“...”
Roukk snapped his fingers, and the shackles fell off my hands.
“...Wh- I’m free to go?!”
“Not quite. I want to tell you a story. It’s a bit lengthy. I’d like to make it lengthier… Because I want to.”
To buy time, most likely… but for what?
I eyed the door again. Roukk followed my eyes, “You’ll be safer here.”
Green
I sighed, slumping in my chair, “What’s this story?”
“Handa Screamed.”
“...What?”
“She was an Otherworlder like you. She arrived roughly eighteen hundred years ago…I’m going to show you something. Every person in the world at the time, saw the full version of it. It's something we call, a System message… Ah! You know what that is, good. Here it is…”
A System message assaulted my senses.
Woe! Mi’Mi’Da’harsa the Queen of Miasma has been awakened within Handa who yet Screams.
To forestall even greater destruction, the World Will has decided that all must hear what she yet desires to proclaim-
It suddenly cut off as Roukk raised his hand, “More than half the world’s population died when they heard the rest of the message. All who live today are the survivors and their descendants.”
Green
Holy Hell…
“Before her time, Otherworlders weren't really known or understood. Many superstitions revolved around your kind: ‘Usurpers’ or the ‘Lost’ you were sometimes called. Some saw you as emissaries of the Gods, others treated you like monsters. More often than not, Otherworlders slipped through the cracks, blending in with the people. Arrivals tended to be in highly populated regions, like Nukim. Any city really, would have one or two at any point in time.”
I was speechless.
He shifted in his seat, his fingers tapping an irregular rhythm on the table, “We didn’t know it then, but this was intentional. Whatever force brings them here desires them to have an easier time integrating, regardless of the manner they arrived.”
“We also learned the hard way… The World Will gets very vexed when they are put to undue harm. Entire villages dying out in freak accidents after lynching a Lost. A serial killer of unusual skill suddenly taking an interest in hunting down every member of a family that enslaved a Usurper. Obviously, we didn’t gather the clues at first, but after Handa, we couldn’t afford to be ignorant anymore.”
“W-What happened to her?”
“I'm coming to that. Most Otherworlders become people of influence, if they survive long enough…well, most of them become quite powerful, magic wise, level wise, skill wise. But even then, they don’t announce themselves as Otherworlders.”
“Handa was a nobody Cleric in the Court of the Mayor of Garda, the Greatest Kingdom-City in the world at the time. She thought herself safe enough to announce her status after she helped the mayor with a particularly weighty issue. Nobody knows what the issue was, but scholars say it was momentous enough that the mayor was considering adopting her into his family.”
“She was filled with an unusual zeal, however. She wanted everyone to know that the way her kind were being treated spelled disaster for all. She tried to explain in long lectures and public speeches; that essentially, Otherworlders are a last-ditch effort taken from other worlds, to prevent, or at least forestall, a Cataclysm.”
“History says, few who came to her lectures, left remembering anything she said. In fact, it became known in the city, that if you tried to even listen to those who had heard and understood her, you would experience bouts of nausea, headache, even death. More often than not, being able to hear spelled your doom, because loved ones of the negatively affected may try to stop you from speaking again or to prevent you from relaying what you heard in the first place, sometimes violently.”
“Soon, the entire city was in an uproar, too many people were falling sick and yet Handa refused to stop speaking, only accepting that she be allowed to speak in a singular location, where those who wanted to listen, could come to her.”
“The mayor didn’t have the heart to force her to stop, so he sent guards, and gave her a singular place; an unpopular theatre, while discretely announcing that the people should avoid that location, cover their ears and close their eyes whenever they were nearby.”
“One day, one of her personal Knights had his only child fall sick and die after sneaking in to listen to her speak. Being told a thing and seeing the results of one’s actions firsthand gives a much more impactful impression. She stopped speaking in public and locked herself away in her chambers for weeks on end, attended to only by her maids.”
