Elion stared into the black, glassy eyes of the pemalion as it advanced. He raised his hands, stretching out to make himself seem as big as possible. “Hey, bear!” he said, remembering something he’d learned on a camping trip once. “Hey, bear. Hey pemalion, whatever!”

<< Translation Active >>

How would ‘bear’ be translated? Will it translate to a language the pemalion understands?

The pemalion snarled.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Elion tried. “Please go away.”

The pemalion continued advancing, paying no heed to Elion’s entreaties. The pemalion limped slightly, favoring its right leg. Something had gouged three long, cuts into the creature’s shoulder. A thick black, oily liquid leaked from the wounds, like puss, or alien ichor.

“Come on,” Elion yelled. “I promise I don’t taste that good. I’m like 90% made of Costco frozen burritos. I did eat a lot of Doritos the other day, but I don’t think you’d like how they taste.” Elion’s knees shook so badly they knocked together. If he kept talking, maybe the creature would get scared?

“You can’t frighten it away,” Kasm whispered, casual optimism gone from his voice. “It’s infected.”

Elion fought the urge to run, his heart pounding and his breath shallow. To his left, only a few paces separated him from the steep cliffs of the gorge. To his right, the woods grew thick, dark, and foreboding.

If he ran, the pemalion would catch him quickly and pounce on him from behind. Fighting the creature might give Kasm a chance to escape. The pemalion approached, muscles rippling beneath its glossy coat. Claws extended, long and sharp, like knives.

Real knives, not butter knives.

Elion reached into his hoodie pocket and gripped his butter knife, drawing it slowly out. The knife had seemed to frighten a warlock on Earth. Would it work on a pemalion?

The pemalion padded across the ground toward them, bared fangs flashing and dripping with saliva. It growled, a low, guttural sound full of power and ferocity. The growl was not translated.

“Um, is that…” Kasm spoke from behind him, his teeth chattering in fear. “…is that your Aurelian Sword?” he asked. “Isn’t it supposed to be bigger?”

Elion pushed Kasm behind him, placing himself between the pemalion and the boy. He drew the knife from his pocket, and held it in a shaking hand, pointed at the monster. If he did have access to a bigger sword, he had no idea how to get it.

May as well die fighting.

Strange how now, even as he stared death in the face, he felt embarrassed at Kasm seeing his small knife.

“Kasm,” Elion said, his voice trembling. “Run.” No sense in letting the pemalion kill them both. If Elion could slow it down for long enough, maybe Kasm could escape.

“Run, Kasm,” Elion shouted again. “Get to the Altar!” Dirt and leaves crunching behind him as Kasm stumbled away. Elion bent down and grabbed a rock in his other hand. Maybe he could throw it, hurt the creature before it got close enough to use it’s claws.

As he bent over, the pemalion sprang. Fear caused Elion’s limbs to collapse, going limp as a marionette with cut strings.

The flop saved him. The pemalion sailed overhead, claws cutting bright arcs through the air inches from Elion’s face. The creature landed behind him. Kasm yelped and sprinted across the road.

Elion scrambled back to his feet as the pemalion started after Kasm.

“Hey,” Elion shouted, throwing his rock, trying to get the attention of the monster as Kasm ran into the woods. The rock struck the pemalion’s rear flank, and it turned, growling angrily.

Elion reversed, pressing his back to a dead tree a few feet from the edge of the gorge. If he could somehow get the monster to jump off the cliff, maybe he stood a chance.

I shouldn’t have let Tael run off with the laser gun.

The pemalion’s movement, hampered by its injury, was slower and more ponderous than the creature which had first attacked them. Elion picked up another rock and threw it, forcing the big cat to jump to the side, avoiding it.

In a flash, the pemalion surged forward. Elion dodged to the side, but the cat reoriented itself in midair. Its claws extended and caught Elion in the thigh, cutting deep.

Elion staggered, crying out as searing pain ripped through his mind. He flailed blindly as he tried to hit the pemalion with his knife. He missed again, still unsure if the blade would even do anything to the beast.

He stumbled, his leg burning, moving toward the edge of the cliff. The trick would be getting the pemalion to jump off without falling himself.

The cat pounced again, and Elion fell to the side as the weight of the creature slammed into him. He skidded across the ground on his back, feeling pricks of pain in his chest. He brought his knife upwards, stabbing into the soft underbelly of the pemalion with all his strength.

Elion’s dull blade pressed into the pemalion’s leathery skin, the momentum of the creature carrying it forward. Skin gave way as the metal punctured through, piercing into the pemalion’s gut. Yowling, the pemalion sprang back. Elion gripped the knife, its tip covered in an oily black fluid.

