Time passes slowly when nothing is happening.
I came up with that conclusion as I wandered the hallways of the Lady’s home yet again, bereft of any companion save boredom. Missfit had left shortly after I finished my lunch, giving a vague reply when I asked him why he was leaving. I had intended to pry further, but something about Missfit’s mannerisms made me nervous, so I held my tongue.
Not a very good move in retrospect, but what can a man do to something greater than himself?
As I moved onwards, a banal task presented itself to me.
“Ugh, doors again?”
Yes, doors. Doors of styles and colors that, in different circumstances, would have been admired by me. However, you can only watch perfection so many times until it becomes dreary. The number of doors was never the same, but it seemed that they favored appearing in even groups. There were four doors on that hallway: One to my left, one to my right, and two before me.
The aforementioned banal task was of the simplest order: choosing which door to go through. The reason that it was a banal task was that even though each of them could be opened, not all of them have doors in which you can press onwards. In other words, some of them are dead-ends. Most egregiously, sometimes the portal in question would not even be a door. I’ve found myself squeezing through window panes, in between books, through a drawing of a door, and many, many others.
While I desperately tried (and failed) to give myself a reason not to open those doors, I stumbled upon a curious thought.
“Why am I wandering around?”
A small thought at first, it came to grow and dominate my mind, which was just as well. I was getting sick of doors. On first glance, it was a simple question, and it should have had a simple answer.
But I couldn’t make a simple answer. Words that flowed unhindered in my mind, became stuck in a quagmire at the back of my throat. I struggled with an invisible barrier in my mind, a barrier that I never knew existed before. I wrestled, I tangled, I grasped at it with all my might, but it stayed.
Frustration crept into my eyes, but I waved it away. It was not the time to be irritated. I instead focused on an important clue I found while trying to fight with the mental barrier.
It wasn’t a barrier because what I trying to get was never "around" to begin with.
I was searching for that which never existed.
“That’s … odd,” I muttered. Feeling ominous tidings, I sat down on the floor and made myself comfortable. But the longer I spent thinking about this paradox, the more frustrated I felt. It was like I wasn’t myself anymore.
“Now that I think about it, I do feel like I’m …not behaving as I should be. I’m more carefree and absent-minded. That’s not like me at all, not like me … or is it?”
“Now isn’t that’s an interesting question.”
Surprised at the unexpected addition to my lonesome mutterings, I looked around to see who had spoken. But there was nobody else. Just me. Unnerved, I stood up and opened the door on my left. I didn’t really care if it leads to a dead-end; I simply felt like I had to keep moving again.
Fortunately, or perhaps, unfortunately, the room wasn’t a dead-end. I found the next portal easily enough. But when I passed through to the other side, I immediately regretted my decision. The other room was dark, illuminated by glowing sprinkles here and there that don't really help clarify the exact dimensions of the room.
“I guess I’ll just-”
Schlup!
The distinctive sound of the portal’s closing sealed my fate.
“Well, that’s most unfortunate.” The bodiless voice spoke.
A thought came to me to look for the source of the voice again, but experience halted it from being carried forth. There was only one way that a voice could speak without a body, and that’s only if the one speaking is a magical being. And seeing how I was in the Lady’s home, only one level of magical being came to my mind.
“Why must it be one of them again …”
“Hey Alex, I’m not one of ‘them’, alright? And please look at people when you talk to them. “
The voice felt familiar, as though it came straight out of my memories.
“I’m sorry, stranger, but I can’t see you anywhere.”
“...Right. Of course, you can’t. I keep forgetting that I’m still stuck in this miserable dimension. Everything keeps changing into something else here, so I had the passing notion that I had my body back.”
The voice’s tone dipped a bit when it said the word “body”. I reserved my sympathies though because I was more interested in the matter of removing myself from the room.
“So you want to get out of here, Alex? But you only got here. You should relax and spent some time here. Just because I don’t have a body doesn’t mind I can’t be a good host.” As he spoke, the esoteric theme of the room was changed to become that of a gentlemen’s club.
"A gentlemen’s club with quite a fixation on wands," I noted as I saw the displays hung here and there. But they don’t appear to be mere decorations, what with the subtle aura of power that occupied the air around them, creating events that reflected the type of destruction within the wands.
