Myrrir arrived at the Moro-Ka village after a multi-day trek through the mountains. He kept his hand immersed in a stolen barrel of gunpowder (the Elderworld garrison wouldn’t miss it) and purified the concept of his Arcara as he walked. He was almost where he needed to be in order to advance. Just a few more days with this concentration of gunpowder, and he’d trigger the Admiral advancement.
A wagon rumbled along behind him, hosting the rotten remains of Tye’s corpse and a healthy helping of wet mud and dirt.
In hindsight, maybe it had been a bad idea to move the corpse, but Myrrir wasn’t going to back down now.
He didn’t even know his old first officer’s burial wishes, but this had to be the best he could do.
The sun was setting by the time he reached the edge of the mountain village. It sat at the center of a deep valley like silt in a riverbed. The houses were scattered and rustic, with thatched roofs and plain walls, and only a few had chimneys puffing smoke. The stables and fields, once filled with the Moro-Ka warriors’ horses, were now empty. No young recruits swung their Jai swords in the fields, and no parades of riders charged by. A few villagers stared at him in the distance, but they said nothing.
This place would never be what it once was.
Myrrir didn’t enter the village. He didn’t understand their customs well, even after all the time he’d spent. He doubted they’d appreciate him burying a dead body near any of their paths, or even within common walking distance.
He backed away again, until the village was just a few columns of smoke and glowing specks in the valley, then stopped and dropped the wagon. It didn’t have a horse to pull it; he had just been lugging it along with a Reach technique—coiled Arcara around the empty yoke of the wagon.
Then, immersed in waist-high grass, far from the main trails of the villagers, Myrrir bent down and again dug with his bare hands. He shovelled out a hole a couple feet deep. There was no sense or reason to go six feet down, and people were rarely buried that deep anymore. With how many people died on the battlefields, there wasn’t time to dig proper graves for them all.
Once he had a grave deep enough that nothing could reasonably disturb Tye’s bones, he dragged the man’s remains down. The man’s clothes were in tatters, and the stench was nearly unbearable. Only a small possession remained untouched: a silver canister on a chain, hanging around Tye’s neck, exposed only now because of the man’s decaying clothes.
Myrrir would have let it be. He wasn’t about to rob a grave after coming all this way to honour his old first mate.
Until he noticed a thin inscription on the bottom of the canister. It would’ve been too small for his eyes to read had he been below Commodore. For Myrrir.
Myrrir shut his eyes, then snapped the canister off the chain with a tug. He tucked it into his pocket, then buried the rest of the corpse, until all that remained was a simple patch of disturbed mud.
That wouldn’t do.
He scoured the fields for rocks until he had an armful, then he built a heap atop the head of the grave. Even when the grass grew over the patch and Tye’s memory disappeared entirely, the pile of stones would remain.
For a few minutes, Myrrir knelt in front of the pile of stones, his body running cold, his shoulders jerking up and down. For a few minutes, he couldn’t breathe, and he allowed himself to stop cycling Arcara.
“I’m so sorry…” he whispered. “This time, so truly sorry…you were a father to me, a better father than Nilsenir ever was. I wish I’d seen it sooner.” He wiped his eyes, let out one last sob, then leaned back. “I want to be satisfied. I know what I have to do.”
He said nothing for a few more minutes, then finally, pulled the canister out of his pocket and unscrewed the cap. A slip of parchment lay inside, along with some jade-green dust at the very bottom that bubbled and heaved, almost like it was breathing.
He pulled the parchment out and unfolded it, then scanned it quickly.
Myrrir. If you are reading this, then I am dead, and I imagine you have made a grave mistake. I hope that, by the time you find this, it is not too late to change course. Please understand: I only wanted the best for you. I hope you have learned, and if not, I hope that this might be the final push.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
The Gods’ ways are not right. There is honour in a peaceful life. But I also understand that you may not be able to leave so easily, nor will circumstances let you. For that reason, I have prepared a Jai spirit for you. The Moro-Ka god-heirs embedded them in their swords upon advancing to Grand Admiral, enabling their abilities and drawing on the spirit’s power even further.
Once you are free, Myrrir, leave them. There is more to life than advancement. There is more.
* Tye
Myrrir folded the slip of parchment up neatly, then tucked it into the stack of rocks. “I will not become a God.”
