A great craggy stone rolled down a big hill, off the edge of a cliff and into the paddock that surrounded a village that had been build on the petals of a giant waterlily. The inhabitants were immediately awoken by the noise. Sending guards and elite watchman out to check on the disturbance.
What they found was the stone and a mystery. With no clue of where it came from and no ability to see the cliff that lay thousands of miles above their heads. Considering that it was too big and too heavy for the jellyfish-like people to move. They simply assumed it was merely some accident of nature.
Accepting it as a new part of their environment and making plans to either build on it or build around it. Or maybe eventually break it down and see if there was anything of worth inside. One thing they ‘did’ know, was that it’d be too expensive to pay to have a wizard from one of the bigger towns to come and deal with it.
This would prove to be a mistake in judgement. Proven to be so, when a few weeks later the stone rose up on its own volition. Filled with a gray crackling light. Sending out of beams of death and destruction that stole the lives of everyone within the village. The air made thick with smoke and fire and wails of pain and fear.
In the ensuing silence that would come after the slaughter, a consciousness would arise within the stone.This would be the five trillionth and sixty-seventh time that Billy would find himself spontaneously shunted back into being. This was part of the portion of his history that came before he learned how to control his returns to the living half of the mortal coil.
*****
Elsewhere, in the present, a nineteen year old year old, human, or at least humanoid, male would awake in his bed. Yawning and stretching as he watched the sun rise up through his window.
“Screaming again….Why is it always screaming?”
Billy frowned, one hand on his chin. He didn’t dream often, but when he did dream it was always just some disjointed memory of his past. And always, ‘always’ there would be screaming. Either from him or everyone around him, or both.
“....Mhm?....Screaming?....who’s screaming?” said a half asleep Elena. Her back turned to keep the sun out of her face.
Billy frowned at, her pale green back exposed to the open air, because she’d kicked off her clothes again. She definitely had a bedroom of her own.
A nice bedroom. Billy and Edna had set it up for her as a kind of welcome gift and she’d accepted it with tears in her eyes. And then promptly never slept in it. It was bigger than Billy’s was so he couldn’t understand why she kept showing up in his room every night.
He probably should have made a bigger issue of it but it wasn’t like it stopped ‘him’ from sleeping or working. Besides it wasn’t like she was ‘always’ annoying, sometimes she was almost eerily quiet. Either that or she was absent, up to her own nefarious odds and ends in other parts of the house or out on the town.
Frequently going out to visit her friends at the Thousand Ghost’s base.
All that was during the daytime though, since she’d come and joined them, he’d yet to have his bed to himself during the nights. In all honesty, it was times like this that he found himself realizing that his particular blend of apathy and laziness was kind of maybe kind of a problem.
If he really thought about it he’d find that it had almost definitely gotten him killed more than a handful of times. At the same time it was that same blend of apathy and laziness that had kept him sane and relatively human for thirty-two googolplex.
Thus the situation remained unchanged and likely would remain so for the near future. He maybe should have thought about doing or at least saying, something, but that would require a) caring and b) effort.
“Nh….It’s nothing. You can go back to sleep.” said Billy.
“....Mm...Kay.” said Elena, her words almost immediately replaced with soft barely audible snores and evenly paced breathing.
Billy stretched. He did a bit of morning meditation to wake himself up properly. Then left his bedroom so he could prepare for the day ahead.
“Morning’.” said Edna. Who just happened to be passing by on her way to one of the townhouse’s bathrooms.
“Nh….Hey.” said Billy.
“Any plans for the day?” asked Edna.
“Not really.” said Billy.
“Cool...Then can you please do me a big favor and help with the prep for that job we’re supposed to be doing with the Thousand Ghosts? I’d do it myself but I have thing to do with our account manager at the EITC...Something to do with products. Then I have a meeting with the Thousand Ghosts’ liaison. Not Jermaine their boss, he’s already in Lloyd for some reason. It was that other guy. Er...Tangent, I think. So…”
“Nh?....No, it’s cool. It’s cool. You do what you’ve got to. I’ve got this.” said Billy. Stifling a yawn.
“Great! I could kiss you....I mean...Er….anyway I’ll text you the details later.” said Edna.
Billy watched her walk away in the opposite direction of where she’d been headed. Apparently having changed her mind about which bathroom she was going to use.
He assumed that she really needed to go because she seemed to be kind of running away. He continued doing his own thing, aware that he now had to pay attention to the time if he was going to have errands to do.
*****
Every other morning, an elongated blur could be seen moving across the Meallan wastes. Moving slightly faster than the eye could catch. Kicking up a dust cloud whenever it ran through the sands and the drier plains.
Disappearing completely with a thunderous crack once it picked up speed. It went mostly unnoticed, as there was no end to the number of oddities in the Argus continent.