“Admiring the decor, I see.” I turned my head towards the sound of footsteps. They belonged to a man dressed in a slew of fancy clothing and accessories. Despite the excesses on him, his body movements were sharp and alert. I almost reached towards my sword and round shield before I remembered that they were still missing.
“What do you want?” My words came out before I could stop them.
“No time for small talk already? Fine, we’ll do it your way, for now.” The man took a seat across from me and motioned for me to do the same. So I did.
“What do you think about the chair? Comfortable, right? I made sure to include all of the-”
My stare cut him short. I didn’t know why, but the familiar feeling I felt earlier on hearing his voice has now turned into loathing. Everything about him displeased me in some way. The way he sat, the way he rested his arms, the way he blinked. Even the way his clothes were folded irritated me. And his eyes …
I wanted to crush them apart. Tear them, rip them, hurt him so bad that I, that I-
“Oh, it has started. It might be a bit too much for you to handle right now, but do try and control your newfound bloodlust. Don’t worry though, you’re not the only one who feels this way towards me. One of the perks of being cursed to hell and back, you know. And of course, there’s-”
I didn’t hear what he said next, for my hatred had become anger. The enormity of my wrath surprised me, for it was as though I was face to face with Azeol himself. But that surprise was short-lived.
The stranger had to die.
The moment I accepted that fact, an unbelievable sense of relief and pleasure coursed through my body, filling every fiber of my being with ecstasy and power. At the same time, I watched the stranger’s face distort slightly from pain.
The sight made me laugh.
I stood up and walked towards the man, contemplating on the many ways I was going to hurt him as I did. No resistance could be felt when I struck his face, nor did he flinch when I collapsed his neck. Over, and over, and over, and over, but he still did not fight back, as though he had accepted his fate.
I heaved and panted as I examined my handiwork. The man’s clothes lied in torn heaps here and there, and every inch of his skin was bloodied. What remained of his face had become a blooming flower of bone and sinew, dripping with the man’s various internal fluids. I paid special attention to the joints in his arms and legs, admiring the symmetry contained within the broken limbs.
I had won.
He’s dead.
“I think you missed a spot. Right around my legs.”
The man’s voice ruined that notion and cleared my mind.
It was also when the full extent of what I had done hit me.
“W-What the? What did you do to me?” I tried to deny reality, to no avail. The blood, the flesh, the sweat, the bones; they weren’t going away.
“WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?!!”
“I didn’t do a thing.” The man’s voice was now deadly serious.
“It was the effect of a curse placed on me. I’ll spare you the agonizing magical details (since you won’t understand them anyway). All you need to know is that it will make anyone who sees me become immensely offended at my presence, and takes action upon that feeling.”
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
Silence prevailed for a few minutes after, though it was because I didn’t know what to say in response.
“Can’t blame you for being speechless. Most people would probably never guess that their minds are so easy to be manipulated. That’s really where they’re wrong. Human minds, like your's, Alex, are the hardest ones to dominate. They like to fight back in the most annoying, but clever, kind of ways. I daresay it’s the only part of them I like.” As though it was the most natural thing to do in the world, the man’s corpse jerked alive
“Who are you?” I felt the bloodlust enter me yet again, though not as strong as before.
“Do you really want to know, Alex Square?” The man’s mangled body stood up as he spoke. It wiped off some of the blood that was still wet, then tidied what was left of the man’s clothes as best it could. Then, as though time was rewound, the scattered flesh became one again. Each piece fused with another seamlessly, until that loathsome face appeared yet again. But there was one detail that I missed last time.
That detail was the fact that it was my face staring back at me.
“Yeah, that face. Everyone makes that face when they see me. The ‘this can’t be!’ kind of face. I thought I’d gotten bored of seeing that face, but I guess imprisonment does wonders to one’s preferences, huh?
Silence prevailed yet again for a few seconds.
“Right, got to stop making less sense. Apologies, Alex Square. Seems to be a bad habit of beings like me. Alright, here we go. My name’s Rupa. I’m a Shape-Oracle. My ‘schtick’, if you will, is seeing the possible futures of anyone near me. Yes, futures, you didn’t hear me wrong. What sets me aside from the other purveyors of fate yet to be weaved is that I can compel someone to follow a future that I have ‘chosen’. Once my selection is made, nothing can stop my Chosen from fulfilling their destiny.”
