, unlike Nephthys was incomplete.
Initially, it had a more dreadful aura and a stronger presence because of the base components used to create it. In other words, the mage being used as its vessel had a more developed core, which meant that it could house a larger quantity of more potent souls.
That being the case, since it had yet to absorb a rune, the souls being housed inside that core were evaporating at a rapid pace and weakening the creature by the second. On top of that, the dreadful blow the creature had suffered must have forced it to deplete a significant portion of its stockpile of souls to regenerate.
The only reason it was able to hold firm for even this long was because of the ‘carnage’ Nephthys had mentioned earlier. Judging by the numerous wandering souls floating about the place, they must have killed a few raiders beforehand to prepare for this exact situation.
Every time it was injured all it had to do was absorb the influx of souls in the environment and feed off their lifeforce to strengthen its influence.
This diabolical tactic must have been the reason I had initially found it so hard to detect any of the souls that ought to have been commonplace in this city.
The blasts of water and bursts of flame hardly seemed to affect the monster. It flickered in and out of view like a mirage, evading the elemental barrage that was gradually losing its intensity.
I felt a tug on my clothes trying to pull me back despite the extreme lack of force being exerted.
“Liam...we...have to go.” Julia worded slowly, catching her breath between the brief gaps of her statement.
Given how hard her chest was heaving up and down I doubt she even had the vigor to follow through with her own command.
I clasped her hand and held it up against my forehead, easing a bit of the worry in her features.
“Sorry, Mother. I know you won’t like what I’m about to do, but I have to help them, I don’t want to have any more regrets.” I told her, forcing a fragile smile.
Lowering her hand, I got up and started walking towards the unfolding battle.
“Wait! What do you mean you have to help them? Don’t do anything reckless, son! Liam! Liam Irving Rocco!”
That was the first time she had ever screamed my name like that. It was actually kind of refreshing to hear her speak in such an angry tone for once.
I heard the sounds from her struggle as she tried to force her body to stand, which ultimately proved fruitless. After taking on that strange form and using the last of her strength to heal Jytte there wasn’t much else she could do at the moment, especially since the woman was carrying ‘new life’.
Her screams and wails gradually began losing volume the moment I broke into my reckless sprint.
I reached into my pocket and brought out the only thing that could possibly salvage this situation, a small glowing stone.
It didn’t react to this one since it hadn’t absorbed a rune yet, which was actually a good thing right now.
In the few seconds I wasn’t paying attention Myra had collapsed on the ground while my father was giving it his all with what little mana he still had—that was until the irregular warped into his blind spot and slashed at his chest.
Blood gushed from the shallow wound and his knees buckled over from the sudden loss of strength.
The irregular, which had shrunk in terms of both size and power, now appeared weaker and more vulnerable but no less of a threat. Its hazy form seemed to unwind with each step, and before it could do the unthinkable, I hurled the heaviest rock I could find at it.
My attack connected but did no damage at all. The rock bounced off its hazy form as if it were made of stone itself, and the creature didn’t even flinch.
It merely turned its crooked neck along an unnaturally smooth arc, growling at me with the gleam of a predator.
“Liam don’-ggragh!”
My father must have wanted to shout at me but the blood pooling in his throat wouldn’t allow that.
We exchanged glances for an instant, our faces conveying completely different expressions. I gave him a wink and mustered a smile, which didn’t quite match up well with his bare face reeling from both pain and despair.
Even with all the agony painfully clear on his face, his eyes were practically begging me to run away.
Sorry dear father. I’m going to have to ignore that silent command if I want you all to live.
GWAAH!!
The monster roared, finally catching on to the value of the small fragment in my palm. The ground snapped beneath its body in anticipation, its legs raring up for the eventual lunge that was bound to come.
Taking that as my cue, I broke into a mad dash heading for the large wheel in the distance with the threat of certain death lurking only a few paces behind me. I ran fearlessly into the smoky section of the city attempting to use what little cover the veil could provide.
Using the floating souls as a guide, I maneuvered through the wreckage and ruins with hardly any ease, occasionally tripping and scratching myself, but never stopping completely.
It was going to kill them all if I let that happen.
Crashes, crackles, snaps and booms sounded from behind me, periodically forcing my feet off the ground but none were powerful enough to halt my charge.
The strength behind the irregulars' attacks was definitely getting weaker but the same couldn’t exactly be said for the monster’s speed. That thing they called a ‘porter’ seemed to have the ability to warp itself at a fixed distance as long as the movement was limited to a straight line.
My body couldn’t react to its movements, but I could just barely get enough preemptive insight on where it would appear next based on how the mass of souls ‘glitched’ in and out of this dimension.
The instant before it warps the soul's ‘glitch’ simultaneously like they were about to vanish from this world completely, only for the reverse effect to happen whenever it was about to manifest somewhere.
