The two once again made way down the ever-darkening narrow cavern pass, being carried upon the shoulders of both…were two large filled sacks of glow-crystals; the wagoneer’s sack of thirty radiating in glowing turquoise and the foreigner’s sack of twenty-nine radiating in glowing magenta; all…relatively freshly collected.

That was one half of the last remaining chore for this double-quest completed; now all they had to do was make way out of this cave and back to…the carefully and reclusively parked wagon in order to store this batch of glow-crystals…and then make way back to this sunny-cave in order to collect the second half of this last remaining chore. The wagoneer had not parked his wagon close to this cavern either…ever the vigilant and protective one indeed.

The collection process of these glow-crystals, at the very least, had been a rather quick endeavor, no thanks to the wagoneer’s own…perhaps brazen and somewhat impulsive…testing which had confirmed that…they could, indeed, target and dispatch crystalline arachnids during their so-locally-called ‘fuck-festive’ without the risk of mass retaliation.

With this new understanding of those chimeric arachnids, the foreigner no longer needed to wait…nearly as long for them to cull their numbers down to single digit survivors and then scavenge from the despoiled remains left behind. Now, they simply had to wait until there were around twenty or so…and, while still engrossed in their mating crucible, snipe them from the entry-point.

Of course, it was necessary to make sure to not strike their heads…or brains rather, for indeed…striking such a target could…run the risk of…problems.

“I still don’t get it!” so blumbled out the wagoneer, his mind…still harping on this subject which the foreigner herself had long thought was no longer relevant. “So…you’re telling me that…shooting a person…or anything with a ‘soul’…in the head…can…but does not always…‘erase their soul’ and…that somehow…destroys all their magic and mana…and…this only happens…if you blow just the head…the ‘wrong way’…?” he remarked and interrogated in…persisting baffled confusion.

The foreigner sighed, having already explained this…enough times…albeit, perhaps not in the most…clearest of ways, for indeed…this local language was not any of her primaries and…this subject was…already difficult enough to truly…explain in such simple terms.

“Basically” she replied bluntly; “It is as I said, the head or the…ehm…the ‘brain’ is…very important; it is the thing that has you in it, it is the thing that is you, to destroy the brain is to destroy you; conversely, it is the thing that the soul…ehm…not lives in but…copies? Yes, the soul is not you…you are in the head…you are in the brain, and the soul copies the brain, copies all of that is you; and so, some of the times when destroying the brain and…erasing you…at the certain speed…to the certain degree…in the certain way…and the soul…copies the erasing before it can detach from you…and so erases itself…or well…kind of…” she explained…or at least attempted to.

The wagoneer groaned somewhat as he scratched his head; “You just keep…making it all the more confusing each time you explain…you know, something’s telling me you don’t even really get what the fuck is going on either” he remarked…rather candidly.

The foreigner remained silent; in a way, he was accurate…neither she nor those she was associated with…thoroughly understood…the definitive why, only that such was simply the reality of the tendencies observed. But likewise, she nevertheless knew far more than this denizen could ever comprehend…even if she struggled with…explaining such things in local tongue.

“It is…what is the word?…‘complicated’? Yes, it is very complicated…too much so” she replied rather frankly.

“Gods’ sacred…” the wagoneer began to say as he exhaled a calming, yet confused, breath; “…I guess it’s what they call a…‘new land surprise’ or…‘different folk startle’? I just don’t…see things the way you and your folks do…I mean…when I grew up…I was told that the…thing in your head was just…some blood-cooler or something; to me and us…the heart was always thought to be the source of your consciousness and soul and all that” he remarked.

“…” the foreigner was rather…blank and taken aback on the inside by such a presumption; surely, these primitives should have long realized that…bonking the head too hard could cause…problems…in functioning?

“That is the dumb thing to think” she replied…fairly bluntly; “if I were to stab the big stick into your head and if you did not die from it, you would likely not be you anymore…surely you have seen those who had been hurt in the head so many of the times and…they changed or struggled to think and remember and such?”

“Well…that was mean of you” the wagoneer replied, albeit by no means insulted…he was self-aware enough to be humored by her cold and blunt remarks, seemingly; “and…well, like I said, that was when I was growing up…now I know a bit differently…you know, outside of these fancy cities…most commonfolks don’t really know much about most things…not like we have anyone to teach us anything, we just have what our parents and their parents and their parents’ parents said and passed down” he remarked; “before the Empire came around, most folks in my village couldn’t even read and write all that much at all…I only learned how when I had ten years on me” he added.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

The foreigner…immediately tilted her head; “…you could not read? Wait…to read and to write is not common, is that what you imply?” she inquired, somewhat…confused by such a thing—reading and speaking were both so…ubiquitous to her that she could not even…conceive of knowing a language without being able to read and write in it.

“Haha, nope…not sure where you’re from, little lady, but reading was a noble or city-folk thing up until a few decades ago…serfs and peasants, those who toiled the fields…all they needed to know was how to do all that stuff…reading and writing…not so much” he replied…rather humored, seemingly.