“Nothing at all?” My curiosity ended up being what made me respond.
“Yes, nothing. For those who do try though....” Rupa chuckled.
“Anyway, those days are in the past now. Not worth revisiting anymore. I’m more interested in the present, and right now, the present is concerned with you, Alex Square. Why are you here?”
“I don’t know. The last thing I remember, I was up at some cliff near this place called Lumber’s Trail, then I found myself being healed by The Lady.” Rupa’s eyes squinted when he heard me say “The Lady”.
“The Lady, you say? How peculiar. What did she look like to you?”
“She was very mysterious and quite tall for a woman. She was covered in this weird covering that seemed to be meshed together from different animals, like scales, furs, feathers, and the likes. And her eyes, they were black and gleaming like insect eyes.”
“Is that all?” Rupa leaned in closer. “Is that really everything you saw?”
“Yes, that’s everything.” Even as I spoke those words, a small inkling of my doubts which I had repressed out of necessity, seeped through.
I blinked.
“Lies aren’t going to help you get on your way, Alex Square. Tell me what you saw.”
“Alright, fine! Just get away from me. You’re being too close.” I waved my hands in front of me to prove my point. To my fortune, Rupa listened.
“It was just this morning after breakfast. I was invited to talk with the Lady about … some private matters.” I feigned looking around so Rupa wouldn’t see the truth from my eyes.
“And what of it? What did she say to you?”
“That’s just the thing. Not long after we started walking, she changed her mannerisms after I returned one of her carefree remarks. It was quite unexpected. She started talking in an erratic manner, going off on the weirdest of tangents. She looked like she was …” I halted my tongue. What percolated in my mind was something I had told myself earlier to be something I’d never bring up.
But …
I never did like the look on the Lady’s eyes.
----------------------------------------
I was silent on the way back to my room. I didn’t quite remember how I managed to do such a thing since the hallways were labyrinthine to the point of absurdness, but I did.
“I didn’t think I’d be happy to see this thing again,” I remarked upon finding the door to my room.
“Well, no use standing around. Time to rest for now.”
The moment I opened the door-
DHUAK!.
“Woah!”
Something had tackle-hugged me
“Alex found!” A girl’s voice entered my ears.
“Emily?! What are you doing here?!!”
Once I recovered from the initial shock though, I realized that the culprit was not who I thought it was. The girl was smaller than Emily, and her hair smelled like lilies on a hot summer day. I could feel some form of armor through my clothes, but they didn’t feel like anything I ever felt before.
“Ah, being around Alex is just the best thing ever~” The girl snuggled up to me more, which was annoying and a bit painful, since her armor dug into me without any meaningful resistance from my gaudy clothes.
“Please get off me.” I tried prying her off.
“Noooo, Ka wants to stay with Alex.” The girl named Ka tightened her grip on me. She was surprisingly strong for her size, and it took me a fair amount of effort before I could get away.
“No, please, let me stay a little bit longer. It’s been a long time since I’ve met a good master.”
“Master?”
“Yeah, these guys told me so.” Ka motioned towards a familiar set of items on my bed.
“It’s my gear!” I blinked a few times to make sure I wasn’t seeing things.
“Yeah, sorry about borrowing them without asking. I can’t help myself when I’m around weapons and such.” Ka apologized with a face that wasn’t apologetic at all. I ignored her apology and went straight to my gear.
They looked the same as they always did, but when I touched them, I felt a surge of energy enter me.
They had been enchanted.
“They feel different right?” Ka had entered my line of sight at some point, grinning.
“It’s not because of enchantments, by the way. I just had a little talk with them. They were surprised that someone can talk with them at first but eventually warmed up to me. You’ve really been around for a while, huh old man?” Ka’s statement made me pause for a moment, but I returned to the more important task of deciding how to react to the current situation.
I don’t like magic. That much is obvious to anyone who’s spent some amount of time around me. There are exceptions, naturally, but only because sometimes there’s simply no other way of fighting magic than with magic.
After a few minutes of deliberation, I finally decided to accept the changes made to my gear.
“T….Thank you, Ka. I appreciate the sentiment.” The words came out a bit awkward, but I persevered.
“No, no, I didn’t really do much, hehe.” Ka rubbed her head with a sheepish smile.