People had better things to be doing than standing around gawking at every single thing they saw. So if a thing wasn’t actively killing them or trying to get into the warded walls of their settlements they left well enough alone.
*****
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Every other morning Billy went for his run. It was always the first thing on his itinerary regardless of whatever he had planned for those days. An important part of his upkeep and self-maintenance, the routine was his way of assuring that his strength levels didn’t stagnate or decline.
After all even at the Transcendental Layer, he didn’t think himself strong. He’d seen too much to get conceited. He knew very well exactly what his minimal power could do for him and just how much it couldn’t.
He’d seen how deep the cosmic seas were, so he couldn’t put his faith in what was by his reckoning a mere aluminum raft. Sturdy but easily capsized or swallowed. So he ran, as frequently as he time to.
He’d always start by pacing himself, only going at a pace of a few hundred miles or so. Once he was warmed up he’d pick things up and head into a jog that broke the sound barrier many times over. Doing random circuits around the entirety of the Great Kingdom of Meallan.
He’d usually run alone. Edna’s control of force and momentum could be used to boost her movements so sometimes she’d come along, but she found it tiring to use her powers like that for too long.
She also had her own particular exercise routine. Elena, had been living with them for a few weeks now and had come along a few times. Inexplicably able to keep up with Billy’s top speed despite being strength-type with no explicit boosts to her speed.
‘She’ , Elena was a big goof and spent half the time either holding onto Billy’s tail and letting it drag her like a water ski, while she rode the on a cushion of aether. Sometimes when Billy could be cajoled into playing along, she’d sit perched atop of it, laughing imperiously while she watched their surroundings blur by.
With Billy eventually giving in and seeing how long he could hold his tail aloft. Curling it into different shapes. Or playing with the variable length and letting her use it as a swing. In the end though, Elena wasn’t that much of a morning person, so more often than not Billy would be running himself.
The first part of Billy’s runs started with him following his senses and letting them pick his route for him. He’d end up visiting all the fresher mass graves and battlegrounds so he could he soak up their miasma.
Of course with his increases in speed, it was only a matter of time before he ran out of places with good flows of negative energy. It was actually a problem for while, till he remembered that he could make his own sources of negative energy. Fear and pain worked just as well for his needs.
However he couldn’t go after the wildlife because not only did that feel a bit too much like bullying, he’d have to seriously, negatively, impact a biome to get the kind of fear he needed from the animals and demonbeasts.
It was better to use sentients. People were full of all sorts of tasty emotions. Love, hate, greed, charity, hope, despair, happiness, anger and...fear. There was a reason why a being so insignificant and small in the grand scheme of things as the average man was, could garner so much cosmic attention. There was a great deal to be gained from the hearts of men.
Thus Billy would always make sure to end his runs with a hunt. He couldn’t just go around killing random people though, that would make him a monster.
Or rather since he held no illusions at to his own nature, it’d be better to say that the off chance of a survivor carrying the tale, would result in him being decreed a monster by the powers that be.
The Kingdoms, the church, the sects, the guilds, the companies and whoever else could be sent to stop his rampage. Thus for the sake of avoiding any unnecessary trouble he chose appropriate targets.
******
Tamra Patton, stood back pressed against the trunk of a tree, a crossbow held to her chest. A raw red burn covered half her face. Her arm was bleeding, the sleeve dripping red. A good portion of the limb missing.
More blood pooled from her pant’s leg and if one looked beneath the moistened fabric one would see that there was cut going through it. Striking all the way to the bone. Meaning that running was no longer an option.
Finding herself stuck between a rock and a hard place, she now found herself in the unenviable position of having to decide whether to use her meagre amount of munitions on the enemy or try to hobble away the best she could.
Both had arguments in their favor. Valor and her honor as a merchant-soldier of the Five Winds Trading Company said she should try to fight in the hopes of helping any surviving clients get away.
On the other hand if she stayed and the band of brutes that lay on the other side of that maze of burning wagons, got to her, she might even end up wishing she’d used a crossbolt to give herself a dignified, relatively less painful, death.
It was too late to pretend she wasn’t scared, the piss that was cooling in her breeches was proof against that. Still there was a chance that her friends were out there. Her people. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she just ran or hid.
Making the decision to be brave rather than smart, Tamra stepped out of her hiding spot, and started firing into the crowd of bandits. Hoping that it’d distract them from what they were doing and draw their attention to her.
“By all the seven hells! Die you bastards!” she swore.
*****
Five minutes later, two rival gangs, the Screw-Tooth Gang and the Briar Boys. stood in the middle of what used to be a wagon train, with minimum of fifty downed wagons. The gang leaders standing near the part of the spillover that had run itself into a nearby wood.