Elion glanced behind him, at the edge of the cliff. His head spun at the sight of red blood leaking from his leg, soaking into his jeans. A sickening black taint discolored his torn flesh. It didn’t matter, anyway; he was going to die. He only hoped he bought Kasm enough time to escape.

Kasm burst from the trees, a huge stone held over his head. He screamed as he ran, flinging the rock at the pemalion’s head.

The pemalion easily dodged to the side, the rock flying through empty air and over the edge of the cliff. In one fluid motion the pemalion turned and pounced on top of Kasm, knocking the boy to the ground. Kasm shrieked.

Elion dove into the pemalion’s side, striking the creature with his shoulder. He impacted with a thud, the hot, heavy musk of the ravaging animal filling his nose. The hit knocked the pemalion off of Kasm. Elion stumbled to his feet, ignoring the burning pain in his thigh.

Leaving Kasm lying in the road, the pemalion pounced, snarling as it reached for Elion, stretching its claws to tear out Elion’s throat. In the last moment of his life, Elion wished he had been a better brother to Liora. He wished he could have done something to save her.

He raised his knife.

Light burst from the starholder pendant around Elion’s neck. A surge of energy poured into him as the pemalion struck, air solidifying around him into a semi-transparent protective shield. Elion fell backward and rolled, feeling claws catching at his hood. He nearly stumbled over the cliff, but caught himself, grabbing a dead tree branch.

The cat charged in again. Elion leaned hard on the dead tree, trusting it with his weight. He swung out over the cliff, catching a glimpse of the long drop down to the river below. The tree creaked, crackling threateningly as the pemalion clawed at Elion.

A golden bubble of light glittered in the air around Elion, consolidating around the pemalion’s paws and deflecting the swipes. Elion dangled over the gorge, each blow from the pemalion weakening the shield around him.

The pemalion lunged, tearing through the protective barrier with its claws, golden threads of light unraveling. Elion aimed a kick and struck out hard, just tree branch he clung to splintered, breaking away from the dead tree.

As Elion fell, his kick landed squarely in the pemalion’s face. Paws snapped around Elion’s leg like a bear trap, claws raking down Elion’s shin as the creature fell. Elion struck the side of the cliff and grabbed hold of a gnarled root. The pemalion tore Elion’s sneaker from his foot as it tumbled into empty air. A hundred feet below, the pemalion landed on a rock with a loud crunch.

Elion cried out, pain and terror gripping him, taking control of his mind. He clung to the roots of the dead tree, his body half dangling over the cliff edge. With a desperate heave, he hauled himself back up onto solid ground. His tattered, bloody pants revealed torn flesh, deep cuts bleeding freely.

A wave of relief washed over him, until he remembered Kasm. The boy lay in the middle of the path, unmoving.

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An external force drove Elion on, a hidden strength powering his movements. Ignoring his injuries, he dragged himself across the ground.

The boy’s side bled profusely, but as Elion watched the blood turned black, clotting and oozing like some kind of infection. He needed to get the boy medical attention. They both needed it. Elion checked his own wounds but found only red blood. The black infection was gone.

Feeling dizzy, Elion felt for a pulse on Kasm’s neck. He couldn’t remember how to do it. His hands shook too much anyway, his own heart beating too loudly in his head. Elion hauled himself to his feet, and scooped Kasm up in his arms. Elion’s legs shook traitorously. As Kasm’s body hung limply in his arms, he thought boy’s chest moved with shallow breath.

“Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead,” Elion said, tears in his eyes.

Elion knew he wouldn’t be able to find his way back through the forest. Besides, that was back toward the bridge, where the pemalion were. If they ran into another one, it would kill them.

Instead, Elion continued forward along the path. Blood ran down his leg, dripping onto the ground. The rocks in the path stabbed at his bare foot as he hobbled along, cuts in his legs burning with every step.

They had to get to the Altar. They would be safe there.

His vision tunneled, blackness encroaching, eating away his peripherals. A notification appeared.

<< Aurelia’s Protection exhausted>>

“Crap,” Elion muttered, as a wave of exhaustion flooded over him. The ground rolled beneath him, as though someone had grabbed the road and was shaking it like a sheet. A trail of bloody footprints marked his passing.

He had fallen to his knees without noticing it. Picking himself up, he struggled to stay on his feet, following the path as it dipped back into the forest. The trees loomed around him, phantom pemalion snarling at him from the shadows.

“Please, please, please,” Elion muttered.

Darkness billowed up around him as his blood pressure dropped, his vision fading. He fell and felt the ground pressing up against his body.

Blackness spilled over him.

A whisper in his ear awoke him. Elion cracked his eyes open, feeling like he’d rinsed them with sand. He saw a light ahead, a glittering, golden light through a gap in the trees. A warm, kind voice called to him.