He stood up and took one last look at the village, then fastened the canister around his neck. “I’ll come back, Tye. But first, I have debts to pay.”
image [https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f3a882_2bcdeab6626a49c1bc2fa21d230a67c6~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_560,h_281,al_c,lg_1,q_85,enc_auto/ship%20better.png]
Just when Vayra thought she couldn’t stay on her feet anymore, he core pulsed, and her Arcara blazed, beckoning her to advance.
She just needed to trigger it.
Turning away from the black hole, the burning eye behind her, she staggered down from the railing and landed in a crouch. Her hair flopped down in front of her face, and Stream water dripped off her shoulders. She wanted desperately to stop shielding the ship, but if she let go, they’d all die.
She kept pouring her shield into the boards. The winds blasted across the deck, trying to rip her off, but she widened her stance and bent down to place a hand on the deck. “Captain Pels!” she shouted.
“Yes?” He, a navigator, and a pair of lieutenants ran to the front railing of the quarterdeck, looking down on her.
“Give us the kick! Get us out of here! I’m ready!”
“We’re on it!” Pels motioned to one of the lieutenants on the main deck and made a hand signal, then shouted, “All hands! Drop the mainsails and fasten the halyards! Make for the open Stream!” He ran down the stairs to her side, then said, “We’re dropping the fins at once. Can you keep them together?”
“Just be quick!” she said through clenched teeth. Her core pulsed and shuddered, demanding advancement, and she could barely resist it. If she waited any longer, it might go on its own, or it might collapse in on itself, and she wouldn’t be able to use any techniques either way.
The Harmony’s Streamrunning fins dropped into place and the gossamyr sails fluttered out to their full opening size, and the ship lurched forward, wrenched from the singularity’s tug by an enormous kick of speed.
They accelerated, and Vayra slid back across the deck, her boots skidding over the boards, until her back pressed against the quarterdeck door.
By the time the singularity was a distant speck, they took a broad loop around, circling back the way they came—back toward Swordhaven and the Shattered Moon.
Vayra dropped the shields and shook out her hands, then breathed a few times to catch her breath. But just letting her guard down for a few seconds was enough to push her core to the brink.
‘You have the revelation?’ Phasoné asked.
“I do,” Vayra whispered. “I’m—”
‘Use it now, or you’ll botch the advancement!’
“Alright!” Vayra took one last deep breath, then said, “I will have a life afterward.”
A jolt of Arcara seared through her core, and her core and soul resonated in synchronization. She dropped to her knees, and an invisible wind swirled around her, pulling on her skin and liquifying her muscles.
Her body was reforging again.
Just keep cycling, keep concentrating, and coordinating everything. Soon, it’d all come together.
‘You have to guide it,’ Phasoné commented. ‘Direct the Arcara and control the reforging process.’
Her muscles hardened and firmed, staying lean and perfect for speed and endurance. She allowed filaments to run through them, guided strands of Arcara, where she wanted her improved healing abilities to flow, better able to mitigate and repair damage.
No…strands wasn’t right.
Her feathers. She wrapped new patterns of red feathers through in loops, pushing them in a circle and forming vambraces on her forearms, or thin strands up her arms, or a thick swirl around her navel. More sprouted from behind her ears and wound up her neck, guiding her powers of healing and self-restoration.
After all, she was a half-phoenix.
Her channels reforged once more, building themselves back with a robust network of strands and strings.
Lastly came her skin. She built layers of it up over her original form, initially smooth and soft, then tough and elastic, then…hard and brittle.
But none of those were in alignment with her overall form.
The abilities of her Astral Shroud made her fast, and her internal Wards allowed her to pass straight through objects for a short period of time. She altered the outer layer of her body, turning it from a tough shield into a breaker, something to part the air, to allow her to pass through faster, to push up against the fabric of the world.
The Steelvein body agreed with her, and the purpose resonated. The whirlwind of invisible wind and white sparks culminated in an explosion of force, then disappeared altogether, leaving her laying on her back and staring up at the whirling stars above. She had to close her eyes and push away the stimulus, to just let herself rest.
When she opened her eyes, she’d been asleep for a few days.
When she opened her eyes, though, she was an Admiral.