“She was devastated, but her Knight felt an even deeper grief. In a fit, he came to her chambers and asked the other guards to be let in to see her, for closure. Perhaps the other guards resented her as well. All we know is, he went in and sometime later, she began screaming. The guards came to themselves and ran in and found her beaten within an inch of her life. They pulled the man off her, locked him up, then got her healed, yet… she never stopped screaming. It became apparent, she couldn’t stop screaming and her voice never cracked or grew hoarse.”
“People wondered whether or not the man had done more than hurt her. Perhaps he drugged her? All we know is, as time went on, the vengeful dead were attracted to her screams. They would tear the veil and congregate around her as ghasts and specters, tormenting those around her.”
“In horror, she ran to the forest and lived in solitude, in hopes of keeping others from harm. Historians say, she hoped to die, yet her screams transcended reality and rang out even when she sews her mouth shut. Her wounds would heal, even when she slit her throat. The more her screams reverberated, the more the dead would gather.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Not long after, a lich came to her and offered to take control of the dead surrounding her. By this time, the number of dead around her rivaled a Goblin army. She refused. He tried regardless. In response, the dead took a hold of the lich and removed his soul from his immortal form, transforming him into a Soul King.”
“You don’t know what that is, but it would commit a massacre where a ghast would satisfy itself with tormenting one person occasionally. The Soul King decided that all things living within Handa’s vicinity were the source of her grief. To alleviate her suffering, it ordered the massacre of all life in its domain. All her begging must be because of her kind heart. All would be well. It loved making the hard decisions.”
“She stabbed herself, threw herself off high places, only to survive inexplicably. She even begged through scroll sender that others should come and kill her. No one dared, until Garda and three other kingdoms were wiped out, their dead joining the Soul Kings army. Only then did the world move to stop them.”
“The Soul King had so worked itself up into a frenzy, that he proceeded to wipe out all life on the continent. Armies of countless nations collaborated. Unfortunately, The Soul King wasn’t the only Abomination to be birthed: Death Knights, Behemoths and Macags; the vengeful dead of animals and magical beasts, took up a vast population of the already enormous army.”
“Beings at higher levels and Ascendants tend to be particularly detached from the cares of the world. So, before nations could cajole their most powerful members to intervene, the army of the dead had overtaken half the continent. Overwhelming power is quite effective however, and the army was pushed back. When they got to her, they found her restrained, forced to eat and drink, by the Soul King. The ethereal scream ringing out from thin air.”
“They destroyed her body in its entirety."
“The dying Soul King gave his un-life and that of all his army, forcing her soul and body into the form of an Immortal Undead. Creating Mi’Mi’Da’harsa."
"Her new form was malevolent enough to make the Soul King seem tame in comparison. She was unkillable and wielded miasma like weapon. Every thing her Mantle touched, died on the spot and turned into undead, even stone. Only the Immortals managed to escape.”
“She wiped out all life on the continent and any other lands her minions could reach. The world managed to isolate her domain from the rest of the world. We’ve ceaselessly prepared ever since then, for the day she’ll break out of her containment."
"And she will break out. That’s not in question.”
Is she the Threat that would end the world? Although, they seem confident in defeating her when she breaks out. So probably not?
“Studies into the nature of Otherworlders were set up, and we’ve come to realize a few things: Otherworlders emit incredible amounts of miasma when wronged significantly enough. We suspect we still don’t know the full story with Handa, because she was seemingly in the wrong for continuing to harm people no matter how indirectly. Yet the world remained angered.”
“Overtime, less severe but no less notable incidents were discovered and studied. It was not until the case of KayBir the King of Merit, that hope returned to us. KayBir was a man accustomed to enduring. A slave in his old world, he was taken in as a slave once more. He endured and endured, until the World Will had enough. A strange fire broke out in the villa of his masters. When he saw the children burning under the flame, he reached for the power that had called to him ever since he arrived, and snuffed out the flame, including the miasma powering it.”
“Understand, natives of Relir can deal in Blessings and Curses. It’s intangible but controllable, with the right power set or a high enough magnitude of power. Miasma and Merit however are related to fundamental parts of reality. No native can wield this power naturally”
“KayBir was sponsored by many nations with all he needed to ascend, and when he became an Immortal, he focused the merit an Immortal Scholar had gathered all his life, to give him all the knowledge he needed from reality itself to understand miasma and how to manipulate it.”