Using that as a guide, every time I felt that strange sensation my body moved at random to break any sense uniformity in my movements.
If it was really limited to only moving in straight lines then that much was doable.
Springing over a large crack in the ground, I dove to my left on instinct just in time to avoid being pierced by a handful of obsidian claws. A sharp pain surfaced on my face as I rolled along the uneven ground.
Whatever had just cut my forehead certainly had some inconvenient placement. It had even torn off the strange cloth Julia had wrapped around my head a few hours ago.
That was when the true extent of my recklessness became clear.
To be fair, I didn’t actually have a plan. What I had was an idea, one that I sought to execute for my own self-satisfaction.
From my parents' viewpoint it must have seemed like a selfish—no, insane thing for a four-year-old to do. I knew exactly how unreasonable it was, but I didn’t want to see them die from a problem I was responsible for creating in the first place, after watching Vreena die I wanted to avoid the same feeling of regret from back then most of all.
Somehow, it was a lot easier for me to throw myself into such a reckless situation if it meant not having to experience that again.
The irregular freed its hand from the ground, then the creature let out a hoarse groan that sounded more painful than threatening.
Its form had whittled down considerably over time, to the point where it was seeming more meager by the second. Even the formerly sharp claws on its hands had dullen and shrunk in sync with its diminishing body mass.
I summoned the strength to stand, still clutching the rune in one hand and chuckling at the thought of how weak I was.
“I really have fallen, to think I can't kill you even in that state. This is embarrassing...”
No reply came from the monster. It simply shifted its stance and readied the obsidian claws—now shortened and dulled—in preparation for the next head on charge.
I took a step back, then gave a glance to the large structure that couldn’t be completely hidden by the surrounding veil of smoke.
The Brimwell loomed over us like a titan.
It was the only thing present to witness the end of this sad struggle.
We were at the base of the large wheel, the point of separation where it acted as the pivot for the branching ends of the mountain. Behind me was the large ‘V’ shaped fissure guiding the mountain’s muted streams, and standing in front of me was the monster I needed to deceive.
I flung back my right arm, intending to hurl the rune fragment into the fissure but the irregular was faster. Instead of warping, this time it simply lunged straight at me, harpooning its claws for the kill —that was what I had thought.
The second I made the dive to my left, it stopped with a stomp, then truly warped itself into my blind spot. Crashing into the ground I rolled over in a fright but by then it was too late, the next thing I knew my body was abruptly struck with a sharp sensation, one that seemed to burn the very wound.
I fell flat on my back, reeling from the agony of the shallow slash across my collarbone. Blood pooled at my lips but unfortunately, I didn't even have the time to catch my breath. A hand several times larger than mine pinioned me to the ground by the stomach as the monster leaned in close to sneer at me.
Undoubtedly pleased at the thought of having captured its prey.
That was a mistake.
As soon as it got close enough, I forced my body upright and jammed the small fragment straight into its abdomen. An unsightly squeal pierced my ears in response, giving me enough room to crawl out from under the humanoid figure.
What these irregulars were really after was life force, it didn’t actually matter what form it came in but too much of that life force at once was harmful depending on how many souls it had consumed.
Runes in general, even fragments were said to contain large amounts of essence, that was why the irregulars needed to consume a large stockpile of souls first in order to manifest properly, but given how this one had whittled down since its initial summoning the souls sustaining its form couldn’t possibly manage the influx of power from even a mere fragment on their own.
A strange blue light began emanating from within its body, one that seemed to be on the verge of overpowering its otherwise opaque figure. It thrashed about, stomping and slashing away at nothing at all.
Given the unbearable sounds coming from it, I could only assume that it was in some form of agony. That didn’t seem to be far from the truth either, because a moment later, its body started to swell, bubble and crack.
Lost in the internal struggle, the irregular broke through the wooden railing and wandered into the fissure of its own accord. If I wasn’t able to see its form swelling to critical capacity as it descended into the darkness, I might have actually celebrated.
There wasn’t any time for that though, because that thing was going to explode.
Springing to my feet, I tried my best to break into a stride again but my body was being defiant. Not willfully of course, it was simply because of the blood I was losing.
I tumbled forward until I was forced to walk, and when I fell, I began to crawl.
Inch by inch, bit by bit, I struggled forward. Moving towards the hazy sight in the distance, to the place—the people I had come to acknowledge as my home.
I creeped a bit closer, thinking I could somehow make it out of here but then a sudden impact shook the area. My body was lifted off the ground, and through my narrowing vision I saw wooden pieces of the Brimwell coming apart in a spray of debris.
I tried to lift my face off the ground again but it was no use.
My vision abruptly flipped, as if the world had turned on its side, and my body was suddenly swept away by the roaring current of a stream.