“…” the foreigner had no real words to respond; to her such a thing was…beyond bizarre, it was absurd. Even if their priorities were merely…agricultural production…reading and being able to write, document, and record…all such abilities would only make such…endeavors more efficient and easier to do, surely?

Truly…could not even scornful or belittling regarding such a thing; if anything, she could not help but feel…bad deep down within…that such a state of existence could even…be; that one could…speak yet not read and write…and record and document their thoughts and knowledges and…histories and memories…or at least connect their spoken words with…well…words; of course, as always, she could not truly comprehend these strange…feelings festering deep within her mind’s shadow…always remaining so blurry and foggy.

“So…you are telling to me that…some of the peoples…could read, but not all of them? Am I understanding…the implications rightly?” she inquired.

The wagoneer chuckled somewhat; “Yeah basically…noblemen, lords, royalty, city-folks…some of them at least…they could read and write, just not us rural folk and peasants…” he replied.

She lightly nodded her head…processing; “And…none of those who could read and write…taught any of you all of how to do such…when they were able to?” she inquired.

“Yep. I mean again, it used to be more a luxury…but…times are changing, you know? And you aren’t the only one…who’s confused by that, lots of Far Westerners come here to teach their stuff to the villages and peasantry” he replied.

Huh…‘luxury’ interesting word…right, in a way…knowledge and information were…rather the ‘luxury’ in of itself in for those like him. Indeed, such things were…never inherent; even she at some point in her long…long life…had been taught and instilled with all that she now knew and understood.

Even if all of her own memories of that bygone time of her own primitive ignorance had long eroded into utter nothingness…she still vaguely, and logically, knew that…once upon time, even she had been…similar in a way: ignorant utterly. In fact…even now, she was still ignorant; there laid in existence so many things…that neither she nor even those she so served…truly understood.

“That is sad, I think, to hear that…such a thing could be” she finally replied…rather sincerely, in a way she hardly ever did.

Yet, the wagoneer merely sighed in a shrugging scoff; “Eh…it’s what it be…just the way the world is, you know? The Gods favored some people to know and rule, while others were meant to simply mind their tongue and do what they were told to do…even if it means a bunch of us end up being stupider” he replied…somewhat dismissively.

“Hmm…perhaps, but…I think also…that there is the pleasantry in the ignorance; ‘to be a sheep is a simple and easy existence than to be the shepherd leading’, thus is how…someone…who I knew once said it to be” the foreigner replied…rather cordially, her more sociable mannerisms returning as her blunt coldness subsided somewhat, some of such…being rather genuine and sincere, even if she could not comprehend or tell.

The wagoneer could not help but chuckle at this; “Hahaha…now ain’t that the truth, honestly…sometimes knowledge is a curse alright…it’s what’d driven so many to madness before, even the Child of Legends themself…as that fable went” he remarked.

Hmm…‘curses’ and ‘madness’, certainly…a rather…interesting way to phrase such an affair. Yet, indeed, just hearing such a mundane thing uttered…had all so abruptly reminded the foreigner somewhat…of all the reasons…for why somethings were always best to simply be kept in shadow and blissful obscurity; there was a reason for why the locals had their respective domains while she and those like her…had their own respective domain.

The foreigner sighed; “You have…your beliefs; I have mine…there is a lot of the reasons for me to not…aim for the head unless…there is no alternative for the ‘clean’ and ‘quick’ kill, even if I do not really…understand them too well, I simply…avoid doing it if I am able” she said, as she so suddenly dragged the conversation back to its original…point; “but, as you had seen, there is some of the…reality; even though it may not always cause…the loss of the glow-crystal, it can and so…it is not necessary for you to understand the why, only the reality of what you see: that shooting the head can make…the quests slower and harder; so…try not to…even if you do not see the same as me, for there is still the utility” she said further, her voice…cordial and rather sincere.

The wagoneer…shrugged and sighed; “Well that’s true, ain’t it? Even if I don’t really get what you are going on about…at all, but I trust my own eyes and I ain’t stupid enough not to see patterns when I see them” he replied; “it ain’t the first time I’ve had to deal with some wacky Gods-shit; that’s just the way magic and the arcane is, shit happens for reasons beyond me all the time” he added.

“That is…a way to think, I guess” the foreigner replied cordially, leaving this discussion simply as thus. Silence quickly took hold as they continued to make way, sacks of glow-crystals still in shoulder and hand.

She and him…those like her and the denizens of here…they existed in two fundamentally divergent realities, with two fundamentally alien knowledges and understandings for the very reasons of everything. Indeed, regulations and protocols were rather strict and clear regarding this matter: it was neither her place nor purpose…to judge and infringe upon their endless abstractions and absurd delusions.

It was neither her place nor purpose…to remind them of the nightmare they so truly existed in, to drag them down into that very abyss of absurdity which she so had the luxury of knowing…the luxury of understanding…and the curse of residing within.