“Come to me. Come to me.”

Kasm lay unmoving beneath Elion, still clutched in his arms, his chest not moving. The wound in Kasm’s side leaked putrid ooze, black and filthy. Blood and black puss soaked Elion’s clothes. He pulled himself back to his feet, gasping as injuries on his legs burned.

Elion stumbled between the two trees and into a clearing. A statue of a woman, like the one he had seen before, stood in the clearing, light shining through the canopy overhead to illuminate her.

The woman smiled gently at the sun, her marble hair golden and flowing in the light. Her hands gestured to an empty basin in front of her, a warm smile decorating her face.

“Drink, weary traveler, and find peace,” the statue said, her lips unmoving.

“There’s no water,” Elion rasped.

The statue did not respond.

Elion stumbled forward and laid Kasm in the empty basin.

“We’ve come for your protection,” Elion said. “As was granted to me.”

Silence from the statue. Aurelia, he assumed.

Elion leaned on the basin, scanning the clearing. Small tufts of grass grew here and there, with red and yellow wildflowers blooming throughout. The trees created a kind of living barrier against the darkness of the forest beyond.

The statue showed signs of weathering, once sharp details now crumbling and pitted. Lichens and moss mottled the marble, and dark streaks traced the paths of rain.

He felt safe here, but had no way of knowing for sure. Perhaps some kind of magic protected the clearing, or perhaps not. Elion then remembered what Aurelia had last told him. He remembered his quest.

“I’m here to join the Knights of Dawn? Um, follow the Path of Dawn, that is,” Elion said weakly. He cleared his throat and tried again. With all the confidence he could muster, he declared, “I’m here to join the Knights of Dawn! As I was told to!”

“Your invitation is recognized, and your soul is not found wanting,” Aurelia said, her words soothing in his mind. “If you desire to follow the Path of Dawn, kneel and present your sword.”

Elion knelt, cuts on his legs stinging as he did.

“I don’t have a sword,” he said.

The statue did not reply. Elion scowled. If this was a ritual of some kind, how was he expected to know what to do next?

“I’m just trying to save this kid,” he screamed at the statue, his words falling on deaf ears. “Is that such a bad thing? Why can’t you help me? Save him!”

Then he realized what he had to do. With a sigh, he produced the butter knife from his pocket. He examined it briefly, looking more closely at the blade than he ever had before. On one side was engraved ‘Catherine Martin’ in swirling cursive. On the other was stamped ‘925 Sterling.’

Not stainless steel. It’s made of silver.

The design was the same simple butter knife design found in every silverware set in the world. Black gunk from stabbing the pemalion still smeared the tip of the knife.

“Here, I guess,” Elion said. He extended the knife out in front of him hesitantly.

“Elion Starholder,” the voice declared, “you will stand as a shield to your people.”

“I will,” Elion said.

“You will wield your blade in defense of the truth.”

“I will.”

“You will fight to save your friends and your enemies.”

“I will,” Elion said, his voice growing stronger.

“Elion Starholder, you walk the Path of Dawn as a Knight thereof!”

Nothing else happened.

Elion remained kneeling on the ground, butter knife extended toward the statue. He felt silly. After a moment he rose.

“I need help now,” he said, voice trembling with emotion. Kasm lay deathly still in the basin. “I need to help this boy. He needs to survive.”

The statue did not reply.

“Why don’t you help me?” he shouted.

A new message appeared in his vision.

<< New Ascendancy: Path of Dawn >>

‎ << Select your first ability, brave knight. >>

‎ << Aurelian Starting Abilities: >>

‎ << Shield Your People >>

‎ << Know The Truth >>

‎ << Save a Friend >>

Elion tried to read the list, his mind whirling as the words danced meaninglessly in front of him. “This is a stupid system,” Elion said. “I need healing, or something, come on!”

He looked at the list floating in front of him again, forcing himself to focus.

“Save A Friend,” Elion said. “I select Save A Friend!”

‘Save A Friend‘ glowed briefly, then the text disappeared, replaced by a new set of information.

<< Name: Elion James Walker >>

‎ << House: Starhold >>

‎ << Ascendency: Aurelian Path of Dawn >>

‎ << Level/XP: 0/0 >>

‎ << Abilities (Level): Manifest Armaments (0), Save a Friend (0) >>

‎ << Boons: Translation >>

‎ << Quests: None >>

“I don’t care about that right now!” Elion exclaimed, dismissing the screen. He returned to Kasm, where the boy lay in the basin. A pool of black ooze puddled in the bottom of the basin. Elion grabbed the Kasm.

<< Save A Friend? >>

“Yes,” Elion declared, “How many times do I have to say it? Save him!”