“KayBir and this Scholar discovered a few things:
1. Miasma and Merit work similarly to curses and blessings except, it is awarded by the World Will.
2. Miasma and Merit can cancel out each other if they occupy the same space in equal amounts.
3. Miasma and Merit being controlled can only be used within the general purpose given it by the World Will. It’s still effective. For example, Miasma that should cause general misfortune can be twisted to very painfully teach an important skill to the affected. (e.g. being enslaved for exactly how long it’s needed for one's master to teach you how to work fields.) or Merit that should give general good fortune can be used instead to give perfect health to a people for a certain amount of time.
4. KeyBir and Handa were supposed to be the saviours that could concentrate all the bad and good in the world for the better of the world. Leaving them better equipped for the Cataclysm.
5. Merit and Miasma were created by the World Will when the old gods died.
6. Handa’s proclamation cannot be fully understood by most. Some may hear but would not remember and those who are told it again after forgetting, will die painfully or fall severely sick and barely recover. Being an Otherworlder doesn’t protect you from being harmed by the knowledge.
7. The general gist can be told. But any specifics outside of mentioning the Cataclysm would bring the mentioned effects upon the hearer.
8. When the Merit was twisted to give an Otherworlder the ability to twist miasma, they were taken over by Mi’Mi’Da’harsa and had to be wiped out.
9. KayBir is the only one that can manipulate Merit.
10. Mi’Mi’Da’harsa is the only one that can manipulate Miasma.
11. Otherworlders alone can manipulate reality.
12. Miasma and Merit can be manipulated by very specific devices created when Otherworlders give up their talents in a ritual.
13. Giving up their talents forces them to start from level one without the skills they lost and Somewhere in that process, lose the thing that separated them from natives. Their miasma and merit return to normal and the favor the World Will had for them is lost.
14. One of the only ways for natives to manipulate reality is to be possessed by an otherworlder (This includes the new gods, reincarnations, dark gods, etc. Any being that does not originate from Relir.)"
“After, they shared their findings, Otherworlders became an exotic commodity. After the especially selfless ones gave up their talents to create the KayBir Extender, allowing his powers to reach the whole planet, otherworlders were tracked down and given all they needed to reach high levels and then were pressured, bribed, convinced and sometimes coerced into giving up their abilities. Devices created by this sacrifice can manipulate or interact with reality.”
“Overtime it became an unwritten tradition to use Otherworlders in this way. Yes, they would never reach their full potential or fulfill whatever purpose they should, ostensibly, be fulfilling, but it’s seen as the safer choice.”
The Truth Icon had remained a very bright green, throughout his spiel. Knowing how it was likely created, made it oddly repulsive to me.
“...Where does this leave me.”
“In an enviable position. Just so you know, that’s what the bastard outside wants with you. He would move all that can be moved to have you in his pocket. You might not be unique, but your kind is not exactly numerous either.”
“...You haven’t answered my question.”
“There is another ritual that involves sacrificing all your current merit and miasma to awaken the full breadth of your innate ability. It forestalls the Miasmic Eruption caused from anyone offending you, while allowing you to keep the other qualities of an Otherworlder, like your endless potential. More importantly, If the ritual is done, you become unfit for the ritual to extract your potential. There are no other side effects, and I can get it done in a few minutes.”
Green
“All I hear is that you want to use me to piss off the Seeker outside.”
“I do. It’s still your best option. You’ll also become much stronger than you would have been otherwise.”
Green
“Then you let me go?”
“After giving you everything you need to stand on your own two feet."
"Why?"
"Though you'll be safe to be around, it wouldn't hurt to be pleasant to you.”
Green.
“... You know what? Fine. Let's get this over with.”
I'm beginning to wonder if you and that Seeker are working together. If I say no, he’ll get to take me away.
“You won’t regret this, I promise.” Roukk said, then he pressed one of the buttons on his shirt four times.
BANG!!!!
And all hell broke loose.