“Phineas McGreer, you whoreson! This was my mark! I’ve been chasing this caravan for weeks.” said a metal-mouthed man to a man with fire for hair.
“Oh shove it your arse metal mouth. Don’t bring me mum into this! We played this con fair and square. Getting these poor fools to hire us on as extra-security. If your boys had half a brain cell between them, maybe they’d be the ones enjoying all this loot instead of us. Too bad they’re all stupid as fuck..Oh well. Sod off!” said the man, the fire on his head crackling, as he laughed.
“Why I oughta-!” said the metal-mouthed man.
“You oughta what?! You big pillock! You blow hard, limpdick motherfucker! Get the hell out of here before I set my boys on ya’!” said the flamed-haired man. Laughing as he castigated his professional rival.
The metal-mouthed man walked away, after a loud harrumph. Still grumbling beneath his breath, stomping with enough force to make the nearby trees shake. He walked right out of that particular copse of wood, but then instead of actually leaving he turned around and sneered.
“Heh! Like hell I’m gonna leave empty handed. Go get ‘em, bo-!”
His predictable double cross was cut short when something blurred by and sheared through his skull. His body toppling over, his shockingly pink tongue flopping out atop the gray metal teeth of his lower jaw.
The Screw-Tooth gang reacted to their leader’s death by shooting in the general direction of the threat and shouting steadfast, brutal oaths of vengeance. This show of loyalty lasted just as long as it took for more than half their numbers to fall.
The flame-haired man similarly called for a retreat. Backing away as he channelled aether through his hands and turned the very air into fire. Calling flames that were hot enough to turn the trees to ash and cause the soil to bubble.
A few of the Screw-Tooth Gang were caught in the area of effect but that was no concern of his. He was entirely focused on stopping the whipping mass that was cutting down his men.
He continued spewing flame from his hands and setting the air ablaze right up till the moment that he felt the icy-coolness of the mass as it pierced his gut. Piercing him like a spear, or a spit. Lifting him up into the air and then slamming him down into the pool of molten soil that he’d made. Doing so with enough force that his body burst into pieces.
*****
Within a fifteen minute time-span two separate gangs of over five thousand people each were completely decimated. Billy stopped jogging, surveying the field, while he took in the miasma that the men’s death supplied. Taking in the few souls that chose to accept his dark bargain and become denizens of the world within his shadow.
While he was standing there doing nothing his attention was drawn to a body that lay draped over a wagon. Missing both its arms and legs, its insides failing to stay insides and spilling from its torso, in vivid strings of pink. Curiously enough it was making noise and this wasn’t just the usual sounds of a settling corpse.
Billy walked over and when he did the body moved, the head turning in his direction. A female face, one that was still clearly young despite the bruising, blood and the burns that covered most of it.
“Did-...Did anyone get away?”
A strange question from someone in her position. Before answering Billy considered the corpses that he’d passed while on his way to find this particular group of bandits.
A good number of them burnt, a good number of them filled with metal spikes. Some of them lying in pieces. Some of them lying with their clothes and flesh torn. He felt it safe to say that no one from this particular trade caravan got away.
“....It’s doubtful.”
When she heard his words she looked devastated. It was at this point that Billy immediately knew that ‘that’ was the wrong answer and that this was one of the few times that the right thing for him to do, would have been to lie.
He hastily apologized but she wasn’t in any state to listened. She’d passed out with a look that was very aggrieved and very unreconciled and full of despair. Worst of all she wasn’t dead yet, somehow or the other, the bandits had managed to wound her just enough that it’d take a few hours for her to properly die.
He felt bad, and not knowing what else to do. He bit his finger and took out his half-full water bottle. He dripped some blood into the bottle. Then He said some magic words, pouring the slap-dash potion down the girl’s throat by way of an apology.
In his fluster, he very nearly drowned her but most of it went down her throat as it should. Deciding that the rest was up to her when he then teleported her into a fairly safe village that he’d often passed during his runs.
“Nh...Um...Bye. Hope you live.” said Billy.
After frowning and sighing to himself, as he continued on his run. Quickly forgetting the moment of awkwardness as he picked up speed. Head turned towards the breeze, the southern winds gathering around him whispering in his ears, he was already locked onto his next targets. It was true, Billy couldn’t just go around killing random people.
However, no one cared if monsters killed other monsters. Raiders, Bandits and Unlicensed slavers, the world treated them the same as they treated demonbeasts. Setting bounties on them and incentivizing their extermination by paying for their heads like they would do for a barghest or direwolf.
These were the prey that Billy targeted on his morning runs. If anyone ever questioned his actions he’d just need to show them his guild badge and tell them he was merely doing a public service.
Not that he ever allowed enough survivors for there to be people asking questions. That’d just be sloppy and a waste of good living aether.