“Who are you?” I sat down on a nearby chair. Ka wandered around for a bit before she settled to sit on the floor instead, which made me a bit uneasy.
“I am Ka, the Repairer! I can talk with items, and unlock their true potential.”
“Items can talk?” I looked at my gear with dubious eyes.
“Yes, they can! They talk about a lot of things, like the last time they got maintained, where they were made, where they were sold, what their previous owners were like, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Overall, they’re quite a talkative bunch. Almost no one can understand them though. A few might feel ‘something’ if they own an item long enough, but that’s about it.” Ka held out a hand towards my sword, and it floated right into her grasp.
“You see that? That wasn’t me. It’s your sword’s power, stored and honed after countless years of hard use and good maintenance.” Ka waved the sword around, then suddenly threw it at me. I flinched back, but the impact never came. Instead, I beheld my sword’s tip, suspended not two inches from my face by invisible arms.
“Ah, it’s threatening me with grievous bodily harm for endangering its master. I’m going to take a step over here.” Ka took cover as my sword stabbed the place where she was. It was stuck only for a few seconds before it went straight back into the business of attacking Ka.
I was no stranger to weird sights, but the absurdity of what I was seeing lied in the fact at how normal it looked. Not pleased with what I felt, I wished for the sword to stop chasing Ka.
As you wish, master.
A soundless voice spoke in my mind. It took me a moment to realize that it was my sword’s voice. The clue as to how I figured it was my sword’s voice was the fact that my sword had suddenly stopped moving, and was now floating without purpose. Half-curious and half-wary, I wished for the sword to be in my grasp. Almost immediately, my sword launched itself at my direction. My instinct to dodge was repressed by an indescribable sense of trust. My hand shot out and grabbed my sword without a hint of hesitation, the entire movement was done by my body but not by my mind.
“...That was amazing.” I finally dared to breathe again.
“I know, right? And that’s just the start. All of your items are now linked to you. They will know exactly what they have to do, and when to do it.” Ka grinned and came out of hiding.
“Why are you doing this for me?” I put my sword back with the rest of my gear.
“All will be explained come dinner time, Alex. I promise you, things will become clear to you.” Ka walked towards the door and left. Left without answers yet again, I set aside my disappointment to examine my gear further.
I tested my round shield first. The same feeling that I felt from the sword came again but in a different texture and shape. An urge came over me to test this power. I resisted it out of common sense at first, then realized that it was foolish to continue being so narrow-minded. My gear would never be as they were before. If I didn’t use them, I could never be able to let go the only thing that was keeping me alive.
For safety reasons, I moved most of the furniture to one side, which was easier than I expected, since most of them barely had any weight to them. I also set up a practice target using the least expensive-looking furniture I could find. Once I had enough space, I gave in to the urge.
The shield glowed as power flowed into it, but then it faded. Confused, I tapped at it a few times.
Master, let me demonstrate that one’s power.
My sword appeared before me. It floated with seeming randomness, but I could tell that if it needed to, it could tilt and turn at a moment’s notice, spelling doom to any foolish enough to fall for its ruse. I considered its proposal for a moment. Having found no reason to dismiss it, I decided to let it do its thing.
Your acceptance is my reward.
I will now begin.
I wasn’t quite prepared for the strike that followed. It came in a way that could never be done by normal humans. And had I reacted as I normally would, I would’ve found myself wounded quite badly.
But I didn’t. I trusted my shield to protect me. Just as an attack was about to strike me, a wall of translucent energy expanded from my round shield’s edge, blocking the attack. The wall of energy stood firm in the face of my sword’s onslaught, and not once did I feel the weight of each of the attacks. The one-sided exchange continued for few more minutes before my sword finally stopped, and resumed floating with no apparent purpose.
My sword then looked at me.
Are you pleased with our performance, Master?
I blinked my eyes several times to confirm that I wasn’t dreaming before I replied.
“...Yes. Thank you.”
Your praise is our reward. We will excuse ourselves now.
My sword returned to my bed, followed by my round shield soon after. I’ll skip the details on how I tried out the rest of my gear since the whole affair took a while to complete. Suffice to say, they became an order of magnitude better than they were before. As I put my gear away for safe keeping, I realized something.
“...How did Ka get into my room?”